Aussie-U.S. production company GRACE has acquired worldwide rights from Sony/ATV Music Publishing to The Beatles‘ catalog, a rare rights deal for the iconic band’s music that will be used to make the animated children’s series Beat Bugs, which is currently in development. The project is from GRACE principal Josh Wakely, who pitched Sony/ATV with the idea for the series, which uses original narratives interwoven with Beatles songs to tell the story of young bugs that live and learn life lessons in the magical universe of an overgrown backyard. Talks are underway with animation studios and licensees for distribution, with worldwide rights being sold by CAA and Hirsch, Wallerstein, Hayum, Matlof & Fishman. “Josh’s ingenuity and creative exploration of these iconic songs in a wholly imaginative world was too good to pass up and the idea of opening up the single greatest music catalogue of the 20th Century to the next generation is something we are particularly excited about”, Sony/ATV managing director Damian Trotter said in a release announcing the tie-up.
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The deal is a rarity for a catalog that has always been particular about how it is deployed — the band’s albums were slow in CD adaptation in the 1980s and weren’t available on iTunes until 2010. The Beatles are no strangers to animation — the 1968 animated fantasy pic Yellow Submarine spawned a soundtrack album of the same name the next year, marking the band’s 10th album.
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