Baobab Studios has today debuted the highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) animated film, Asteroids!, available for Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Windows MR head-mounted displays (HMDs). Featuring Ingrid Nilsen as the voice of Peas, Asteroids! marks Nilsen’s first foray into VR work alongside Elizabeth Banks.
The follow-up to Baobab Studios’ well received Invasion!, Asteroids! follows the journey of Mac, Cheez (Elizabeth Banks) and their sidekick Peas (Ingrid Nilsen) as they traverse the challenges of space. Cheez is a loyal robot pet with a playful streak who is always ready for a game of fetch or daring rescue mission, while Peas is the loveable goofball with a heart of gold who just wants her best friends to be happy.
From the director of Madagascar, Asteroids! is an 11-minute interactive cinematic experience in which viewers are taken by Mac, Cheez and Peas on a deep space mission where they come face-to-face with teeth-gnashing space-bugs and careening asteroids.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like Asteroids!,” said YouTube and lifestyle personality Ingrid Nilsen. “Asteroids! is completely social and interactive. From the second the film starts, you are immediately immersed in a world where virtual animated characters become your friends and together, you experience emotions like humour, excitement and compassion, just as you would in real life.”
Asteroids! is now available for free via YouTube 360, Facebook 360, Baobab VR app for iOS and Android, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream, and Windows MR HMDs. The film can also be directly downloaded for Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream, and both iOS and Android editions of Google Cardboard.
Baobab Studios’ executive team is led by Maureen Fan, Eric Darnell and Larry Cutler, combining experiences from cinema, animation and gaming as leaders formerly of Pixar, Zynga and DreamWorks Animation. In 2015 Baobab Studios announced a first funding round of $6,000,000 USD, lead by Comcast Ventures. This was followed by a second round of $25,000,000 from the likes of 20th Century Fox, HTC Corp., Youku Global Media Fund and Horizons Ventures. There’ll be plenty more to come from Baobab Studios in the future, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details.