American film production company, Alcon Entertainment has secured the exclusive rights from Garfield creator, Jim Davis to produce animated motion pictures based on the iconic comic strip, Garfield.
Alcon plans to build a franchise of CG-animated Garfield feature films with Jim Davis serving as executive producer, Alcon co-founders and co-chief executive officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove announced.
Garfield debuted in 1978 and became a pop culture sensation in the 1980s. It chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield, Jon, his owner, and Jon’s dog, Odie.
Garfield quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its release, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise.
By 2002, Garfield became the world’s most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide; by 2004, Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries.
The strip holds the Guinness record for being the most widely syndicated comic strip and it is seen in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, with an estimated readership of 260 million.
“Jim Davis’s creation has been an international sensation for all ages for decades, and we are thrilled to bring an animated Garfield feature to the big screen,” said Kosove and Johnson.
John Cohen (producer of Despicable Me and The Angry Birds Movie) and Steven P. Wegner brought the project to Alcon.
Cohen and Wegner will produce the film along with Alcon’s Kosove and Johnson. Bridget McMeel will executive produce with Davis.
“I’ve been so impressed with the quality of animation and storytelling coming out of Hollywood of late,” said Davis.
“I can’t wait to get into production with the terrific team Alcon has assembled.”
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