Rainshine Entertainment and Malaysia's Animasia are set to produce a trio of animated movies based on the children's literature franchise Young Captain Nemo.
Jeffrey Reddick, screenwriter and creator of the Final Destination movie franchise, will adapt the books for the screen.
The story follows 12-year-old Gabriel Nemo, a descendent of Jules Verne's Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
The young adventurer and his friends fight nature, villains, and forces of evil in his submarine Nemotech.
The underlying novels were written by best-selling author Jason Henderson and published by Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan.
In May last year, Rainshine's kids and family unit Kinsane Entertainment acquired the movie adaptation rights.
Reddick, who also penned Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, an upcoming animated series for Netflix, will work with Kinsane's Saahil Bhargava as creative producer, and Kinsane co-founder and CEO Kurt Inderbitzin.
Animation will be headed by AhLoong from Animasia Studio. Animasia, which is based in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, has created animation work for companies including Disney Channel, Netflix, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon.
Under its own banner it has made TV movies and series including The Nine Lives of Claw and Bola Kampung.
Rainshine, which has offices in Mumbai, Los Angeles and London, seeks to work across digital and traditional media in genres including young adult, crime and thrillers, biography, documentary, podcasts, gaming and branded content.
"I could visualise a colourful, adventurous, and thrill-a-minute animation that kids and families would enjoy," said Reddick.
"We saw the Young Captain Nemo story as a contemporary action adventure with an iconic character, and plots that have universal appeal.
"It's also a great opportunity to share with the world, particularly our younger audiences, an inspirational tale woven into a world of mystery, fantasy and sci-fi," said Neeraj Bhargava, Rainshine's chairman and CEO.
"The (novel series) concept and the fantasy world lend themselves very well to animation as a medium of storytelling," said Edmund Chan, MD of Animasia Studio.
"A character like Young Nemo will be a great opportunity to showcase our animation skills to a much wider and global audience."
Malaysia operates a generous 30% production incentive scheme intended to secure work from international productions for studios in the country.
In recent years this was extended to include post-production and visual effects, a move that has attracted companies such as China's Base Media to open facilities in Malaysia and shows such as The Mandalorian and Netflix film 6 Underground. – Reuters
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