Our Films

Then, when he was researching Astro Boy, Bowers learned that Osamu Tezuka was highly influenced by the work of Walt Disney. "It was easy to see where Astro Boy came from. There are all sorts of similarities with Pinocchio — plus he improved it with giant fighting robots!"

Staying faithful to the original "Astro Boy" while updating its sensibility for a 21st century audience was a central concern for everyone involved with the film, says Maryann Garger, the film's producer. "Astro Boy is a national treasure in Japan. He is their Mickey Mouse. We wanted to create that same excitement and passion for the character in Western audiences."

"I think viewers who know the character will see Astro Boy's story in a way they haven't seen it before," she adds. "On the other hand, if you're new to Astro Boy, it's an incredibly emotional story. It's sort of Pinocchio, but it's also Star Wars. And it's not just for kids. It's for grownups, too, and hopefully moviegoers around the world will discover that."

Bowers is confident that longtime fans will be happy with this updated Astro Boy. "He is still the Astro Boy we know and love, except this is the first time on the big screen, so it's a much bigger story. It has much more scope and much more scale, even in things like the emotional aspects of Astro Boy's journey."

But while Astro Boy has a poignant side, the filmmakers have not skimped on the action — or the humor, says Bowers. "We have Astro Boy flying down the streets, cars blowing up, buildings collapsing. We have flying cities crashing to the ground. It's heartwarming, but at the same time very exciting and very funny, too."

While Garger admits she did not grow up with Astro Boy, she says it was love at first sight. "It's a very enriching story, a wonderful emotional journey and Astro is a great, great character. It's easy to understand how he became a worldwide icon."

Actor Freddie Highmore, who voices the pint-sized superhero, points toward Astro Boy's innate altruism as one reason for his enduring popularity. "He's a real superhero in that he uses his powers for good," says Highmore. "There are so many people in the world who are very clever or talented in some way. They usually use their gifts for their own benefit. Astro Boy never puts himself first. He goes to save the whole world. "

"Astro Boy is the individual who sets out to change the society," the actor continues. "In our world, just like in his, there are so many rules and restrictions that make it hard for the individual to make a difference, but that's what Astro Boy always tries to do."

The opportunity to direct Astro Boy was too good an opportunity for Bowers to pass up, he says. "My job, first and foremost, is to be a storyteller. I helped harness the creative energies of all these amazing people surrounding me to get the story out there as something that people can enjoy. I hope that it's something that will be around for a while. If we can move people, if we can make people laugh and make people cry, then I think we've done our job. If we can excite them and have them at the edge of their seats, too, then we've done our job really well."

Putting together the best project possible meant assembling an all-star creative team, says the director. "We managed to get these amazing talents to work on our film. Everybody was committed to making Astro Boy the most spectacular, fantastic, exciting and funniest movie that we could possibly create."

The film is produced by Imagi Studios, a Hong Kong-based animation studio with a creative development and production facility in Los Angeles and an office in Tokyo. The company's first major CG-animated theatrical movie, TMNT, was released domestically March 23, 2007 by Warner Bros. and opened No. 1 at the box office.

"Imagi has all these great artists from around the world who are very passionate," Bowers adds. "A lot of top creative people that I worked with at other studios are there, so it really felt like we were getting the band back together. I was thrilled to be reunited with Maryann Garger, who was the co-producer of Flushed Away." Garger echoes his enthusiasm. "Imagi is especially exciting for me because we have an opportunity to help build the studio," she says. "That was something I loved doing when I was at DreamWorks. Because Imagi is a young studio, there's a lot of artistic energy which translates to the screen. We have made a film that we're very proud of that will compete in today's global marketplace."

The film's screenplay is by Bowers and Timothy Harris, a seasoned writer whose credits include such hits as Trading Places and Kindergarten Cop as well as the blockbuster animated action comedy Space Jam.

Bowers says that as a parent, he was particularly excited to be making Astro Boy.

"When kids go to the movie theater to see Astro Boy, I hope it will be an amazing experience for them," the director says. "But when they come out of the movie theater, I want that experience to expand into their everyday lives. That's how Astro Boy is in Japan, and I'd love for it to be that in the United States."

It's definitely not necessary to be a dyed-in-wool Astro Boy fan to enjoy the movie, however, says Highmore. "It stands on its own as a film. You can go and see it without any knowledge or go and see it knowing a lot about the character. It's really entertaining either way."

