Have a childhood craving for Casper the Friendly Ghost, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Lone Ranger or Gumby? Your dreams can come true! They're all owned by U.K.-based Entertainment Rights, a debt-riddled company that seems unlikely to obtain the $44 million it needs to stay solvent. Among the options are selling off its big brands, which also include Rupert Bear, Postman Pat and Basil Brush (no idea -- it's a British thing), but that's not an appealing option since, Dan Sabbagh reports, "it may not generate enough to eliminate the debt." Even so: the 1995 "Casper" movie earned $288 million worldwide. [The Times]

HAL is staying away from the Oscar handicapping game and its half-breed cousin, handicapping the Oscar handicapping game. However, Gawker's Alex Carnevale raises an excellent point: Why is the once-nascent category of animated filmmaking still limited to just three nomination slots? 

The list of films that could be nominated for the Academy's seven-year-old Best Animated Feature Oscar was released, and everything else in the category will be overshadowed by the one lock for a nod, Wall-E. The rest will campaign for just 2 other slots. With more animated films produced outside of the Disney system, small triumphs like the Israeli animated documentary Waltz with Bashir may find themselves on the outside looking in when nominations are announced next year. With only a tiny run in American theaters to put itself into consideration, why is the Academy continue to insists on cramming the field into this tiny category?

There's 14 films in the full submissions list. Six are major-studio CGI ("Bolt," "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!," "Kung Fu Panda," "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," "Wall-E," "The Tale of Despereaux"), four are major-studio-CGI wannabes ("Delgo," "Igor," "Dragon Hunters," "Fly Me to the Moon" -- what, no "Space Chimps"?) two are Japanese anime ("The Sky Crawlers," "Sword of the Stranger") and two are tough to classify: the stop-motion "$9.99" and the animated documentary "Waltz with Bashir."

I don't think anyone's feeling bad for the wannabes (except maybe Harvey Weinstein), but with the continued growth in the number of animated movies each year, the indies are in a position to get screwed. Not that indies aren't used to it, but animation is an art form in which they have a consistent and legitimate opportunity to kick ass and with only three slots, the odds are just too great that they won't even get the chance to square off.

It's not like we need yet another Oscar category (please, we're begging you), especially one like "Eccentric Animated Films That Almost No One Saw But Deserve An Audience More Than Anything Else." But Carnevale's point is a good one: At seven years old, the animated-film category is old enough to cross the street by itself. Maybe it's time to let it stretch its legs into five nominations, like the big kids?

Benefits: 100,000 square feet and creating more than 500 jobs. Writes Richard Verrier, "The new production space will be added onto the existing Lakeside Building, which will be renovated. The new facility will house as many as 600 additional digital artists, effects specialists, lighters and technologists with annual salaries of $100,000 to $150,000." CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg expects up to 80% of admissions to come from 3-D by 2010. Of his 3-D competitors, he says: "All of these companies are investing in our future." [Los Angeles Times]