Toronto, Canada-based Nelvana Studios, a division of Corus Entertainment, has appointed veteran producers Marion Edwards and Derek Reeves to head up its international co-pro efforts.

The non-exclusive deal, charges Edwards and Reeves with building and maintaining relationships with production partners in their respective regions; managing international co-productions on an ongoing basis and scouting for new content.

Edwards is focusing on Europe, while Reeves looks after Asia Pacific.

Edwards already has her first project on the go. Canuck/French co-pro Willa’s Wildlife. The 52 x 11-minute series is based on the popular book An Octopus Followed Me Home by Dan Yaccarino. As for Reeves, he’s working with Canada and Singapore on the 26 x 30-minute, CGI series The Future Is Wild derived from the Animal Planet special of the same name. The series will air in Canada on Teletoon and US on Discovery Kids.

Meanwhile, Nelvana Enterprises, the company’s commercial arm has made a whopper of a deal with Amazon’s download-to-own service Unbox, which launched this past September.

US customers will be able to download a number of series from Nelvana’s catalogue, including Di-Gata Defenders and classics such as Babar and The Adventures of Tin Tin for US$1.99 an episode. The content should be available in then next two months at www.amazon.com/unbox.