Beast Partnership

Just when it seems the pool of animated features can't get bigger, it enlarges yet again.

A movie deal between New Zealand and China is finally taking flight, with the announcement of it's first feature film to release.

The big budget, animated film Beast of Burden, has been set up as the first movie to be made under a co-production treaty between the two nations. ...

The NZFC China Co-Production Development Fund provided initial financing for the project. Its CEO Dave Gibson said that New Zealand and China are highly complimentary to each other when it comes to such projects.

"We in New Zealand should realise that we are an Asian country, and should take advantage of being largely in the same time zone as the world's second largest film industry," ...

We are seeing on a global scale what we used to see (in relative microcosm) here in Southern California: animation is a red hot, profitable sector of moviedom, and players around the world want to dive in and get their share.

The only problem with that? It's one thing to muster the cash and production assets for a high-end animated feature, and another to create ninety minutes of movie enthrallment that people actually want to go and pay money to see. If they can do that second thing, then China and New Zealand will be on to something. And if not, they'll be like the scads of production companies in China, India, Europe and Britain that executive low-budget work for domestic consumption and low-budget productions, but not so great at creating entertainment the world population will crowd through turnstiles to see.