More on Last Week's Temp. Movie Shutdown

Tough week, huh? I hope you don't mind, but I just let it all pass so I could sort things out once it was over instead of stressing myself out by reporting every scandalous little scrap of info posted by websites that didn't know what they were talking about. Looks like we're through the worst of it, for now, anyway.

Deadline Hollywood Daily brings the details. If this is to be believed, then almost 80 people working on the Astro Boy film from the Imagi LA office were laid off. This is very unfortunate news, and I absolutely wish all the best to anyone affected by this. But the company still remains determined to release the film on time.

Besides completion, there is also the matter of distribution. Summit Entertainment is simply distributing the film, and so Imagi has to raise the money to promote the film themselves. This might be another tough nut to crack once the time comes.

On the positive side, Anime News Network and Variety each have articles about how the bridge funding for the film has arrived. From the wording I'm not entirely sure if the funding kicked in last week and production resumed right away, or if production was halted for the whole week after all, but it seems like the former from what I'm reading. Funding from the private equity companies is set to arrive tomorrow, so things should be back on track soon enough regardless.

In other news, looks like the previously reported rumor from last summer that Scarlett Johansson was going to be in the movie is not true after all. I had figured after the cast list started to gel and the teaser trailer was released that she wasn't going to be in it after all, but now it's confirmed that she won't be. MTV news spoke with her and, while she said that she had meetings about the film, she had not committed to it. My best guess is that Kristen Bell has the part that Scarlett Johansson was in the running for.

Anyway, let's hope everything runs smoothly from now on. Not only do I want this movie to come out on time, I don't think I could take the stress on having to write about it here if it doesn't!