Hasbro Inc have issued the following press release announcing a deal with Vision Animation and Moody Street Kids to produce 26 half-hour episodes for a 2nd season of Rescue Bots.
Hasbro Strikes Malaysian Production Deal for Rescue Bots
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Hasbro Studios, the Los Angeles-based entertainment division of Hasbro, Inc., announced an agreement with Malaysia’s leading studio, Vision Animation, and Australia’s Moody Street Kids to produce 26 half-hour episodes for the second season of Rescue Bots. The pact comes as the new animated Transformers franchise series has debuted to strong ratings both on The Hub, a joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery Communications in the U.S., and on many of the top broadcast networks globally.
Rescue Bots will be collaboratively produced by Hasbro in the U.S., Vision in Malaysia and Moody Street in Australia. This brings to eight the number of countries that will be involved in production or co-production deals with Hasbro Studios by the end of November, with the United States, China, Japan, Canada, South Korea and Spain also on the list. Pre-production on the Rescue Bot episodes will commence immediately and delivery is expected in mid-2014.
“We are always striving to find cutting edge talent around the world,” said Hasbro Studios President Stephen Davis. “With Vision and Moody Street, we now have another team of international production partners that share our vision and understanding of the power of brands. We are most impressed with their ability to take branded entertainment and create great emotional stories.”
The Vision agreement is significant to Malaysia, with Hasbro Studios becoming the first U.S. company to strike a deal under the terms of Malaysia’s recently announced production Tax Incentive program.
Following an introductory meeting between Davis and Malaysia’s Minister of Information, Culture and Communications two years ago, Vision joined the discussions. The animation studio at the forefront of developing Malaysia’s production industry, especially through co-productions with world-class partners, brought in Moody Street Kids with which they had collaborated on three previous projects. To ensure their ability to deliver high-quality animation and strong storytelling in conjunction with Hasbro Studios, the partners conducted a successful test prior to the deal being signed.
“Gill Carr of Moody Street Kids and I are delighted to be given the opportunity to bring the collective strengths of our studios to bear on the production of this fantastic show,” said Huoi-Seong Low, CEO of Vision Animation. “We are confident that this will be the first of many projects we will be doing together with Hasbro Studios.”
"I am happy and pleased to take note that the Malaysian Government's support and investments in the entertainment & media industry over the past few years have paid off,” said Dato' Sri Kamaruddin Siaraf, Secretary General of the Malaysian Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture. “Malaysia is being globally recognized as a reliable content production centre, ready for co-production opportunities, especially in 2D & 3D animation. The production deal between Hasbro Studios and Vision Animation is a landmark and certainly a testament to Malaysia's capabilities in producing award-winning, world-class animation for international markets at a competitive cost."
Source: Hasbro Studios
On the 2nd December a new 3rd party figure was revealed to the world. This figure was a giant toy based on the Generation One Predaking design. Five days later, after much speculation, the group behind the figure was revealed as Unique Toys and the toy was named as War Lord Beasticon. The first figure to the released from the set has been confirmed as War Hawk (Divebomb) but the fandom still have many questions regarding the group and the figure and so we are extremely pleased to be able to bring you our very own version of 20 Questions, as we recently spoke to Unique Toys regarding themselves as well as their coming release.
TF At The Moon: Unique Toys is a new group out of Singapore who hit the news headlines within the Transformers fan community recently as an unknown quantity, could you tell us a little more about the Unique Toys Team?
First of all,we are a group consist of TF fans and production specialists,we just want do something cartoon show accuarate items.
TF At The Moon: Fans around the globe went crazy when the first images of War Lord - Beasticon surfaced, what have you made of the feedback you have received thus far on this set?
Fans are crazy and most of people can't wait for our first shot.
TF At The Moon: What made you decide to tackle Beasticon as your first outing?
That's historically strongest combiner ever appeared in TF TV scene,and we can't make Devastator,can't make Superion, so that we choose Beasticons as our first outing.
TF At The Moon: Customisers were quick to point out that "Beasticon" appears to be a mass produced version of Rosedjs' custom revised "Predaking 2.0" figure (http://bit.ly/TNnWBi). Could you tell us a little more about the relationship between yourselves and rosedjs?
rosedjs is a talented guy,and we love his designs, unfortunately, we got many ideas impacted with him, but when you see our details, and played our toys, you should find more than one different places. BTW,the second figure War Leo ,the not Razorclaw,are completely different from his DIY,will update soon.
