November 2008
Citizen Siege not set aside yet
Despite what was suggested by Variety’s videogame blogger earlier in the week, Sherry McKenna has confirmed that the project is still in development, albeit not with originally‐announced partner Vanguard Animation.
Ben Fritz originally wrote on The Cute Scene:
It’ll be a while until we find out exactly what Oddworld’s up to now. But I do know it won’t be the ‘Citizen Siege’ animated movie that it was previously working on with Vanguard Entertainment. McKenna told me there were ‘creative differences’ and the rights are reverting back to Oddworld.
But speaking to GamesIndustry.biz’s Matt Martin, Sherry has denied the multi‐media sci‐fi story has been dropped:
Citizen Siege is a project near and dear to our hearts so while we are no longer developing it with Vanguard due to the famous ‘creative differences’, it is still in development.
The Citizen Siege feature film was announced by Lorne at the first GameCity two years ago as being in development by a partnership between Oddworld Inhabitants and John H. Williams’ Vanguard Animation. Since then, little news has been reported on the project, except that it will have two videogame accompaniments including the online multiplayer Wage Wars.
Sherry has also commented on the previous day’s news that Larry Shapiro is the new president of Oddworld Inhabitants:
Lorne has always had the title of president but now with our new model he is going to concentrate on what he loves most and that of course is the creative. Larry will get to deal with all the ‘stuff’ presidents of companies have to deal with. The good news is that we all see the future in a similar vein so that makes it very exciting.’
Sources: GamesIndustry.biz
Larry Shapiro becomes president of Oddworld
Larry Shapiro, formerly Chief Creative Officer at Brash Entertainment, has been named the new president of Oddworld Inhabitants. Shapiro was Oddworld’s agent when he was co‐head of CAA’s videogame department, and joins the company having left Brash—the game publisher recently turned into a skeleton crew during financial hardship—in July. OWI’s previous president, Lorne Lanning, will step down to focus more on the company’s creative side.
Speaking to Variety weblog The Cut Scene, Lorne says:
No one is more in stride with us than Larry. We both see the same future landscape. It’s a petty radical departure from the contemporary landscape. While we think there’s a number of barriers to break through, we think there are tremendous opportunities on the other side of the barrier.
Shapiro has similar high hopes that the new partnership will aid Oddworld’s new business model:
I have a great opportunity to add value to a company and to work with people who I am inspired by and who look to where the industry is going and not where its been. We intend to break the model of where games are today in a unique and entertaining way.
Considering Oddworld Inhabitants’ next release, The Cut Scene reporter Ben Fritz supposes it won’t be the Citizen Siege feature film produced in partnership with Vanguard Animation, having been told by Sherry McKenna that there were ‘creative differences’ and ‘the rights are reverting back to Oddworld.’
Sources: The Cut Scene