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Strategies & Market Trends : Cents and Sensibility - Kimberly and Friends' Consortium -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bouf who wrote (76492)	2/17/2000 12:08:00 PM
From: hoffy	Respond to of 108040

TNTU. Nice news out today. Recent deal with MSFT. A great China play Thursday February 17, 8:45 am Eastern Time Company Press Release Tengtu International Animation Unit in $50 Million Co-Production Deals With Leading Canada Studios Sees Post-Release Licensing and Merchandising Potential TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2000--Tengtu International Corp. (OTCBB: TNTU - news) today announced that its wholly owned animation and film production studio TIC Beijing Digital Pictures Ltd. has entered into a joint venture with two leading Canadian production companies, Crawleys i Inc. and Boomstone Entertainment Inc., to co-produce high quality prime-time entertainment programs worth US$50 million. An animated series called ''Germs'' will be the first fruit of the collaboration. Featuring leading-edge 3D animation production values, the initial series of 26 half-hour episodes is expected to appeal to a broad demographic and will be produced for release as family entertainment in Asia, North America and Europe. Also being planned are an animated movie based on the series, as well as an interactive multimedia software application for home and school use to help promote good health habits for children ages 3 and up. TIC Beijing will conduct a major portion of the animation work for the ''Germs'' project and will share as a producer in the distribution rights and lucrative video and toy merchandising rights. The Tengtu studio has already completed some developmental work on the renderings of principal characters, including designs for manufacturing prototypes of toy merchandise. ''Tengtu is as much about entertainment as it is about education,'' said chairman and CEO Pak Cheung. ''We are gratified to have partners in this enterprise as fine as in our educational software business. Tengtu is committed to producing a quality entertainment product and looks forward to its licensing and merchandising potential. We hope it will be as outstandingly successful as the Pokemon phenomenon,'' he noted. Bill Stevens, president of Crawleys i stated, ''Frankly, we were impressed with the quality of TIC Beijing's leading-edge studio and work, and we are very excited to be working with them on state-of-the-art productions for the international marketplace -- especially for China, one of the largest and fastest-growing entertainment markets in the world.'' ''This relationship is perfect,'' added Lee Williams, president of Boomstone Entertainment. ''TIC Beijing brings first rate 3D animation skills to the table. We are very satisfied with the development process on 'Germs,''' he noted. The companies have also agreed to develop several other animated programs, a live Chinese television weekly and a docudrama for international distribution based on a well-known period in Chinese history. The collaborative projects represent a total of some US$50 million in production. Most will qualify for funding support from Canadian film agency programmes under official Canada-China co-production treaties. Financing for the US$12 million co-production of ''Germs'' will be undertaken primarily in the Canadian market and from multinational corporate sponsorships.