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I hadn’t even covered this movie for awhile but in dropping the movie blogs I learned that Imagi Studios, makers of the computer animated movie Astro boy, has inked licensing for its products. From a layman’s standpoint though, this means we’ll be getting some Astro Boy products.. including toys. Yay!

Imagi Studios announced today that it has signed the first worldwide licensing agreements for its upcoming computer-animated film Astro Boy.

Among the property’s new licensees are Jazwares (master toy), American Greetings (social expressions), Penguin Group USA (publications), D3Publisher (video games) and IDW Publishing (comic books and graphic novels).

The studio’s agreement with American Greetings also extends to future Imagi films. [source]

It was recently reported that the Dragonball movie would be screened at the coming Comic Con (the event will be held from Thursday, July 24 – Sunday, July 27 2008 in San Diego, CA.) I’ve also come across that another movie, Astro Boy, will be screened at the event as well. Another film by IMAGI studios, the film outfit producing the Astro Boy movie, has another CG-movie in the works called Gatchaman. Both films are set to hit theaters in 2009.

Imagi Entertainment, the peepz who brought you the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie has had Astro Boy as their second animated installment for awhile. And while they had clarified earlier that Astro Boy will be an animated film, most fans continued to speculate. I for one might not have preferred a all-CG movie, but who cares…

So it’d been announced - Freddie Highmore, the kid Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and August Rush, will be the voice of Astro Boy. With him come actors Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy and Eugene Levy. The movie will be directed by David Bowers. It will be shown in 2009.