DER DUNKLE KRISTALL wird fortgesetzt

Fast drei­ßig Jahre hat  es ge­dau­ert, Ge­rüchte und An­kün­di­gun­gen gab es im­mer wie­der, jetzt ist es of­fi­zi­ell: Om­nilab Me­dia und die Jim Hen­son Com­pany wer­den ge­mein­sam eine Fort­set­zung zum Fantasy-Klassiker THE DARK CRYS­TAL rea­li­sie­ren.

Der zweite Teil trägt den Ti­tel THE POWER OF THE DARK CRYS­TAL und die Ge­schichte wird hun­derte von Jah­ren nach den Er­eig­nis­sen des ers­ten Teils han­deln, ei­ner Zeit in der wie­der Dun­kel­heit über über die Welt ge­kom­men ist. Die Hand­lung ver­folgt die Aben­teuer ei­nes ge­heim­nis­vol­len Feu­er­mäd­chens, das zu­sam­men mit ei­nem aus­ge­sto­ße­nen Gel­fling ei­nen Split­ter des le­gen­dä­ren Kris­talls stiehlt, um die ster­bende Sonne im In­ne­ren des Pla­ne­ten neu zu ent­fa­chen.

Re­gie füh­ren wer­den die Zwil­lings­brü­der Pe­ter und Mi­chael Spie­rig (UN­DEAD, DAY­BREA­KERS), das Dreh­buch stammt von An­nette Duffy und Da­vid Odell, es pro­du­ziert die aus­tra­li­sche Firma Om­nilab Me­dia bzw. de­ren Toch­ter Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment. Der Fan­tasy­künst­ler Brian Froud, der für den ers­ten Teil das De­sign über­nahm, wird dies er­freu­li­cher­weise auch in der Fort­set­zung wie­der tun.

Die Pro­du­zen­ten ha­ben an­ge­kün­digt, dass der Film zwar in 3D pro­du­ziert wer­den wird und selbst­ver­ständ­lich auch state-of-the-art Spe­zi­al­ef­fekte be­inhal­tet, aber nicht kom­plett als CGI rea­li­siert wer­den soll; wie in THE DARK CRYS­TAL wird man auf reale Schau­spie­ler und Pup­pen zu­rück­grei­fen. Mu­tige und groß­ar­tige Ent­schei­dung!

Ein Start­ter­min wurde noch nicht of­fi­zi­ell an­ge­kün­digt, man geht all­ge­mein aber von ei­nem Re­lease ir­gend­wann in 2011 aus.

via Cynx via Geek­Ty­rant

DVD-Cover DER DUNKLE KRIS­TALL Co­py­right Co­lum­bia Tristar Home Vi­deo, er­hält­lich z.B. bei Ama­zon

Die voll­stän­dige (eng­li­sche) Pres­se­mel­dung im er­wei­ter­ten Ar­ti­kel (die steht selbst­ver­ständ­lich nicht un­ter CC!).

OMIN­LAB ME­DIA AND THE JIM HEN­SON COM­PANY JOIN FORCES

TO LAUNCH THE AUS­TRA­LIAN FEA­TURE PRO­DUC­TION

OF THE HIGHLY AN­TI­CI­PA­TED

POWER OF THE DARK CRYS­TAL

Se­quel to Hen­son clas­sic film “The Dark Crys­tal” to be fi­nan­ced and pro­du­ced by Om­nilab Me­dia in Aus­tra­lia and exe­cu­tive pro­du­ced by The Jim Hen­son Com­pany. 3D, live ac­tion, vi­sual ef­fects film to be one of the lar­gest Aus­tra­lian pro­duc­tions ever.

HOL­LY­WOOD, CA May 04, 2010 – In a joint an­noun­ce­ment by Om­nilab Media’s Chris­to­pher Mapp and The Jim Hen­son Company’s Lisa Hen­son, Aus­tra­lian ba­sed Om­nilab Me­dia is teaming up with The Jim Hen­son Com­pany to bring the much an­ti­ci­pa­ted fan­tasy se­quel, “Power of the Dark Crys­tal” to the big screen in ste­reo­sco­pic 3D. The highly an­ti­ci­pa­ted film will be among the most am­bi­tious pro­jects to ever be pro­du­ced in Aus­tra­lia.

