Miramax is bewitched by Bionicle franchise

Deal is made for second video premiere in futuristic series.

By Scott Hettrick -- Video Business, 7/28/2003

Miramax Films is getting so excited about development of high-concept and merchandise-related movies that the company has greenlit production on a third movie based on the LEGO Company's Bionicle line of toys before the first two films have even been released.

With computer-animated Bionicle: Mask of Light still more than six weeks away from its video premiere on Sept. 16 and a CGI theatrical film still in story development for a planned release in late 2005/early 2006, Miramax has decided to become a co-producer with LEGO Media International's Create TV and Film company and commit to production of a second Bionicle film to be released exclusively on DVD in fall 2004 in advance of the theatrical release.

"We had a window of opportunity," said Jeff Tahler, Miramax VP of acquisitions. "After we saw the first one and the excitement it was creating with fans, we didn't want to lose the momentum."

The Bionicle (the confluence of "biological" and "chronicle") product line--which was launched in 2000 as cross-culture mythological action figures with related Web sites, comic books and trading cards that create adventure stories around the characters--"is bigger than any of us ever imagined," Tahler said, noting that 40 million people worldwide have purchased a Bionicle product. Miramax signed on last year to become worldwide distributor of the movies before becoming a producing partner this month.

Fans "know their stories and characters, and at Miramax we are always about story," Tahler said, noting that the studio has enjoyed great success with such family franchises as Spy Kids and Pokémon and particularly on home video with the Air Bud and MVP series of movies produced exclusively for video.

"Bionicle's rich story lines and complex characters really capture its audience's attention," said Miramax co-chief Harvey Weinstein. "As millions of fans around the world will attest, once you're immersed in Bionicle, there's no turning back."

Tahler said those fans have responded well to snippets of Mask of Light shown at the recent Comic-Con comic book convention and at other events such as Toy Fair and videogame show Electronic Entertainment Expo.

The company expects the Bionicle movies to bring in even more fans to the franchise.

The co-producing deal will give Miramax more involvement in the creative development on the movie with the original production team at Los Angeles-based Creative Capers Entertainment.

"When we started to develop the theatrical film, the creative sparks began to fly, and we knew we had found our kindred spirits on this property," said Conny Kalcher, LEGO VP of global innovation and marketing. "They really get it. Harvey Weinstein and his talented team, especially [executive VP] Kevin Kasha and Jeff Tahler, are really just big Bionicle boys at heart, and they are eager to increase their involvement on the second movie."

Toymaker Mattel Inc. launched an enormously successful series of computer-animated movies based on Barbie in 2001. The first two have sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. and won DVD Exclusive Awards for best animated DVD premiere movie, score and character while becoming integral to launches of new Barbie products related to the themes of the movies.

Tahler said they expect the Bionicle video premiere movies--with budgets that sources put at about $5 million each--to be even bigger than the Barbie movies since there will be a theatrical film as well.