EXCLUSIVE: India’s Toonz Media Group has boarded A Banquet For the Hungry Ghosts, an animated horror anthology film.
At AFM, the film will be introduced for presales as a key pillar of Thiruvananthapuram-based Toonz’s international slate.
The 90-minute pic is based on a book from Chinese-American author and chef Ying Chang Compestine, and produced by Singapore’s Robot Playground Media, whose co-founder, Ervin Han, is helming the project.
He will lead a team of animators from Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan, who are uniting under the Robot Playground studio banner.
The story follows four standalone, but interlinked tales, each inspired by an iconic Chinese dish and tied together by a spectral chef, who presides over a mysterious, otherwordly restaurant. Producers say it blends “the macabre, the playful and the poetic” to deliver “a chilling cinematic experience that explores themes of human frailty and ancestral guilt and greed.”
“A Banquet for the Hungry Ghosts takes the global appetite for horror and gives it an unmistakably Asian taste – four stories, one haunting experience, and a franchise that’s just beginning,” said Han.
Toonz, the Indian powerhouse animation company, turned 25 this year. It currently produces more than 10,000 minutes of 2D and CGI kids and family content each year, and has credits for the likes of Marvel series Wolverine and the X-Men and Speed Racer: The Next Generation, made with Lionsgate. Features from the studio include Pierre the Pigeon Hawk, co-produced with Exodus Film Group; Zombie Town, which is based on the book by R.L. Stein; Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story; Bartali’s Bicycle; and Bunyan and Babe, another co-pro with Exodus.
“I am a firm believer that Asian stories should travel the world. We have a rich culture and a deep tradition of storytelling, and its essence is truly universal,” said P. Jayakumar, CEO of Toonz. “As the world becomes more cosmopolitan and interest grows in understanding diverse traditions, this film will be a real treat, not just for animation lovers, but for fans of horror, thrillers, and cinema in general.”