Power of the Dark Crys­tal will be pro­du­ced by the Aus­tra­lia ba­sed pro­duc­tion arm of Om­nilab Me­dia, Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment. The Jim Hen­son Company’s exe­cu­tive pro­du­cers are Brian Hen­son, Lisa Hen­son and Ja­son Lust. Om­nilab Media’s exe­cu­tive pro­du­cers are Chris­to­pher Mapp, Matthew Street and Da­vid Whealy. Ci­ne­mar­ket Films’ Pe­ter D. Gra­ves (“Ter­mi­na­tor Sal­va­tion”) rounds out the exe­cu­tive pro­du­cer team.

Pe­ter Spie­rig and Mi­chael Spie­rig, wri­ters and di­rec­tors of “Un­dead” and most re­cently, “Day­brea­kers,” have come aboard to di­rect the screen­play writ­ten by Aus­tra­lian Craig Pearce (“Mou­lin Rouge,” “Strictly Ball­room,” “Ro­meo + Ju­liet”) ba­sed on an ori­gi­nal script by An­nette Duffy and Da­vid Odell. The le­gen­dary fan­tasy ar­tist Brian Froud will re­prise his role as con­cep­tual de­si­gner of the film, which will use a stun­ning mix of live ac­tion and tra­di­tio­nal pup­pe­try com­bi­ned with vi­sual and spe­cial ef­fects pro­du­ced ent­i­rely in Aus­tra­lia. Omnilab-affiliated Iloura (“Where the Wild Things Are,” “The Pa­ci­fic,” “Don’t Be Af­raid of the Dark”) has al­re­ady be­gun work on the film’s com­plex CGI ele­ments. With this team in place, next steps will be to se­cure world­wide dis­tri­bu­tion.

“Power of the Dark Crys­tal is an ex­cit­ing and am­bi­tious un­der­ta­king and, ha­ving worked on pre­vious pro­jects with the top-notch ta­lent and crews that Aus­tra­lia of­fers, we know we have as­sem­bled the right team to de­li­ver the se­quel to one of the most en­du­rin­gly po­pu­lar tit­les in the Hen­son li­brary. Pe­ter Spie­rig and Mi­chael Spie­rig are sure to create a film that will con­ti­nue the le­gacy of the ori­gi­nal and ex­ceed the ex­pec­ta­ti­ons of our loyal fans,” said Lisa Hen­son, CEO of the The Jim Hen­son Com­pany. “We are es­pe­cially en­thu­si­as­tic to be working with Om­nilab Me­dia, a strong and gro­wing force in world­wide film fi­nance and pro­duc­tion.”

“We are very plea­sed to be pro­du­cing this won­der­ful and fan­tas­ti­cal film in Aus­tra­lia. The Power of The Dark Crys­tal will show­case the depth of ta­lent Aus­tra­lia has to of­fer up on the in­ter­na­tio­nal stage, in­clu­ding the ex­tre­mely gif­ted di­rec­ting team of

Pe­ter Spie­rig and Mi­chael Spie­rig. The Jim Hen­son Com­pany has con­sis­tently de­li­vered an ama­zing range of en­ter­tain­ment over ge­ne­ra­ti­ons and is an ico­nic crea­tive stu­dio that we are proud to have part­ner with us,” ad­ded Chris­to­pher Mapp from Om­nilab Me­dia. Mi­chael Spie­rig said, “We feel a tre­men­dous amount of re­sponsi­bi­lity in tel­ling this story with the same me­ti­cu­lous care that Jim Hen­son and Frank Oz gave the 1982 ori­gi­nal.” Ad­ded Pe­ter Spie­rig, “This is a chance to take the world of pup­pe­try into the mo­dern age by using mo­dern tech­ni­ques (like mo­tion cap­ture CGI) and the tried and true me­thods (like pup­pe­try and ani­matro­nics) to create a one hund­red per­cent real world that is uni­que to ‘The Dark Crys­tal’.”

Set hund­reds of years af­ter the events of the first mo­vie when the world has once again fal­len into dar­k­ness, “Power of the Dark Crys­tal” fol­lows the ad­ven­tures of a mys­te­rious girl made of fire who, to­ge­ther with a Gel­fling out­cast, ste­als a shard of the le­gen­dary Crys­tal in an at­tempt to reig­nite the dy­ing sun that exists at the cen­ter of the pla­net.

