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Nelvana licenses Card Captor Sakura
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Toronto-based animation company Nelvana Ltd. reported yesterday that they have secured the rights to the 70-episode CLAMP TV series Card Captor Sakura.
Nelvana, best known in America for its own animation projects (such as the 80's cartoons "Get-along Gang" and "The Care Bears" and newer projects like "Franklin" and "Little Bear") obtained sole television distribution and merchendising rights to the series from producer Kodansha for an undisclosed amount. The series name will be shortened to simply, "Cardcaptor".
Nelvana is hoping the recent popularity of Pokémon and Sailor Moon will influence fans of these series to watch Card Captor as well, which has a storyline similar to that of Sailor Moon, and hopes to derive fifty percent of total revenue from the series from marketing efforts. "It's premature to try to put a figure on it, but we think we can build a serious business out of it," Nelvana Co-Chief Executive Michael Hirsh said.
Nelvana is also in talks with Kodansha to license other childrens' programs from their TV series catalog. It is unknown if the manga series, previously thought to have been licensed by Mixx Entertainment, will be released by Nelvana's recently aquired publishing arm, Kids Can Press.
