Bento Box and Princess Pictures Sign First Look Deal

FOX Entertainment’s animation studio and Melbourne-based TV and film production company will jointly produce animated content from Australian creators for global markets. 

To meet growing international demand for animated content across all distribution platforms, FOX Entertainment’s newly acquired animation studio, Bento Box Entertainment, and Melbourne-based television and film production company Princess Pictures, have entered in a first-look animation development deal.  The announcement was jointly made today by Scott Greenberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Bento Box, and Laura Waters, Founder of Princess Pictures.

Under terms of the agreement, Bento Box and Princess will develop animated content from undiscovered Australian-based, multi-hyphenate creators that will be fully produced in the country with local talent and crews and made available for the global market.

Bento Box is the animation production studio behind Bob’s BurgersDuncanville and the upcoming The Great North; FOX purchased the studio last August in a deal that secured the production engine behind much of its popular Sunday Animation Domination block. This past Monday, FOX announced a second season order of Duncanville, co-created by Amy Poehler and her Parks and Recreation colleagues Mike and Julie Thacker Scully.

In addition to Greenberg and Waters, Bento Box Co-Founder and President of Production Joel Kuwahara and Creative Director Ben Jones; and Princess’ Senior Producer Mike Cowap and Managing Director Emma Fitzsimons, will executive produce all projects developed by the two companies.

“Laura, Mike and their entire team have the keen ability to identify emerging, multi-faceted storytellers, and, in doing so, are delivering some of the strongest comedy material we’ve seen,” said Greenberg.  “Expanding our creative footprint globally is a top priority of ours; and we are excited to partner with Princess Pictures in Australia on finding, championing and introducing animation’s next wave of creators who deserve a shot to showcase their voices and points of view across platforms in the U.S. and beyond.”

"Australia punches above its weight in animation talent, with scores of Oscar nominations and wins, and very successful children’s animation series,” said Waters. “There's a slew of Australian talent making hilarious animation online, all with dedicated audiences.  In collaboration with Bento Box, we're excited to support this new wave of comedy talent with professional budgets and access to opportunities on major platforms.”

As reported on AWN last month, as part of its strategic plan to expand into content development and creation, Bento Box hired animation and VFX veteran Brooke Keesling as Head of Animation Talent Development, with the mandate to develop and grow the company’s artistic talent acquisition and internal artist relations.  In addition, Caitlin Winiarski joined Bento Box as its Creative Executive.  She is responsible for seeking out and assessing pilot proposals, scripts and pitches; and identifying relevant source material for development from established and emerging talent.

Source: FOX Entertainment

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Dan Sarto(link sends e-mail) is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.