| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Animation |
| Founded | 1974 |
| Founder(s) | Jacques Pettigrew Michel Lemire |
| Headquarters | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Key people | President & CEO Jacques Pettigrew Creative Director Michel Lemire CGI Supervisor Christian Garcia |
CinéGroupe Corporation is a Canadian animation studio based in Montreal, Quebec. The company also has offices in nearby Toronto and in the U.S. city of Los Angeles. Its shows and films have been seen in over 125 countries as of 2005.[1]
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CinéGroupe was founded in 1974;[1] one of its earliest credits was the 1983 live-action drama, Rien qu'un jeu.[2]
In 2002, the company united with Star Records to create a home video distributor called CinéGroupe/Star. The partnership was ended in January 2004.
Notable franchises from CinéGroupe include The Kids from Room 402 (shown on the former Fox Family banner, now ABC Family); the computer-animated Tripping the Rift (on the Sci-Fi Channel); and PBS' Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. With Sony Wonder, it has produced Mega Babies (also shown on Fox Family), as well as a direct-to-video feature, Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage (a prequel to both the L. Frank Baum work, and the 1939 movie).
In the 2000s, the company remade the 1981 cult classic Heavy Metal as a Columbia TriStar Home Video release,[3] shown on the Starz family of networks in the U.S. and on Teletoon in Canada from 2001 onwards. In 2004, it made Pinocchio 3000, a sci-fi retelling of the Carlo Collodi tale. Galidor, a live-action fantasy series for teenagers, has also been produced by the company. The company also cooperated with MGA Entertainment in the creation of Bratz: Starrin' and Stylin', a 2-D animated direct-to-video movie based on MGA's Bratz line of fashion dolls.
For many of CinéGroupe's animated productions, they often rely on a pre-formed crew of voice actors to do the work. The crew usually consists of Rick Jones, and Terrence Scammell, among others. They are very common actors in CinéGroupe productions.