Apparently Funimation have hired a Director of Original Entertainment.

It’s an interesting move. On the one hand, it’s not something which particularly worked for the manga industry – I don’t think I’ve heard of much in the way of OEL selling particularly well (or being particularly good outside of the occasional Dramacon recommendation). It didn’t really work for ADV either, with their proposed adaptation of David Webbers Mutineers Moon never going anyway (a shame – I enjoyed the books). Alternately, though, the likes of Batman: Gotham Knight, Afro Samurai and the upcoming Halo Legends tend to place very highly on the annual charts for highest grossing anime properties in the US. It’s pretty clear that there’s more of a demand in the ‘States for Japanese takes on American properties than there are for Japanese takes on Japanese properties, and honestly, they probably sell in the magnitude of hundreds of times the number of copies just in the US than most regular anime properties do worldwide. It must be very tempting to try and take a slice of that cake, particularly when Japan seems to be making fewer and fewer shows which would appeal to a wider audience.