France’s Mediawan Kids & Family took to the stage at Annecy today to announce several new titles and partnerships, including two CG-animated features—Twisted and Meow-woof—that are in the financing stage.

A co-pro with Mediawan’s Palomar Animation in Rome, buddy-comedy fantasy Twisted targets kids ages six-plus and tells the story of a teen who must work with a truth-telling beast to save his Italian town from an evil curse. 

Also in the odd-couple vein, Meow-woof (pictured) is a Freaky Friday-style caper for the five-plus crowd. It will be co-produced with Paris-based Big Band Story and centers around an athletic dog and a lazy cat who mysteriously switch bodies and gain a newfound empathy for each other. 

In partnership news, Mediawan Kids & Family’s Method Animation studio will team up with French broadcaster TF1 to develop an Astro Boy reboot that was originally announced at Annecy 2022. This co-pro with Monaco’s Shibuya Productions reimagines the classic manga IP as a CG-animated series tackling themes like technological advancement and the significance of nature.

The company has also come on board as a co-producer and distributor for tween toon Duck & Frog (50 x seven minutes) from Bristol-based Sun & Moon. The show’s namesake protagonists are routinely hired and fired from a variety of jobs in this slapstick comedy, which generated some buzz last year when it made the cut for the BBC’s Ignite initiative and was presented at Cartoon Forum. 

Other new series in development under Mediawan’s umbrella include Somewhere Animation’s 2D toon Chococat & Me (52 x 11 minutes) for viewers six and up; and Tales of the Miruu: Vet Explorers (13 x 26 minutes), a tween-skewing CG-animated co-pro between Method and Good Hero in Paris and New York. 

Busy content pipeline aside, it’s been an eventful year for Mediawan in other ways as well. The company acquired Germany’s Leonine Studios in April and partnered with ZAG to launch Miraculous Corp last month—announcing yesterday that it has hired former Moonbug exec Andy Yeatman as the joint-venture’s CEO. 

Image credit: Big Band Story – Mediawan Kids & Family