Copyright Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: A group of prominent animation producers with credits for Mortal Kombat, The Lion King and Dirty Dancing have teamed to form a production venture that will debut at the AFM with a trio of movies. The Cartoon Coalition, a privately-funded company based in L.A., which will focus on making animated movies, TV shows and theme park attractions. Lead the venture as CEO is Larry Kasanoff, known for the Mortal Kombat movie franchise and others such as Terminator 2. He’s worked on the likes of Spiderman, Avengers, Justice League and Star Wars. He’s also known as CEO and chairman of Threshold Entertainment Group. The industry vet will be at the AFM with three original film scripts, namely World’s Top Monster, a ‘reality show’ where monsters vie for titles such as ‘The Grossest’; Level Up, in which famous video game characters come alive on the eve of the world’s biggest e-sports event only to find themselves invaded by an evil alien game; and Krazed For Karaoke, in which wild animals find a discarded karaoke machine and start a contest to the find the best singers in the jungle. Joining Kasanoff is Kiran Joshi, CEO and founder of Nepalese animation house Incessant Rain and former Disney supervisor, who will be Chief Animation Officer and former Disney Supervisor; Emmy-winning animation writer Sean Catherine Derek, who will be Chief Creative Officer; music and film impresario Jimmy Ienner, who will be Vice Chair; ex-Microsoft and Disney exec Joel Sloss, who is Chief Technology Officer; music producer and supervisor Michael Lloyd, who is Chief Musical Officer; and Priyanjali Bagaria, associate producer of the Threshold films, who is coordinating operations in India, the rest of Asia and the Middle East. Joshi has credits Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, while Derek has worked on incarnations of Batman, Spider-Man and Pacman, Netflix’s Kong: King of the Apes, and the Mortal Kombat movies. Ienner has almost 100 gold and platinum records to his name and worked on Dirty Dancing and Pink Floyd – The Wall, while Lloyd has more than 110 gold and platinum records and credits for more than 225 film such as Dirty Dancing on his CV. Ienner and Lloyd, who are a duo that’s part of Curb Records, have been at the forefront of linking music and film. “This is really just an expansion of what we’ve been doing, dedicated to taking it to a bigger level,” said Kasanoff. “We have been so fortunate to work with a group of wonderful, talented animation professionals, and now we are formalizing that to build it to new heights.” Joshi added: “Ventures like ours ensure diverse global content which is key to the success of the industry,” while Derek called The Cartoon Coalition, “The most exciting team I’ve ever worked with.” Sloss said the goal was “to use the latest tools to enhance the work of talented artists, which will enable compelling storytelling that takes less time to bring to audiences.”
