Corsham and Madhouse in talks to co-produce ‘Natural Born Kittens’

Corsham Entertainment has agreed in principal that Japanese anime production company Madhouse will co-produce Corsham’s 26 half hour teen plus comedy anime series ‘Natural Born Kittens’.
Corsham Entertainment is the UK production company founded by Oscar-winning ‘Star War’s producer Gary Kurtz and ‘Bionicle’ co-creator Alastair Swinnerton, while Madhouse are probably the best known Japanese animation studio, with credits ranging from feature films ‘Ninja Scroll’, ‘Metropolis’, ‘Vampire Hunter D’, ‘Animatrix’, ‘Millennium Actress’ and ‘Tokyo Godfathers’ to television series ‘Cardcaptors’ and ‘Beyblade’. Corsham recently sold their first show, the 2D/CGI half hour Christmas special ‘The Tale of Jack Frost’, to the BBC.
Natural Born Kittens is the brainchild of UK anime artist Larry Bundy Jr., and centres around the anarchic activities of four ancient Egyptian cat goddesses posing as teenage schoolgirls in low rent suburbia. The Natural Born Kittens website is one of the UK’s most visited anime sites, with more than half a million hits a year. Scripts will be written in the UK and the US, while the rest of the production will be handled entirely in Japan by Madhouse.
Corsham had previously announced that San Francisco production company Wildbrain were on board the show. According to Corsham’s Alastair Swinnerton: “We are still hopeful that Wildbrain can be a part of NBK – they are a hugely talented company, and Corsham, Madhouse and Wildbrain would be a great team.”
According to Shinichi Kobayashi, CEO of Madhouse, “Natural Born Kittens is a great combination of Western and Japanese animation – we are very excited about the prospects for the series.”
Corsham Entertainment believes that this will be the first ever genuine UK/Japanese anime co-production.
(GB)