14 DAY TRIAL // After delighting the audiences with movies like Happy Feet, 300, The Matrix, Moulin Rouge and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Australian company Animal Logic decided it was time to start expanding their business and created a brand new game development company called Animal Logic Interactive (ALI). The newly-created firm is based in Los Angeles and it will focus on computer and video games and interactive entertainment ventures.
Giancarlo Mori, former vice president of production at Activision's North American studios, has been appointed to lead ALI and he has already announced he hopes that the collaboration between the Australian-based SFX company and the newly created one will be "a very organic exchange of creative development".
Even though we all know that competition is fierce in the gaming industry and big companies are only getting bigger and making it quite impossible for smaller developers to take a piece of the pie, Animal Logic is known as an against-the-odds winner when it comes to movies - they won the Oscar with Happy Feet, competing against Cars, the Pixar created animation movie. Of course, they are planning to do the same thing in the gaming industry.
And if we put Happy Feet aside and think about the other "hardcore" movies the company has worked on: 300 or The Matrix, to give two very relevant examples, it is crystal clear that they do have the technology and the talent needed to create quality stuff. We just hope they have the power to bring great stories and perfect gameplay mechanics to their games - and that they actually start developing them as soon as possible.
But, whatever the outcome of ALI's decision will be, one thing is clear: the games industry is slowly becoming the biggest form of entertainment in the world. Sorry, Matt Damon!