Popular gaming platforms Roblox and Fortnite will be key marketing platforms for the launch of Toei Animation’s upcoming English-language film “Hypergalactic.”
“Hypergalactic” is directed by David N. Weiss (“Shrek 2,” “The Smurfs”) and Joseph Chou (“Blade Runner 2022: Black Out,” “Ghost in the Shell”) and created by Oshima Naoto. It follows an adventurous teenage girl and her baby brother in the not-so-distant future, after they liberate the forgotten protector of Earth, Ohkan in the hopes that he can help reunite them with their missing parents. Adam Devine, J.K. Simmons, Sam Richardson and Elsie Fisher lead the voice cast.
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While Europe’s Charades is handling conventional film licensing, Los Angeles and Boston-based digital tech company Spaceport has been recruited by the Japanese studio (“One Piece,” “Dragon Ball”) to power the countdown to blast-off of the English-language feature which is in post-production and is expected to release in 2025.
As the film is a new property, rather than an existing franchise, Spaceport’s mission is to create fandom in the absence of an existing audience. It aims to do this through the propagation of user generated content relating to the movie, such as fan trailers, apparel and other merchandise, by provision of content and character assets.
“Spaceport’s technology allows IP owner Toei to leverage [UGC] by licensing ‘Hypergalactic’ content to multiple game developers and content creators simultaneously and at scale. This builds a much larger pool of content for users to choose from and provides the brand more opportunities to resonate with new and existing fans,” the companies said. They describe this as a “transformation from retail economy thinking to a UGC economy strategy.”
Roblox and Fortnite are more than games platforms, they are expansive ecosystems with over 80 million daily average users, a mix of players and creators. By enabling licensing across these platforms, Spaceport and Toei Animation are encouraging UGC communities to interact with their anime IP. Toei Animation says it “has a long history of dedicated fan engagement.”
“Traditionally, marketers can spend a lot of money producing a title and creating a branded experience [..] but then when they’re launched, they have to compete organically with all the other content that users are creating. What happens very quickly, is that the content that’s created by the users of the platform tends to rise up to the top,” Spaceport founder Le Zhang told PvNew. “What Spaceport allows brands like Toei Animation to do is to scalably license their IP to the fan bases within Roblox and Fortnite, to create experiences and to come up with the concepts and the gameplay loops to engage other fans.”
“We’re looking to take a royalty off every licensed experience and piece of content that’s being sold in the Roblox ecosystem. But the bigger idea here is to align incentives with the brand [..] so that the developers, the fans, are benefiting from the marketing and the world building that’s coming from the IP,” he added
“At Toei Animation, we’ve been producing Japanese anime and having a physical licensing business [for many years], but the audience today has changed how they experience and enjoy entertainment. Simply releasing media doesn’t really satisfy our audience. They want to be getting into the universe and interacting with the characters they like. That’s where we see opportunities,” Ikezawa Yoshi, head of international co-production at Toei Animation, told PvNew.
“This partnership with Spaceport is a significant milestone for Toei Animation. It shows the vast potential of UGC platforms to revolutionize entertainment and fan engagement
The film is produced by Ikezawa, with executive producers Morishita Kozo, Takagi Katsuhiro and Tim Kwok. Animation production is by Tenh Animation Magic in Tokyo.
