'Open Season' launches Sony Pictures Animation

In Sony Pictures Animation's first feature film, the animated action adventure comedy "Open Season," the odd are about to get even. Boog (Martin Lawrence), a domesticated grizzly bear with no survival skills, has his perfect world turned upside down when he meets Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), a scrawny, fast-talking mule deer.

When Elliot convinces Boog to leave his cushy home in a park ranger's garage to try a taste of the great outdoors, things quickly spiral out of control. Relocated to the forest with open season only three days away, Boog and Elliot must acclimate in a hurry. They must join forces to unite the woodland creatures and take the forest back!

"Open Season" launches Sony Pictures Animation's slate of original animated feature films. Enthusiasm for the film began early on, particularly with Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment president Yair Landau and SPA executive vice presidents Penney Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabins. "We all gravitated toward the fish-out-of-water aspect of these wild animals who can't survive in the woods," explains Landau.

"`Open Season' had all the elements that I love in a story," adds Finkelman Cox, "including a wonderful, fresh, original relationship between two unlikely characters - Boog and Elliot."

It was then up to Sony Pictures Imageworks to bring these characters to life. An Academy Award®-winning digital production studio, SPI has become known for its extraordinary computer animation and visual effects work. SPI has received Oscars® for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects for "Spider-Man 2" and for its original animated short film "The ChubbChubbs," in addition to Oscar® nominations for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," "Spider-Man," "Hollow Man," "Stuart Little," and "Starship Troopers."

In many ways, the future of animated features has never been more promising. The new frontiers of 3D animation have moved the art form into the digital age and created an audience hungry for more CG movies. "Animation is evergreen," observes Finkelman Cox. "It is welcome, generation after generation. The characters become as loved as if they were real, and we become emotionally attached to them."

Certainly, moviemakers of future generations will benefit from the commitment of the company - and its passionate team of creators and executives - to produce the finest animated features possible. Sony Pictures Animation does not see an end to the possibilities. To quote "Open Season" director Roger Allers: "Imagination is the only limitation you have."

Opening soon across the Philippines, "Open Season" is distributed by Columbia Pictures, the local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.