Anime News

Artificial Tree Business Grows Into Anime
Date: 5/17/2006
Pittsburgh, PA's Post Gazette reports on Michael Kao who spent 23 years -- and earned a small fortune -- making plastic Christmas trees in China and selling them to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other big retailers. Then his son, Francis, came home from college in the U.S. eight years ago and persuaded his father to trade in 10,000 factory workers for 350 computer animators and a long shot at Hollywood glory. Today, the company that once was the world's biggest artificial-tree maker has morphed into one of Asia's biggest digital-animation studios. It is now halfway through making a new, $35 million "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie, which Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and Weinstein Co. are set to distribute in spring of 2007.
Source: Anime News Service