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LAS VEGAS -- Producer-director Ben Stassen jokingly calls his Belgium-based nWave Pictures "the black sheep of the Imax family." But in the summer, nWave will see its latest, the animated 3-D film Fly Me to the Moon, receive a full-fledged U.S. theatrical release courtesy of the new Summit Entertainment.

At ShoWest on Wednesday, Summit showed off the trailer and a 10-minute sequence of the movie -- which revolves around the adventures of three houseflies that stow away on the historical Apollo 11 moon-landing mission -- using the Dolby Digital 3-D system.

Stassen is known for such large-format movies as 1999's Encounter in the Third Dimension and 2005's Wild Safari 3D that have been a staple on Imax screens. But with Moon, he set out to re-create the historic Apollo landing in detail while spinning an animated yarn that will reel in younger kids for whom the moon landing is ancient history.

In introducing the film, which was conceived and produced as a 3-D feature, Summit's head of distribution Rickie Fay said, "What it translates to for younger audiences is an educational experience, but they don't realize that as they are being entertained."

The completed 85-minute movie will be released stateside Aug.

Riding the crest of interest in 3-D movies, nWave Pictures has started production on its first computer-animated 3-D theatrical feature, Fly Me to the Moon. The theme park and specialized entertainment company behind Wild Safari 3-D and Haunted Castle has earmarked $21 million toward Moon, an original story about three tween houseflies who stow away aboard the Apollo 11 flight to the moon. The film is set to be released in spring 2007. "We've been pulling this project together for three years," nWave president Charlotte Huggins said. "I've been sitting on my surfboard waiting for the wave, and animation projected in 3-D is generating lots of interest right now."...