Variety is reporting that Summit Entertainment will distribute Imagi Studio’s new CGI Astro Boy feature worldwide (except for Japan, Hong Kong and China).  Previously Imagi had announced that Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company, who had handled the distribution of Imagi’s previous effort, the TMNT film, would be performing the same chores for Astro Boy and Gatchaman (see “WB, Weinsteins Distributing Imagi Features”), but Summit Entertainment, which recently optioned Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner’s Red (see “Summit Sees Red”), will handle the distribution for Astro Boy.  Summit, which is releasing its first animated feature, Fly Me to the Moon, this August, eventually plans to release 10-12 films per year.

Imagi has assembled an impressive vocal cast for its new version of Osamu Tezuka’s classic Astro Boy.  The excellent young British actor Freddie Highmore, who was brilliant in a double role in The Spiderwick Chronicles, will voice Astro Boy using the American accent he developed for Spiderwick.  Other actors lending their voices to the new Astro Boy include Nicholas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy, and Eugene Levy.