TF At The Moon: Hawk has been announced as the first figure to be released from the Beasticon set, do you have a potential street-date and price point in mind for the figure or are you still working on finalising the costs?
We have costed on this and after we show our update mold of War Hawk,we will authorize our retailer to announce the price,I think that's not too far away from my typing replying mail to you,lol..
TF At The Moon: Since Hawk is the name of the first Beasticon member, would you be able to share the names of the other four members with us?
Sure,that's fine, I am gladly to announce that:
- War Hawk
- War Leo
- War Panther
- War Rhino
- War Bull
TF At The Moon: Is their a release schedule for the other figures in place yet, as well as an order and if so would you be able to share that information with us?
Thanks for taking care of this, I am not available now to announce this as this is our marketing schedules at this moment,we will release the information at Jan,2013,keep waiting for a while.
TF At The Moon: Would you be able to give us the dimensions of the Hawk toy as well as the final Beasticon figure himself?
I think the War Lord combiner is nice to match Maketoys Giant and Fans Project Cross fire kit for class Bruticus. So ,you may guess that? lol?
TF At The Moon: What is the biggest challenge to working on a toy of the scale and detail of Beasticon?
It's hard work for the structures of so big robots toy,as we must consider more about the articulations that can hold the weight of the body, the limb,also the big wings so, the gears and spring is oftenly applied to the toy. Also for the details, we consider more to close the simplicity and 3-4 layer on the very surface, for avoidng detail stuffed outlook, the simplicity and cleanness is most of our persuit during the development, and you can see, that's mostly Japanese styling robot, if you played with Gundam, you can see there are similarities.
TF At The Moon: Individual groups have been springing up producing garage kits / 3rd party add-ons / figures over the last few years. Over this time the quality of the materials being used has changed which has help the reception and sales of these figures.? Can we expect the Beasticons to be made from high quality materials?
Yes,we are not the first time making toys,actually we doing some production for other 3P company for years,so the material we will use first class ABS with polished mold surface, compares to other nicely successed 3P products.
TF At The Moon: On FB you mentioned that you share factories with some other 3P companies to help guarantee quality, would you be willing to name one such company?
Sorry for this question,we can't release that company name,as we only like people remember us by our performance more than relating us to other existed 3P companies,beg your pardon for that.
TF At The Moon: I know it it early days, butdo you have any plans to release a the figures as a complete set or only through individual released?
We will release individually ,the full combiner members will not last too long to be combined together. it's near the new year,so it's may influence our prodcutions.
TF At The Moon: Is there any word on theproduction numbers for the figures?
Yes,first shot we won't do so many production numbers,it's test how it would be popular,then we can decide to move next.
TF At The Moon: How will you be making the figures available for purchase and how are you finding demand from sellers?
It's quite complicated question, however, that's the most concern of our team. We find that fans love the toys with cars, aeroplanes, and beasts, just like the Beast Wars, so that's why we have confidence to select War Lord as our first shot. the good seller depending upon design,quality, and price as well, we have our reliable distribution net worldwide, if we do it right, we should have market.
TF At The Moon: How long as the figure been in production?
It's about 1-5 months depend on how the product complicated and the other elements.
TF At The Moon: You recently released some images on Facebook of lineart of Hawk, will this artwork be used on the packaging of the figure?
Yes, that's a teaser, we hope that can attract collector's interest, as we trust, the toys is a culture. it's for a dream come true, or the aestheticities and that's part of our comic or illustrations in the package or manual.
TF At The Moon: On a comment on your wall on Facebook, you made mention to looking for a large Italian seller to distribute the figures, would you be able to give us a list of territories where this figure is likely to see distribution?
We have our own distribution nets, but we like to know more people in special area, who are interest in our project, we always open the door for new friends become our distributor in the future?
TF At The Moon: What are you most proud of about Beasticon thus far?
Just like our childhood dreams coming true, lol. We are simple people we just go after our simple dreams.
TF At The Moon: Have you thought about producing a recolour of Beasticon in "heroic colours" to represent the original concept of the figure who inspired this release?
Yes, from molding re-use considerations, we shall have this planning in the future. the basic is, we need make the first shot perfectly, then collectors will asking for more redeco, dosen't it?
TF At The Moon: Is there anything else you would like to share with the fan community?
Thanks for all the fans who are becoming our facebook fans and friends, that's fantastic to show you all the War Lord - Beasticons, because we are in the same persuit as you, do TF right,that's our target and what we endeavor on. Will keep updating our Facebook pages with more War Hawk, War Leo, War Panther, War Bull, War Rhino.
And good day for you.
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