ABOUT OM­NILAB ME­DIA www.omnilab.com.au

Om­nilab Me­dia is an Aus­tra­lian and New Ze­a­land ba­sed glo­bally fo­cu­sed ver­ti­cally in­te­gra­ted en­ter­tain­ment com­pany in­vol­ved in the pro­duc­tion, vi­sual ef­fects, post pro­duc­tion and fi­nan­cing of a di­verse range of film and te­le­vi­sion pro­per­ties. Amongst the fun­ding deals re­cently con­clu­ded by Om­nilab Me­dia, co­ve­r­ing both pro­duc­tion and P&A fi­nan­cing, are Oli­ver Stone’s ‘W’, ‘The Bank Job’, ‘The Mes­sen­ger’, ‘’Bran Nue Dae,’ and the up­co­m­ing ‘Dy­lan Dog: Dead of Night’, ‘The Loved Ones,’ ‘To­mor­row When the War Be­gan’, and ‘The Kil­ler Elite.’

Om­nilab Me­dia has also crea­ted a new di­gi­tal film com­pany with Ken­nedy Mil­ler Mit­chell (Dr.D Stu­dios) to use ground­brea­king di­gi­tal sto­ry­tel­ling, ani­ma­tion and vi­sual ef­fects. The first pro­duc­tion will be HAPPY FEET 2, with a range of other blue– chip pro­per­ties in de­ve­lop­ment.

ABOUT AM­BIENCE EN­TER­TAIN­MENT www.ambienceentertainment.com

Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment was ori­gi­nally foun­ded as a post pro­duc­tion com­pany in 1999 and in 2003 dip­ped it’s toe into the pro­duc­tion arena with the crea­tion of The Pop Pups. In 2004 Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment was ac­qui­red by Om­nilab Me­dia to create con­tent for group and has since grown into one of Australia’s fas­test gro­wing in­de­pen­dent film and te­le­vi­sion pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies de­di­ca­ted to pro­du­cing com­pel­ling film and te­le­vi­sion pro­grams for lo­cal and in­ter­na­tio­nal broad­cas­ters and au­di­en­ces. With a well-earned re­pu­ta­tion for qua­lity, Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment spe­cia­li­zes in fea­ture films, game shows, children’s pro­gramming and ani­ma­tion.

Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment is the con­tent and pro­duc­tion di­vi­sion of the Om­nilab Me­dia, Australia’s lar­gest in­de­pen­dently ow­ned ver­ti­cally in­te­gra­ted me­dia com­pany. This al­li­ance has enab­led Am­bience En­ter­tain­ment to de­ve­lop its own dis­tinc­tive te­le­vi­sion and film con­tent with the stra­te­gic goal of si­gni­fi­cantly in­cre­a­sing its pro­duc­tion out­put.

The Jim Hen­son Com­pany has re­mai­ned an es­ta­blis­hed lea­der in fa­mily en­ter­tain­ment for over 50 years and is re­co­gnized world­wide as an in­no­va­tor in pup­pe­try, ani­matro­nics and di­gi­tal ani­ma­tion. Best known as crea­tors of the world fa­mous Mup­pets, Hen­son has re­cei­ved over 50 Emmy Awards and nine Grammy Awards. Re­cent credits in­clude the Emmy® no­mi­na­ted “Sid the Sci­ence Kid,” “Di­no­saur Train” “Wil­son & Ditch: Dig­ging Ame­rica” and “Pa­j­ani­mals.” Fea­tures in­clude “The Dark Crys­tal,” “La­by­rinth,” “Mir­ror­Mask,” and “Un­sta­ble Fa­b­les” and te­le­vi­sion pro­duc­tions in­clude “Frag­gle Rock” and the sci-fi cult se­ries “Far­scape.”

With ad­di­tio­nal lo­ca­ti­ons in New York and Lon­don, The Jim Hen­son Com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Los An­ge­les on the his­to­ric Char­lie Chap­lin lot, com­plete with so­unds­tage and post­pro­duc­tion fa­ci­li­ties. In­de­pen­dently ow­ned and ope­ra­ted by the five adult child­ren of foun­der Jim Hen­son, the Com­pany is also home to Jim Henson’s Crea­ture Shop™, a pre-eminent character-building and vi­sual ef­fects group with in­ter­na­tio­nal film, te­le­vi­sion and ad­ver­ti­sing cli­ents, as well as Hen­son Re­cor­ding Stu­dios, one of the mu­sic industry’s top re­cor­ding fa­ci­li­ties known for its world-class blend of state-of-the-art and vin­tage equip­ment.

The Company’s Hen­son Al­ter­na­tive brand re­cently laun­ched the New York run of “Stuf­fed and Un­st­rung,” a live pup­pet im­pro­vi­sa­tio­nal show at the Union Square Theatre. www.henson.com