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Walt Disney to Invest in Russia's Cartoons
The Walt Disney Co. intends to invest in cartoon production in Russia. The company has announced creation of Russia's division that will supervise all Disney projects in the country. This move of Disney is the first case when a world movie giant prefers to centralize business in Russia; so far, all of them have confined to being presented in Russia via their separate divisions.
It was Paul Zonderland, Buena Vista International (BVI) managing director for Italy and Russia, who announced the Walt Disney's plans to fund Russia's cartoons. Zonderland promised to come to Russia in April to hold talks with Russia's partners and weigh chances of investing not only in the cartoons but also in the feature films. As to the cartoons, the matter at stake is the full-length films like "the Lion King" that could be shown in Russia and worldwide.
The funneled amount will depend on each definite project in Russia, Zonderland said, specifying they are planning huge investments and will find enough money should the projects turn out very big.
Similar to other giants, Walt Disney's interest in Russia's roots in the lucrative expansion of cash receipts share demonstrated by national movies. The films of Russia's production accounted for 30 percent of over $346 million paid by the cinema-goers in Russia and CIS. Russia's audience paid more than $15 million just for cartoons.
The last argument that promoted Disney to invest in Russia's cartoons was, perchaps, the overwhelming success of "the Prince Vladimir," which raised over $2 million in the first weekend, leaving even "the Schreck 2" behind.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 10, 2006
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