Committed to enriching and inspiring audiences and consumers, The Hatchery, LLC is dedicated to building quality intellectual properties in the family and kids arena. The company develops and produces original entertainment for all media, including film, television, direct-to-DVD, video games, new media distribution, and consumer products. In addition, The Hatchery acquires, develops and exploits new and existing brand franchises for all media.

The Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the The Hatchery is Margaret Loesch, an Emmy Award-winning producer and veteran entertainment industry executive. Bruce Stein, a top strategic marketing and consumer products executive and veteran toy company chief, co-founded The Hatchery with Ms. Loesch and currently serves as a strategic consultant as well as being a member of the Board of Directors. Ms. Loesch and Mr. Stein co-founded and together launched The Hatchery in 2003 and, in June of that year, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer and producer Dan Angel joined the company as a partner.

Mandalay Entertainment is the founding investor of and a co-owner in The Hatchery. Its Chairman, Peter Guber, and Vice Chaiman, Paul Schaeffer, are Hatchery board members and serve on the company’s Operating Committee. They bring the full range of strategic resources of Mandalay in theatrical film, television, professional sports, special events and large-format programming. On December of 2004, American Greetings Corporation, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of social expression products, made a strategic investment in The Hatchery and became a significant partner and co-owner.

Since launching in April 2003, The Hatchery has acquired more than 20 franchise properties, produced and released television and film projects, and partnered in patented consumer products. Among their projects developed, produced or in production are “Twisted Whiskers” and “Maryoku Yummy”, based on the American Greetings hit properties, the independently produced Joe Camp film Benji: Off the Leash, the primetime television comedy game show series “Balderdash,” and the Canadian-produced primetime action-adventure series “Young Blades.” The Hatchery also Executive Produced the first twenty six episodes of the CGI educational series for children, “Zula Patrol,” and is producing a series of direct-to-DVD projects for My Gym.

Projects in various stages of development include feature film projects based on “The Great Brain” inspired by the award-winning book series by John Fitzgerald, “Jekyll & Hyde” the musical, based on the Broadway hit and world-wide sensation by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse, a series of movies based on the V.C. Andrews best selling books, and the award-winning short film “The Freak”. Television projects include a partnership with Walden Media to adapt their hit movie “Holes” into a television series. The Hatchery also has the rights to “Strange Matter”, an original publishing based property.

The Hatchery is also developing a series of direct-to-DVD projects including a family friendly adaptation of the best-selling horror anthologies based on Nightmare Hour and The Haunting Hour from the world’s best-selling children’s book author, multiple award-winner R.L. Stine (Goosebumps). The first movie in the series “R.L. Stine’s Haunting Hour”, was produced for Universal Family Home Entertainment in 2007 and has been aired numerous times by the Cartoon Network.