Avi Melman, GM of California-based Cybergraphix Animation, has taken the vampire and werewolf craze to heart. His company’s newest tween and teen-focused property, Guardians of Luna, is putting an animated spin on the growing werewolf trend with an 80-minute feature DVD that is also being packaged as four 20-minute mini-series episodes, which will be available in spring 2012.

A series of 26 x 22-minute eps is currently in development as are video games based on the property. Melman is taking Guardians of Luna, which is being distributed by FUNimation Entertainment in North America, to MIPCOM next month with the hopes of getting the movie into retail and forging sales for the series-based format.

Developed in collaboration with Tokyo-based Another Push Pin Planning (APPP), the action series is geared towards both boys and girls and follows the story of Carson Stone, who comes to a mysterious city and ends up teaming with three other young werewolves.

‘Ultimately, it’s really built itself into a brand. It’s featuring the longevity to push through to a series since the storyline is very robust and offers a unique take on the werewolf mythos,’ says Melman, who adds that he is looking forward to hashing out international distribution and licensing deals around the property that will focus on video games, comics, apparel and collectibles.