He's been gone for a while, but now he's returned.
Andy Heyward and his wife Amy ... announced a joint venture with Indian mega-conglomerate Tata late Thursday to create, develop and distribute original entertainment for children, including animation, video games and consumer products. ...
One of the first projects expected to be made in India is Stan Lee’s first animated feature, which will be officially announced next year.
Andy was robustly non-union when he was the topkick of DIC. TAG made runs at it several times, and the last go-round the Animation Guild won a Nation Labor Relations Board election while DIC was a subsidiary of Disney. Before it happened, Disney Labor Relations passed along the word that DIC would sign a contract if TAG had a majority of the vote.
Well, we ended up winning. And DIC ended up fighting us in negotiations over a contract for a year before walking away from the table. When I complained to the House of Mouse about it, the company said: "Hmm. Guess Andy changed his mind."
Big companies. Always as good as their word.
But we wish Andy well with his new endeavor. And offer our condolences about The Governator project not working out.
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6 comments:
David Stainton and now Andy Heyward . Who's next ? It's a like an animation zombie movie. You can't get rid of them , they just keep coming back.
I'm surprised he's still around!
Tata is a huge conglomerate with their hands in everything from technology to raw materials to chemicals. They're known for environmental destruction and social irresponsibility, including operating manufacturing plants in countries with repressive regimes where the employees are treated like virtual slave laborers. Heyward and Tata sound like a match made in heaven.
I expect he'll suck a few million dollars for himself out of this before they realize he can't produce anything but crap. On the other hand, since Tata is famous for producing the world's cheapest (and worst) cars and trucks, that may be just fine for them. It's a match made in heaven.
With all the clear negatives about DIC, and Heyward, it was once a nice way to slide into the animation world. My first job was at DIC in 1990. A short gig, with lousy pay-but I had no experience , and didn't know what I was doing, really. It opened a lot of doors, though. A walk down the DIC halls that year would read like a who's who of some of the best in the field.
I'm not defending DIC-just saying I'm glad it was there.
"A walk down the DIC halls that year would read like a who's who of some of the best in the field."
The same could be said for Filmation, but the difference is that Filmation paid union wages/benefits and kept all the work in-house , no off-shoring. The shows were pretty much junk, but they kept a lot of top talent employed at the end of their careers and gave a break to a lot of young talent just starting off in the field. It is too bad there are not places like that to get a foot into the business anymore (especially a union-shop like Filmation, not so much DIC, though I get what you were saying ...)
Yeah, DIC wasn't much, but they helped by giving me a break as well, even when things were really cooking years ago.
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