Zodiak Kids’ Tele Images Productions has announced the production start of Extreme Football, the first full CGI sports animated series ever. Co-produced with Italian studio Maga Animation (behind Disney’s new animated series Winnie the Pooh), the series has been presold to France Télévisions (for France 3), Lagardère (for Gulli and Canal J) and Rai Fiction (for Rai 2 and Gulp). Delivery of the 39 x 26’ series will start in fall 2013 and spread out until the end of 2014.
Extreme Football, which has a budget of 10 million Euros, taps into the sports vein developed by Tele Images Production with Street Football (78 x 26’) and The Basketeers (52 x 26’), and is set to debut in a context rich of sports events, with the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and the Euro in France in 2016.
Extreme Football will take on a cross-platform marketing strategy. There will be a web and mobile app co-produced by Lagardère and France Télévisions, a collection of novels (Hachette), comic books (Soleil) and activity booklets. The licensing rights are handled in France by France Televisions Distribution. Zodiak Rights owns worldwide distribution rights to Extreme Football.
The series follows the adventures of five teams of teenagers who compete every weekend in a football tournament of a new genre: the extreme football. This more spectacular football retains the values and spirit of street football: respect and team spirit. It also combines several disciplines: rollerblades, martial arts, komball and more. Each game entails a new challenge spicing up the competition and destabilising the opponent.
Presented for the first time at Cartoons on the Bay in March 2012 and at Cartoon Forum last October, the series created by Monica Rattazzi and Marco Beretta and directed by Franck Michel (The Fantastic Four) was awarded the Pulcinella Prize for the Best TV Pilot.
Pre-production, compositing and post-production will be handled by Tele Images in France, the layout by Maga animation in Italy, while animation will be executed by 2D3D studios in France and XYZ Animation in China.
