Hand Picked Films has acquired intellectual property rights to "The Black Belt Club," by children's book author Dawn Barnes. Principles Anthony Romano and Michel Shane, who were exec producers of "I, Robot" and "Catch Me If You Can," paid mid-six figures for the Scholastic graphic novel series about a globe-trotting multicultural karate club. The producers have teamed with Steven Gagnon's Gravity Entertainment to license and merchandise the book into crossmedia platforms, with plans to make an animated television series, direct-to-DVD movies, video games and feature films based around the story line of the 12-book franchise.

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