Nicolas Cage, who voices Dr. Tenma, Astro Boy's father, says he grew up watching the original black and white "Astro Boy" television series. "There was a tremendous amount of emotion in those Japanese cartoons," he remembers. "I couldn't take my eyes off of it. There was this marvelous charm in seeing somebody that small be that powerful. I think that's something that a lot of children can get in step with."

Cage once hoped to make a live-action feature based on the character. "It wasn't something that ever got off the ground," he says. "But Mr. Tezuka sent me a little wooden clock with all his characters carved into it. Even though I never met the man, I feel a personal connection to him, which was part of the reason I chose to participate in this movie."

The key to Astro Boy's popularity, says Cage, is his inherent humanity. "I love Astro Boy's good-heartedness, his wanting to belong, wanting to be loved, even though he's this little robot. You can't help but adore the character, because you feel so much for him. Those things separate Astro from other anime."

Cage also has compassion for the character he plays, although Tenma initially rejects his creation. "Dr. Tenma is a tragic character. He has lost his child and he thinks he can use his knowledge of robotics to bring Toby back. Instead, it becomes painful for him to look at Astro Boy, who looks just like Toby, but will never be him. It makes for an additional layer of complexity, because it gives Tenma and Astro Boy a place to go in terms of healing the relationship."

He acknowledges a sense of obligation to make a movie that lives up to the original "Astro Boy." "I think everybody involved has a feeling of responsibility for it," he explains. "We want it to be a moving experience, because we are connected to the material. My hope is that audiences receive this movie in the way they did earlier classics like Pinocchio or The Iron Giant. Those movies are fun to watch, but they also bring so much emotion with them. Astro Boy tries to do more than to just wow you with special effects. It tries to get you to feel something on the most poetic and sublime levels."

Kristen Bell, who voices Cora, a young runaway from Metro City with a thorny exterior, says being in a movie with a cast that includes Nicolas Cage, Nathan Lane and Bill Nighy is a dream come true for her. "The film is going to be wildly entertaining and really heartwarming," she says. "The images are so beautiful. There's a lot of heart behind this movie because there's a lot of heart behind this little boy. Everything has gone wrong for him and you really root for him because you know that he's true to himself."

"When I was growing up, I secretly wanted to be in a cartoon musical," she reveals. "I didn't get to sing as Cora, but this ended up being such a wonderful experience. For me, it was all new and exciting. It was really fun to see the whole process. First, it was just the pencil sketches and then the pencil sketches started to move. Then you saw a little bit of color and bold lines, and it kept getting better. Each time I went in to record, I saw new sequences cut together and, thought, oh, wow, we're really making a great movie!"

Bell saw a number of parallels between Astro Boy's underlying themes and major issues facing society today. "What you walk away with depends on what's important to you," says the actress. "One of the things I liked in the script was the whole idea that robots are second-class citizens and they shouldn't be looked at like they have feelings or rights. People who fight for equality will recognize the robots versus human aspect. People who care about the environment will recognize the need to cherish this world and clean it up a little bit, before it's too late."

The actress says she found much of what she needed to create her character on the page, but also put a lot of herself into the role. "I loved Cora's attitude and her sarcasm and her ability to be witty," Bell says. "At the same time, she takes good care of the kids that she lives with. She's really tough, but she would never betray them or want to be betrayed by them. She gets her sense of family from those kids. She is like the group's den mother."

Bell says she understands Cora's reluctance to accept Astro Boy once she finds out he is a robot. "She's sympathetic to the robot's plight and children especially will identify with him. It's an important thing to talk about. Everybody wants to be accepted. The story is about embracing who you really are and letting the world know."

Tony Winner Nathan Lane plays Hamegg, an earth-side entrepreneur that Lane compares to Fagin in Oliver Twist. He employs all of these children to help him run his business, which is pitching gladiator-style combat between robots. Hamegg uses them to find robots and robot parts for him.

"It's a good story, a classic story and I think people will have a great time watching it," says Lane. "The artwork is very impressive and true to the original, and at the same time very high-tech and new. They have created a world that seems very real. Astro Boy is solid family entertainment."

Actor Bill Nighy admits to being very impressed by the international phenomenon surrounding Astro Boy. "He is so beloved in Japan," Nighy marvels. "There are statues of him, as well as whole stores devoted to Astro Boy. Not only is he exciting as an adventure character, but he's also terribly chic. I love the whole experience of Astro Boy."

