News 4Kids
Sun May 21 23:38:40 2000 I was at the 4Kids Entertainment stockholders meeting last week and
heard a few things that I thought you all might like to know about. 4Kids is a media
purchasing and licensing company with ownership of several well-known properties,
including Pokémon (outside of Japan).
Pokémon notes:
A Pokémon stage show will debut at Radio City Music Hall and embark on a 40-city tour
sometime before the third Pokémon movie.
Pokémon the Third Movie (the real name is secret) will be released in summer 2001.
56 new Pokémon Gold and Silver episodes will air on Kids WB starting September 2000.
The Pokémon 2000 movie will hit theaters July 21. The home video will be released on
November 21, 2000.
A “very major” celebrity will sing on the Pokémon 2000 soundtrack. An
announcement is coming soon.
7 million home videos of the first Pokémon movie have sold in the U.S. since March 20,
2000. Pokémon vitamins now outsell Flintstones vitamins. Kellogg’s
Pokémon cereal is
the top selling cereal in Kellogg history.
The Pope recently gave Pokémon his blessing as a positive influence on children. The CEO
of 4Kids, Alfred Kahn, joked that he might develop a POPEmon character.
The first Pokémon movie is showing in 60 countries. It broke the all-time box office
record in Israel.
Pokémon was broadly introduced to Europe only 7 months ago. Since then, 70% of German
children have purchased a Pokémon product. There are more Pokémon
cards per child in
Germany than in any other country, including the U.S. and Japan.
Tama & Friends:
4Kids has purchased Tama and Friends, a precursor to Hello Kitty, from a Japanese partner
and will air the series in the United States this fall. Negotiations for network placement
are not complete, but an announcement about which network will air the show will be made
soon. 4Kids says that the Japanese show has been “re-imagined for the global
marketplace.” The short segments that I saw of the show were fairly entertaining,
though the theme song was annoying. The simple, cute, anime character designs are a
perfect follow-up to Pokémon’s licensing juggernaut. I’m sure we’ll be
seeing Tama and Friends t-shirts everywhere this Christmas.
Cubix:
4Kids and Daiwon of Korea have teamed up to produce 26 episodes of Cubix, a CGI show that
takes place in the year 2040. Here’s an extremely simplified summary of the show:
Everyone on Earth owns a robot, which can be programmed to be good or evil, according to
the tendencies of its human master. Aliens hide a special energy force in one particular
robot owned by a young boy. This energy source gives the robot extraordinary powers. The
show will feature two running, intertwining plot devices: good (the boy and his robot) vs.
evil, and the aliens’ search for their lost power source.
The animation in the segments I saw was impressive, featuring plenty of anime-style mecha
and a techno soundtrack.
The truly incredible thing about the show is that it will be launched simultaneously in
Japan and the United States; something that I don’t think has ever been attempted in
animation. Mr. Kahn said the goal of the dual launch is to “hit [the Japanese] with
their own strategy.”
Marvel Enterprises:
4Kids was recently given extensive international licensing rights for many Marvel brands,
including X-Men The Movie, X-Men classic, Spider Man classic, The Fantastic Four, Silver
Surfer, The Incredible Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man and Daredevil.
4Kids will extend Marvel’s licensing efforts internationally, concentrating on
Europe.
The X-Men movie release is this summer and a Spiderman movie will be released next summer.
Perfect Dark:
A rated-M movie trailer for the video game Perfect Dark will hit 4000 movie theaters this
week. It’s a pretty cool live-action trailer.
Game Boy Advance:
4Kids will handle all licensing outside of Japan for Nintendo’s new Game Boy Advance,
which will feature internet and cell phone connectivity.
Bubba (Images
Supplied by: http://www.angelfire.com/co/TwinkleBell/pokemon.html)
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