Friday, March 04, 2011

Toronto's Starz Animation Studio Sold

The Winnipeg Free Press is reporting that Starz Animation has been sold to a group of investors headed by marketing executive J. Thomas Murray and executive producer Steven B. Hecht. Starz LLC, the current owners, will continue to own a minority stake.

Starz latest project is Gnomeo and Juliet, which has grossed more than $74 million and is still showing in theatres.

The studio was founded by Dan Krech and was known for years as DKP. It was sold to American telecom company IDT, which made the cgi feature Everyone's Hero in the facility. IDT abandoned the animation business and sold the studio to Starz LLC. The Toronto studio is also responsible for the feature length version of Shane Acker's 9.

(Thanks to Paul Teolis.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mark Mayerson said...

Hi Dave. Got anger issues?

I'm not sure what your problem is but everything in the above post is purely factual. There's no editorializing in it, so I have no idea what you might be objecting to.

I've never held Monster By Mistake up as a great show. Frankly, I was disappointed in how it came out and I've written about some of the problems the production faced. I'm willing to take my share of the blame for the show's shortcomings.

I believe that if you do work for an audience, you have to accept audience opinion. Even yours. However, you'll pardon me if I don't agree with everything you say.

Steve Schnier said...

Hi Mark.

You know what they say; "Those who can, do. Those who REALLY can, do - and then share their expertise with future generations."

Of course, those who can't, rot bitterly in their cubicles.

Cheers,
Steve

Mark Mayerson said...

Aw, Steve, I was kind of hoping I could keep Dave as my own PERSONAL troll, but now I've got to share him. Oh well.

Steve Schnier said...

Hey Mark,

You can keep him.
I bet he smells bad.

S