Imagi Entertainment, the Hong Kong-based CGI animation studio behind the Astro Boy CGI feature that is due to be released here in October, has unveiled a Website (complete with teaser trailer) for a new animated movie based on Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Tetsujin 28.  Yokoyama’s Tetsujin 28 manga debuted in 1956 and a TV anime based on the manga (the first giant robot anime) aired in the U.S. from 1963-65 on NBC as Gigantor.  Like Astro Boy, the Tetsujin 28 anime has been remade several times already, most recently as a live action film released in Japan in 2005.

In spite of the existence of the Tetsjuin 28 Website, it is by no means clear that Imagi will produce a new Tetsujin 28 feature.  As the Astroboy World Website reports, visitors to the site are asked to comment on the trailer and to indicate whether or not they want Imagi to produce a Tetsujin 28 feature. 

Right now it appears that the fate of a Tetsujin 28 CGI feature as well as that of other Imagi productions including a new Gatchaman feature (see “Gatchaman Gets Writer”) will depend on how well Astro Boy performs at the worldwide box office.  A recent article on Imagi’s financing in Variety indicates that the studio does have enough financial resources at this time to finish Astro Boy, but the auditing firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu indicated that as of the end of 2008, Imagi did not have enough funds available to complete work on Gatchaman, Tusker and Cat Tale, three projects that are already underway, to save nothing of the as yet not formally announced Tetsujin 28.