Nighy is a prolific actor whose many memorable roles have included debauched glam rocker Billy Mack in Love Actually and Viktor, the vampire king, in the Underworld franchise. He plays two characters in Astro Boy: Dr. Elefun, a scientist and colleague of Tenma, and Robotsky, a rebel robot. He signed on knowing that David Bowers, who directed him in Flushed Away, was helming the project. "I was reassured that I was in safe hands."

About his characters, Nighy says, "Dr. Elefun is the conscience of the movie. He's the man that they should all listen to and don't. He is also Astro Boy's best friend, and the good spirit within the movie. On the audience's behalf, he counsels well and in good faith, while up against enormous odds."

"Robotsky looks a bit like a filing cabinet on legs," he continues. "He is part of the Robot Revolutionary Front (RRF), a collection of good-hearted idiots with a reasonably good excuse to make noise. They want robots to have the same rights that humans enjoy and to be set free to wander in the world. Robotsky has one role with the RRF and one role only - muscle. He's not overly bright, he is good-hearted and he is quite strong."

Playing two characters meant coming up with two distinct voices for Nighy. "The process that David Bowers and I employ is that I come in with some inappropriate and appalling ideas and then he rehabilitates me and allows me to do it properly," says Nighy, a distinguished theater actor whose other film credits include Pirates of the Caribbean's Davy Jones. "I had a series of ideas for Dr. Elefun that I thought were funny. When David recovered from that, he asked me if I could do it as myself more or less, and do it with some dignity. Robotsky had to be very different from Dr. Elefun and his voice needed to indicate that he is not perhaps the full ticket upstairs, as it were."

For Nighy, the strength of the film lies in the audience's identification with the leading character. "It's an action movie, but it's an action movie with heart and comedy," he says. "I love the idea that Astro Boy is a robot so beautifully designed that he approaches humanity. It addresses questions of finding out who you are and how to deal with the fact of yourself."

Nighy states, "It has everything an audience likes. It's funny, it's exciting, and it concerns itself with things that are in all of our lives. It's dramatized beautifully and the whole idea is very powerful, but also very witty."

As Orrin, a robot working in Dr. Tenma's household, Bowers cast Eugene Levy. "Orrin's kind of a nervous type," says Levy. "And robots in Metro City are a kind of appliance and they're treated the way you would treat a toaster or an oven."

Levy has lent his voice to animated films including Over the Hedge and Curious George. He says that he enjoys doing voice work in part because it brings him back to his professional beginnings in Toronto. "When I started acting, there was a lot of radio commercial work being done and that's how actors made a reasonably good living."

Although Levy's distinctive voice has become something of a calling card for him, he says he has never viewed it as a strength. "There have been times when I wished I had a voice like Christopher Plummer, deep and resonant. But ultimately, it is up to the brain trust that put this thing together to hear it. An actor has to give them a range of options for line readings and stay totally flexible. It's a great exercise and it can really be a challenge."

When Levy was first approached to do Astro Boy, the filmmakers sent him a meticulously assembled binder of characters and illustrations. "When I looked through this amazing book, I saw images that were spectacular and characters that looked quite endearing. It was very impressive. In the finished product, the animation is just as incredible, but it's the emotional current that runs through this very impressive-looking work that becomes very moving."

That presentation also impressed two-time Golden Globe Winner Donald Sutherland, who plays President Stone. "It was so compelling," he says. "Then I saw the realized footage. It was absolutely thrilling and everything that I imagined. In fact, it was way beyond what I imagined. The look of it, the energy of it, the joy of it, the sincerity of soul is extraordinary. It's a monumental work."

The process of voicing an animated character doesn't differ greatly from acting on camera, he says. "It is creating the character and then coming into a recording studio and voicing him. The character and his reality are there. When I come into the studio, I like to imagine I'm a singer like Peggy Lee or Anita O'Dea."

Sutherland owns up to having a statue of Astro Boy in his house. "He's perfect," says Sutherland. "He has honor and a heart of gold. He's smart and innocent and exquisitely loveable. What more could you ask for?"

British comedian Matt Lucas provided the voice of Sparx, leader of the Robot Revolutionary Front. "He's actually the self-appointed leader," says Lucas. "Sparx is a very intense and intelligent robot. He's just not quite as intelligent as he thinks he is, which makes him good fun to play. The writer gave him some truly funny lines and I was given a bit of free rein as well to improvise."

