Futurikon’s Dragon Hunters, one of the 14 animated features short-listed for the Academy Award, will kick off it’s one-week Oscar qualifying run next Friday. The French CG-animated, family-oriented adventure-comedy opens Dec. 12 at Laemmle’s The Grande Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Peace Arch Ent. has acquired North American distribution rights and plans to give the film a limited theatrical release before putting it out on DVD in February.
Directed by Guillaume Ivernel and Arthur Qwak, Dragon Hunters is a fantasy adventure tale that centers on two fly-by-night dragon hunters, Gwizdo (Rob Paulsen) and Lian-Chu (Forest Whitaker), whose sole ambition in life is to buy a quiet little farm to hang out on. Zoe (Mary Matilyn Mouser) is a precocious little girl who believes in fairytales and decides to help her uncle, Lord Arnold, get rid of a terrible dragon that returns every thirty seasons to spread terror and destruction. She sets out to find some heroes like the ones she reads about in her books, but winds up with Gwizdo ad Lian-Chu. To Gwizdo’s great dismay, they begin a perilous journey to the end of the world, where sleeps the most terrifying dragon ever to have stalked the face of the earth, the infamous World Gobbler!
The pic has sold roughly 800,000 tickets in its native France, and about 400,000 in Russia. Based on its success, Futurikon has decided to make a feature film based on its animated series Miniscule, which employs CG animation to explore the secret lives of bugs. The movie will reportedly focus on the friendship between a ladybird and a black ant. Series creators Thomas Szabo and Helene Giraud are writing the screenplay, and Dragon Hunters co-producer Trixter is negotiating involvement. For more information on Dragon Hunters, go to www.dragonhunters-themovie.com.
