Tim Burton signs
with Shockwave
Director of 'Batman' and 'Nightmare
Before Christmas' plans to make original animation, including
a character called 'Stain Boy.'
By Reuters
January 28, 2000 5:30 AM PT
SAN FRANCISCO -- Tim Burton, the director of
dark, edgy films like "Edward Scissorhands" and
"Beetlejuice," has signed a pact with Shockwave.com,
the entertainment site of software developer Macromedia Inc.,
to develop original animation.
Burton will license and create characters
for Shockwave.com, and he will retain full artistic control
over the characters and properties he licenses and creates.
One animated character set to appear on the site is
"Stain Boy," a character from Burton's 1997 book,
"The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other
Stories."
"He can't fly around tall buildings, or
outrun a speeding train, the only talent he seems to have is
to leave a nasty stain," wrote Burton in a poem called
"Stain Boy," in the book.
Debuts this spring
Burton will create 26 original episodes of a
new series based on the Stain Boy character, which will debut
this spring.
"It's another example of the leading
storytellers and creators of our society using the
Internet," said Rob Burgess, chairman and chief executive
of Macromedia
(Nasdaq: MACR)
in San Francisco.
Last month, Shockwave.com
announced that it signed the makers of the hit TV show
"South Park," Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to create
original content for the site.
Parker and Stone will develop 39 two- and
five-minute animated short programs for Shockwave.com, with
the first ones set to debut this March.
Macromedia and Burton plan to make the
announcement about their agreement on Friday at the Sundance
Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Uses Flash Player
The Burton-created characters and short
features will be able to be viewed for free using Macromedia's
Flash Player, which now has an installed base of over 200
million worldwide. Burton will use Flash, which Macromedia
said is the most widely distributed software on the Web, to
create his animations.
Shockwave.com, which was started up as a
separate unit of Macromedia last summer, now has about 11
million members. On Thursday, when Macromedia reported
better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, it also said
Shockwave.com had $3.5 million in revenues in the quarter,
mostly from advertising.
Shockwave.com said it worked with the
Hollywood artists' agency, the William Morris Agency, to sign
up Burton.
Burton's move to the Internet is the latest
in a wave of Hollywood talent creating content specifically
for the Web.
On Thursday, Icebox.com, a startup animation
studio, announced that it will launch an entertainment Web
site in the first quarter of this year, with animated
programming.
Icebox.com will have animated content from
Pam Brady, a co-writer of "South Park, Bigger, Longer and
Uncut"; Larry David, the co-creator of "Seinfeld";
John Collier, co-founder of Icebox and co-executive producer
of "King of the Hill"; and many others.
Icebox.com is one of a group of startup
companies coming out of a Santa Monica, Calif.-based incubator
that grows new companies, called eCompanies, which includes
EarthLink Network Inc. founder Sky Dayton as one of its
co-founders.
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