For the voice, Lucas harked back to classic British sitcom stars like Leonard Rossitter. "He is best known in the U.S. for his work on Rising Damp and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin," says Lucas. "I tried to incorporate some of his vocal tics into the performance."

The actor says it was flattering to be included in such a distinguished cast - although he has yet to meet any of them. "I'm afraid that at the premiere, I'll say, ‘Hello! How are you?, and they'll say, ‘You're being a bit over-familiar. If you stay behind the barrier, please, I'll sign an autograph for you.'"

While Lucas says Astro Boy will be a treat for longtime fans of anime, it is also a perfect entry point for people who haven't yet discovered the art form. "The visuals are brilliantly realized. David has taken the best of what exists and put a new contemporary twist on it."

The film's designers aspired to create a world that would resemble nothing that audiences have ever seen before. Much of the inspiration for Astro Boy's world comes from the work of Isamu Noguchi, the famous 20th century Japanese-American artist and landscape architect.

Noguchi's work with abstraction inspired them to use simple shapes which they brought to life using the most advanced computer lighting, texturing and modeling techniques available. The results go far beyond the souped-up, fuselage-based spacecrafts or flying cars with fins already seen in a host of movies from the past.

The designers also turned to Japan for ideas for the film's backgrounds. They turned to the work of 19th century woodblock artist, Katsushika Hokusai as a jumping-off point. Hokusai's work takes a simple approach to landscapes, eliminating visual clutter in favor of distilling an image to its essence.

Actor Bill Nighy calls the look of Astro Boy "very modern, very 21st century. It has been modified from the original and yet retains the Japanese influences beautifully integrated into a kind of Western look and feel."

According to Wang, the film is representative of the kind of movies that Imagi wants to build its reputation on.

The creators of the new Astro Boy movie know they have set the bar high for themselves by taking a well-known, beloved property and presenting it to audiences in a new form. "Astro Boy is the original anime property," says producer Maryann Garger. "He was first introduced in America back in the 1960s, but we have the opportunity to reintroduce him to the world as a new icon who can hold his own with the biggest blockbusters out there."

TIMOTHY HYDE HARRIS (Writer), credited with such box office hits as Space Jam, Kindergarten Cop, Twins and Trading Places, has been authoring screenplays for almost 30 years. His credits also include three noir novels featuring a Los Angeles private detective, Kyd for Hire, Goodnight and Good-Bye and Unfaithful Servant. In addition, Harris produced Falling Down, directed by Joel Schumacher, which was selected for the official competition at the 1993 Cannes International Film Festival.

MARYANN GARGER (Producer) was a co-producer of Flushed Away. She began her career in animation as production coordinator on Pocahontas. She was the 14th employee hired at DreamWorks in 1995 and served as a production supervisor on The Prince of Egypt, production manager on Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Madagascar and production executive on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. She also produced the DreamWorks short film First Flight.

GARGER hails from New Hampshire and attended Syracuse University.

CECIL KRAMER (Executive Producer) has more than 20 years of production experience in various fields within the entertainment industry. She produced the critically acclaimed animated feature Flushed Away and recently served as an executive producer on the 2005 Academy Award-winning stop-motion comedy Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Best Animated Feature). Previously, she held the post of co-head of production for DreamWorks Animation, where she oversaw the development of such animated features as Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Chicken Run and the Oscar®-winning smash Shrek.

Previously, Kramer produced visual effects for live-action films such as Crimson Tide and Cabin Boy. She also served as the post-production supervisor on Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. She was also a production executive at Buena Vista Pictures, Walt Disney Imagineering and Film Finances.

Kramer began her career as a feature film costumer and later worked as a production manager on TV commercials and in the field of public broadcasting.

KEN TSUMURA (Executive Producer) is executive vice president, production, Hong Kong, at Imagi Studios. Prior to joining Imagi, he was senior vice president, production & technology at Vancouver-based Mainframe Entertainment (now Rainmaker Animation).

A 22-year animation veteran, Tsumura's numerous production credits include executive producer on Universal Pictures' feature Curious George, producer on DreamWorks' CG-animated television series Father of the Pride and executive producer on Columbia Pictures' Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights. He also served as animation co-producer on the Fox Television series The Simpsons and The Critic.

