Aug 9, 2024

Ketchup Entertainment Acquires North American Rights to "The Day the Earth Exploded": A Looney Tunes Movie

The Looney Tunes feature film "The Day the Earth Blows Up," which has been in limbo, is now happily complete in the U.S.: Ketchup Entertainment has acquired the North American rights to the film and will distribute it theatrically. A release date will be announced at a later date.

The fate of this hand-drawn 2D film became problematic when Warner Bros. which produced the film decided it did not want to release it any further. In an unconventional move, WB outsourced worldwide rights sales of the film to European distributor GFM Animation, which successfully marketed the title in multiple territories and countries.

Readers would be forgiven if they are unfamiliar with the name Ketchup, the distributor that secured the rights in the United States. The company has a limited track record in theatrical animation distribution, but it has a 13-year history of releasing live-action features, including Michel Franco's "Memory" and "Hypnotik" starring Ben Affleck. This fall will also see the release of "Hellboy/The Crooked Man" and the environmentally-themed animated feature "Oji, Voice of the Forest." [The Day the Earth Blew Up] is a historic moment for the Looney Tunes franchise, and we are proud to partner with Warner Bros. Animation to bring this film to theaters. We can't wait for audiences of all ages to experience one of the smartest animated films in recent years."

The Day the Earth Blew Up stars Daffy Duck and Porky Pig as they try to save the world from an alien invasion plan. The film premiered at the Annecy Animation Film Festival a few months ago to a strong positive response. Last weekend it was released theatrically in Germany, where it ranked 10th with €82,800 (US$90,461).

Peter Braungart, who developed and produced the new Looney Tunes Cartoon short series and produced Uncle Grumpa, directed the film.

Major credits include Eric Bauza, Candy Milo, Peter McNicol, and Fred Tatascioa as lead voice actors, Alex Kirwan as supervising producer, Nick Cross as art director, and Aaron Spurgeon as production designer, and Braungardt and Sam Register as executive producers.

Uniquely, Braungardt used board artists to write the film's screenplay. They are Darick Bachman, Pete Braungart, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, and Eddie Trigeros.

Ketchup's foray into the animation space is part of a growing trend in the US theatrical market. In last week's livestream, we discussed the surprising number of independent and niche theatrical distributors releasing feature films in the U.S. this year: in addition to well-known distributors like Gkids, Crunchyroll, and Viva, all of whom release multiple films each year, 2024 will see Sideshow and Janus Films (Gints Zilbalodis' "Flow"), IFC Films (Adam Elliot's "Memoir of a Snail"), and Blue Fox Entertainment (Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry's "Kensuke's Kingdom") by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry.