See The Teaser For ‘White Snake,’ Warner Bros.’ First Chinese Animation Co-Production

Warner Bros. scored a big hit with the Chinese live-action co-production The Meg earlier this year, and now they’re testing the waters by co-producing an animated film with Chinese partners: the fantasy-adventure White Snake.

The studio behind White Snake is Beijing-based Light Chaser Animation, which made Little Door Gods (released in the U.S. via Netflix as The Guardian Brothers).

Here is White Snake’s first English-subbed teaser:

Here is an earlier teaser in Chinese:

Judging from the trailers, the film has a thematically mature tone targeting perhaps more of a teen audience, which signifies a different approach for Chinese cg animation producers, whose projects typically skew to a younger family demographic.

White Snake is adapted from the famous Chinese folktake “Legend of the White Snake” in which a white snake spirit transforms into a human woman and falls in love with a human man. According to earlier reports, the film’s story takes place before the white snake meets her human companion.

Directed by Amp Wong and Zhao Ji, the film will be releasd in China on December 21. Warner Bros. has rights in China, and according to Variety, is negotiating for rights to other major territories. All Rights Entertainment is repping rights for international markets.

Besides Little Door Gods and White Snake, Light Chaser Animation has recently completed two other features as well: Cats and Peachtopia and Toys and Pets, both of which will be entering the foreign marketplace soon. The company was founded by Gary Wang, who was a founder of Tudou, China’s equivalent of YouTube.