Azur and Asmar Picked Up By Weinstein Co.

Twitch Film is reporting that the Weinstein Company has picked up Michel Ocelot’s French feature Azur and Asmar for distribution. As we’ve reported earlier, the fledgling Weinstein Co. has not had a particularly inspiring track record with animated films. Ocelot’s film, which premiered at Cannes last year to rave reviews, is the Weinstein’s first decent pick-up. There’s reason to fear though: among other adult touches, Azur and Asmar features a woman breastfeeding her children and has unsubtitled sequences with characters speaking Arabic. Knowing the amount of respect that the Weinsteins have for the animation art, a good probability exists that there’ll be substantial changes to Ocelot’s vision before the film reaches American audiences. I’d love to be proven wrong on this one.