Planet 51

I'm sure everyone has read that New Line has acquired the rights to distribute and market Ilion Studios' upcoming CG film "Planet 51". For those of you out of the mix, Illion is located in Madrid and began production on a (reported) $60 million feature a couple of years ago.

Signing this deal is big for them. Congrats to the people over in Spain. I fully support this company because it was created and produced in Europe and not just outsourced from an American company. Home grown films are great, outsourcing is bad.

The story sounds pretty good and has a lot of potential. The art direction seems to be nice too. The human character looks appealing and much better than some of the other projects I've seen recently from even the major studios.

What I don't really care for are the overuse of Ambient Occlusion and Sub surface scattering. The aliens all look like they are made out of Playdoh. However, that is a small complaint and can be forgotten quickly in a good story.

Congrats to Ilion for getting what many startups cannot - a respectable $60 million for the budget and distribution from a reputable company. I'm not sure what the cost of living is in Madrid, but even by US standards, this is a good sized budget. Especially for a new player.

Now the pressure is really on!