One of the most famous personalities in Hollywood, Tom Hanks, is developing his own animated sci-fi show, Electric City. Hanks is co-producer on the show, as well as the director, and the voice of the lead character.
You won’t see his new show on network television, however, or even cable. Yahoo!, the Internet content portal has ordered a 20 episode run of the show to kick off their move toward original content.
Currently, Yahoo! boasts only a few television style shows, all of them anchor-format news shows with strong viewership forIinternet shows, but they want to branch out into scripted narrative content, and they see Hanks’ new show as the perfect place to start.
It’s not an exclusive contract, so the show may go to a network or a cable television after its initial run on Yahoo!, depending on how successful the show is there. With the star power of Hanks behind it, many people will be drawn to Yahoo! just to see what it is, and this is what company is counting on.
In the press release, Yahoo’s executive VP says thet the site is planning “Not just shows, but real experiences. We’re looking to build franchises.” Meaning, toys and video games may be in the future for the new animated program.
Electric City will begin airing in the next few months, but in the meantime we have no information about the plot. Some clips will be shown at CES this week, so we may see them appear online next week. If that happens, you’ll definitely find them posted here on TG Daily.
