Ketchup Entertainment acquires North American rights to “The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie”
The saga of at least one Looney Tunes film in limbo – The Day the Earth Exploded: A Looney Tunes Movie – has come to a happy conclusion in the United States, with Ketchup Entertainment announcing that they have acquired North American rights to the film and will release it in theaters. A release date will be announced later.
The fate of the hand-drawn 2D film was in question after Warner Bros., the film’s producer, decided not to release it anymore. In an unconventional move, WB awarded the worldwide sale of the rights to the film to European distribution company GFM Animation, which in turn successfully sold the title in several territories and countries.
Readers would be forgiven if they have never heard of Ketchup, the distributor that secured the US rights; neither have we. Although the company has limited experience in theatrical animation distribution, it has been around for 13 years and has distributed live-action films such as Michel Franco’s Memory and Ben Affleck-Starrer Hypnotic. In autumn, Hellboy – The Cursed Manand another animated film with an environmental theme Ozi, voice of the forest.
In a statement, Ketchup CEO Gareth West said: “The day the earth exploded is a historic moment for the Looney Tunes franchise and we are proud to partner with Warner Bros. Animation to bring this film to theaters. We can’t wait for audiences of all ages to experience one of the smartest animated films in years.”
The day the earth exploded The film stars Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, who try to save the world from an alien invasion. The premiere at the animation festival in Annecy a few months ago received a very positive response. The film was released in German cinemas just last weekend and came in 10th place with 82,800 euros (90,461 US dollars).
Peter Browngardt, who is the new Looney Tunes cartoons Short film series and Uncle Grandpa, directed the film.
Key contributors include Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol and Fred Tatasciore as lead voice actors, Alex Kirwan (supervising producer), Nick Cross (art director), Aaron Spurgeon (production designer), and Browngardt and Sam Register as executive producers.
Uniquely, Browngardt thanked the film’s screenwriters, which is why the list of screenwriters in the film’s credits is longer than usual. They are Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan and Eddie Trigueros.
Ketchup’s foray into animation is part of a growing trend in the US cinema market. In last week’s livestream, we talked about the surprising number of independent and niche theatrical distributors releasing films in US cinemas this year. In addition to the usual suspects like Gkids, Crunchyroll and Viva, which release several films annually, Sideshow and Janus Films (Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow), IFC Films (Adam Elliott Memories of a snail) and Blue Fox Entertainment (Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendrys Kensuke’s Kingdom).
