Spanish Renaissance

As Variety tells it:

For crisis-slammed Spain, feature animation offers film production a lifeline.

The local toon biz’s flagship is Enrique Gato’s Indiana Jones parody “Tad, the Lost Explorer,” the third Spanish film in a row to open Cartoon Movie. Studiocanal-sold, “Tad” snagged $40 million worldwide through Feb. 17, becoming Spain’s highest-grossing Spanish toon ever ($24.6 million), distribbed by Paramount.

“Spain’s film sector now accepts animation as part of its industry,” says “Tad” writer-producer Jordi Gasull at El Toro. ...

New state incentives may goose animation investment. For the moment, most Spanish film producers must look for most — perhaps as much as 60% — of their budgets abroad. But animation breathes optimism into a Spain plagued by recession and piracy.

“Spanish genre filmmakers have made movies with international impact. The same could happen in animation,” Garcia says. ...

Spain has a long history in animation.

Some little while ago (like decades), Pete Young and I wrote Katie Caterpillar, an animated feature bankrolled by Mexico's Televisa, but animated in Spain. It didn't cause global turnstiles to spin at white heat, but it did well enough in South and Central America.

So Spanish filmmakers have been creating animated product for a long time. Tad, the Lost Explorer appears to be the kind of movie that will goose Spain's animation industry. In a country that has 26% unemployment, any ray of sunshine is welcome.