PAUL WANG (Executive Producer) has been involved in filmmaking and computer graphics for the last 20 years. After running Four-D, his own boutique animation house in New York, Wang entered the computer-generated visual effects industry, where he created special visual effects for such movies as Batman Forever and The Peacemaker. He went on to PDI / DreamWorks, where he did pioneering work on animated motion pictures such as Antz, Shrek and Madagascar. He also worked on the theme park ride Shrek 4-D and DreamWorks Television's CG-animated television series Father of the Pride. Wang was a producer on Imagi Studios' hit feature TMNT and is executive vice president, development at Imagi.

FRANCIS KAO (Executive Producer) is the founder and chief creative officer of Imagi Studios. He founded Imagi in 2000, bringing to life his vision of a world-class CG animation studio in Asia. Kao sets the creative direction for Imagi Studios and is the ultimate decision-maker for its movie slate. Focusing on motion picture development and production, he is also responsible for the management of the company's intellectual properties. Presently, Kao is also supervising the development of Gatchaman, based on the hit 1970s television series.

Kao served as executive producer on Imagi Studios' first feature film, TMNT (2007), which opened number one at the U.S. box office, and on Highlander: The Search for Vengeance (2006), the critically acclaimed action-fantasy film from Japanese anime master Yoshiaki Kawajiri.

Kao graduated from California State University, Sacramento with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance Management. He then joined Boto, Imagi's predecessor company, in 1999 to embark on a number of new initiatives designed to create a brand for the manufacturing company.

PILAR FLYNN (Line Producer) began her animation career at DreamWorks, where she worked for eight years on the development and production of such films as The Road to El Dorado, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Madagascar and Flushed Away. She also co-produced DreamWorks' first CG-animated short, the multiple award-winning First Flight.

Most recently, Flynn served as associate producer of the animated feature film Mean Margaret for IDT / Starz Media.

Bowers continues: "When Who Framed Roger Rabbit came up, I was studying for a degree in animation at the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham, Surrey. I didn't often agree with my tutors and they didn't often agree with me. Roger Rabbit was a dream job. I idolized Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, not to mention animation director Richard Williams. It was a big-budget, effects-filled movie starring almost all the classic cartoon characters and drawn by some of the greatest animators in the world. I applied for a position as an inbetweener and they accepted me, probably due to desperation as the film was way behind schedule. I think they were hiring just about anyone who could hold a pencil. I gave up my degree and moved to London."

Bowers then worked as an animator / story artist on such films as An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Balto, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado and Chicken Run. He comments: "I think I've been lucky in that I've had an opportunity to do lots of different jobs. I was an animator for many years, I've done a little layout and was a story artist in the UK before moving to the United States."

After relocating to the U.S., Bowers moved between Los Angeles and Bristol as a key creative contributor on such Aardman / DreamWorks projects as the Oscar®-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, before directing Flushed Away.

As to what attracted him to Imagi and to Astro Boy, Bowers says: "I'd been hearing about Imagi and knew that the Astro Boy project was slated for release, so I definitely had an interest. I'd worked with Maryann (Garger) before and she's a great producer, which gave me confidence that Astro Boy could be something very special. Plus I'd seen TMNT and was impressed by the technical prowess and artistry of the crew."

Bowers elaborates on his vision for Astro Boy: "I want Astro Boy to be a really special movie, a mix of action-adventure with lots of comedy and a really emotional story at its core. It's an iconic property and deserves respect, so I don't want to give it the glib, pop-referential treatment that so many animated movies have today. Instead I want it to stand as a classic superhero origin story, something befitting the icon of Astro Boy, kind of along the lines of Richard Donner's Superman. I want it to serve as an introduction to Astro Boy for western audiences whilst remaining faithful to the lore for Asian audiences. Astro Boy is a treasured icon in Japan and so I'm working closely with the Tezuka estate to ensure I get everything right."

He continues: "Astro Boy is all about finding our identities, and the relationships we have with our parents. On his journey Astro Boy encounters a lot of adversity but manages to overcome it all. It's an optimistic movie."

The director states that he is driven by his passion "to make a great picture that touches people and can be enjoyed by all ages". He adds: "Osamu Tezuka was a visionary, and Astro Boy was new and cutting edge when he created him. The technology and the design have been updated for this movie but the intent and the emotional story are timeless."

The all-star cast is headed by Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland and Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma. Bowers states: "I just wanted the best actors for the roles that I can possibly get and on Astro Boy I've been very lucky. Our cast balances comedy and drama very well."

Imagi Studios' Astro Boy will be released in theaters across North America on October 23, 2009. Summit Entertainment is distributing worldwide except for Imagi's reserved territories of Japan, Hong Kong and China.