Bioware and FUNimation have announced a partnership to create an anime feature film  based on the Dragon Age franchise.  Looking to extend the narrative of the Dragon Age universe that Bioware has created, FUNimation’s Gen Fukunaga and Chris Moujaes will be working directly with Bioware’s Mark Darrah and Mike Laidlaw on the project which is beginning this month.  A 2011 release date was announced in the press release below.
BioWare and FUNimation Entertainment Sign Anime Movie Deal for Award-Winning Dragon Age Franchise
Anime Leader to Create Home Video Adaptation of Award-Winning “Dragon Age” REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Jun 7, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) –BioWare(TM), an Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq:ERTS) studio, and FUNimation Entertainment, the leading distributor of Japanese animation in North America, announced today an agreement to create an anime feature film adapted from BioWare’s critically-acclaimed fantasy Action RPG franchise Dragon Age(TM). Production of the Dragon Age anime movie is slated to begin this month with a home video release in 2011. Executive producing the film are BioWare’s Executive Producer Mark Darrah and Creative Director Mike Laidlaw, as well as FUNimation’s president and CEO Gen Fukunaga and Director of Original Entertainment Chris Moujaes.
“Anime is a great medium for us to continue the robust Dragon Age story,” said Mark Darrah, Executive Producer for the Dragon Age franchise. “Partnering with FUNimation ensures that we are delivering the exceptional quality and entertainment value that our Dragon Age fans expect.” “We are thrilled to be working with EA and BioWare on the production of the Dragon Age anime feature,” said Fukunaga.
“We are going to be bringing the classic visual and storytelling techniques found in anime to create a film that will extend the narrative of the world BioWare has created.” Dragon Age has been selected as the first title in FUNimation’s slate of major anime movies to be developed through FUNimation’s Original Entertainment team since the announcement of the company’s co-production initiative in November 2009.
When originally released in 2009, Dragon Age: Origins won over 30 critics awards and was named “RPG of the Year” by the Academy of Arts and Interactive Sciences, Game Informer, G4, SpikeTV, and PC Gamer. Seth Schiesel of The New York Times described the game as ” . . . perhaps the best electronic game made yet.”
For more information on Dragon Age, please visit http://dragonage.bioware.com.
