Moonscoop US reborn as Splash

The US arm of troubled French animation firm Moonscoop has been acquired by investors headed by Mike Young and is being rebranded as Splash Entertainment.

Young, Moonscoop’s CEO, and his wife Liz, who is president, have got together with executive chairman Nicolas Atlan and investor JokeBox to regain 100% ownership of Moonscoop’s stateside operations.

After the French division of Moonscoop – which held 51% of the US business – was placed in administration, French and US assets were sold separately by the Paris trade court last week.

The French side went to Ellipsanime for a reported €600,000 (US$811,000), with only two of the 20 permanent staff kept on, while the US side went to little-known private investor JokeBox for €1m, C21 has learned.

Moonscoop got in trouble due to heavy debts as a results of acquiring France Animation a decade ago, and after that, 51% of US producer Mike Young Productions. It also got embroiled in a long-running and costly shareholder dispute between Moonscoop’s founders, the Di Sabatino brothers, and the investors they brought in to fund their development, led by businessman Joël Vaturi.

According to some French press reports, Vaturi is involved in JokeBox. Atlan was also a partner in Moonscoop.

The latest developments signal the end of Moonscoop as it was.

Splash Entertainment’s intellectual properties include Chloe’s Closet, Dive Olly Dive!, Hero: 108, Growing Up Creepie, Pet Alien, Todd World, the Archie Comics brands, It’s Archie and Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch, as well as series currently in production Master Blaster and The Meeps.

It also controls kids’ VoD platform Kabillion.