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Wednesday - November 28, 2001
- More on The Animatrix
- Quest for the Ring Airs Tomorrow Night on FOX
- Top Selling Animation and FX DVDs
- News Link of the Day - Holiday’s Sleighful of TV Delights

More on The Animatrix
(by digitalmediafx.com) There's more information to report on The Matrix Anime production discussed in yesterday's Digital Media FX report. The anime series will apparently consist of 10 "episodes". It hasn't been decided yet how the episodes will be released, but the producers are leaning towards an Internet release followed by another DVD - all before the sequel to The Matrix hits theaters in 2003.

The official title for the series is "Animatrix." The information provided in The Matrix Revisited DVD special sheds only basic information about the series. Michael Arias is one of the producers specifically for the Animatrix series. Arias says they wanted to put the vision of The Matrix "together with the gods of Japanese animation and see what will come out of that."

Several Japanese studios, including Mad House, are involved with specific episodes, some which will be original stories.

One of the episode directors for The Animatrix is Yoshiaki Kawajiri. "The Matrix is a flat-out incredible experience both visually and on a narrative level," says Kawajiri. " It really manages to fuse a lot of disparate elements of cinema. You see why people love it so fanatically. It really convinced me that a new breed of filmmaking had arrived."

Another episode is based within the simulation (training program) that ends up becoming a part of the real world. It is described as an "Akira style ninja epic".

An episode titled "World Record" follows a man within the Matrix that is able to break out of it through "sheer physical power." That episode is being directed by Takeshi Koike. He says that many more questions about the Matrix will be answered and that "the more you understand it, the more interesting it becomes."

Another episode serves as a prequel to The Matrix that "details the war between man and machines," according to Producer Joel Silver. That episode is directed by Mahiro Maeda.

Producer Joel Silver hints at Square Pictures involvement in a project that "deals with information that directly relates to the movie." This is the secret project Square had started working on earlier this year that was mentioned in two Digital Media FX reports last Spring.

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Quest for the Ring Airs Tomorrow Night on FOX
(by digitalmediafx.com) Thursday night FOX will air a Lord of the Rings TV special titled "Quest for the Ring." The short 30-minute special airs at 8PM with cast interviews and behind the scenes footage of the first Lord of the Rings installment - Fellowship of the Ring.

In other Fellowship of the Ring news, many theaters have now started preselling tickets for the three hour movie.

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Top Selling Animation and FX DVDs
(by digitalmediafx.com) Here is a list of the current top selling animation and FX DVDs at Amazon.com. Animation and FX DVDs occupy four of the top five positions for top selling DVDs.

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News Link of the Day - Holiday’s Sleighful of TV Delights

According to MSNBC:

"The cartoon Grinch is back, and so is Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Claus. How much more do we need for a warm and fuzzy holiday TV season? Lots more, based on the sleighful of shows on the way. There’s a prime-time Rugrats Hanukkah special, one with Charlie Brown and the gang, and old and new musical greetings from Bing Crosby, Macy Gray and others..."

Click here for the full story.

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These news articles and all digitalmediafx.com content are ©copyright 2001 by Joe Tracy and may not be reused for any purpose without expressed written consent of the author and Digital Media FX. All rights reserved.