The MoonScoop Group was a French animation and production company that created and published animated television series. Its corporate headquarters were located in Paris, France, along with offices in the United Kingdom and the United States. It was established in 2003. It is most famously known for Code Lyoko and its open-ended sequel series, Code Lyoko: Evolution.
History
One of MoonScoop's predecessors was France Animation, founded in 1984, and based in Paris. France Animation went on to become the original producers of Les Mondes Engloutis ("Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea"). In September 2003, the company was acquired from its then-owner Wanadoo by Antefilms Production—an outfit created by Christophe Di Sabatino and Benoît Di Sabatino in 1990. Both companies' distribution arms were merged in March 2004 to form the present day MoonScoop.
On January 24, 2014, the Commercial Court of Paris accepted Dargaud's takeover bid of MoonScoop's library, thus becoming the owner of MoonScoop's complete catalogue and two of the company's last employees and was filed for bankruptcy.
In 1995, GONG acquired Dramapassion, the first European drama SVOD platform, thus becoming the leader in France and Europe in the broadcasting of Korean programmes.
In 2016, for the 20th anniversary of the successful Yu-Gi-Oh! license, GONG MEDIA acquired and distributed the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's and Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal.
Important people
Christophe Di Sabatino and Benoît Di Sabatino (brothers) were the co-executive chairmen of the MoonScoop Group. Nicolas Atlan and Axel Dauchez were co-CEOs.
Subsidiaries
The MoonScoop Group was made up of numerous subsidiaries:
Antefilms Production, a French company that makes TV shows. It was established by Christophe Di Sabatino and Benoît Di Sabatino in 1990. XANA Post-Production, a part of MoonScoop. It did the post-production for Code Lyoko. Taffy Entertainment handled worldwide distribution, marketing and consumer products licensing for nearly all of the shows made by MoonScoop. It is now known as Splash Entertainment. Mike Young Productions, the American unit of MoonScoop that produced ToddWorld and Growing Up Creepie. It is now known as Splash Entertainment. MoonScoop Digital Entertainment (formerly known as Queen Bee Interactive), French developer of interactive applications and broadcast services for television, mobile and the internet; it dissolved into Splash Entertainment. LuxAnimation, a Luxemburg unit of MoonScoop. It made Babar and the Adventures of Badou and the film Dragon Hunters. It is now owned by Splash Entertainment. Kabillion is a video-on-demand network for children launched in 2007 available throughout the United States by many cable and streaming services. It is now owned by Splash Entertainment.
Well-known shows
Code Lyoko
Code Lyoko is a French animated series featuring both conventional animation and computer-generated imagery, produced by Antefilms during the first season and MoonScoop during the second, in association with the France 3 television network and Canal J. Code Lyoko is about a group of four boarding school students enrolled at Kadic Junior High School, named Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi. The students try to help a virtual girl named Aelita leave the virtual world of Lyoko (found inside a supercomputer housed in the basement of an abandoned factory near their school), and enter the real world.
A highly malevolent and rogue artificial intelligence (also referred to as a multi-agent system, and wrongly as a computer virus) named X.A.N.A., bent on world domination, has taken over the quantum supercomputer in charge of the virtual reality/world of Lyoko. If the group is able to get Aelita to the activated tower(s) out of the more than forty scattered about four of Lyoko's five tropical regions, she can neutralize Xana's violently destructive attack on the real world; then the supercomputer can reverse time to just before the attack, leaving no one except the group to remember any of the events that transpired. To complicate the situation, they must do this while ensuring that their classmates and teachers are not killed (because going back in time cannot return those killed by X.A.N.A. to life), and deal with the various personality clashes they have with them at the same time.
Code Lyoko: Evolution
This rebooted series takes place one year after the events of the original series stated above. Unlike its predecessor, however, it consists of live-action for the real world but still contains the 3D computer animation for the virtual world of Lyoko, with the Ice/Polar and Forest Sectors having been deleted.