William Shatner has hired Academy Award-winning music composer Michael Giacchino to help score The Zenoids, the veteran Canadian actor’s animated webisode series being produced in Montreal by Oasis Animation.

Giacchino, who earned Oscar glory for Up, will help judge music submitted online by fans of The Zenoids, including the opening sequence.

Shatner has also recruited sci-fi writer Alan Dean Foster to develop a movie script for the animated series to launch on the actor’s social network website myouterspace.ca.

The Zenoids will see the Star Trek icon and Amanda Tapping (Sanctuary) provide voices for the online cartoon about a family of space-faring Amphibinoid musicians.

Shatner and Tapping, who each have massive online fan bases, play the husband and wife team of Kozmo and Zara trying keep their superstar dreams alive, while living adventure to adventure with their two teenage kids, and space dog Orbit.

The latest hirings, Shatner explained, aim at building an online fan base for The Zenoids, via the webisodes, to eventually be turned into an animated TV series or film.

“We think that ensures us of an audience for a sci-fi TV series,” the Canadian-born actor told Playback Daily.

Production on an initial four episodes of The Zenoids, developed by Shatner and Sammy Oriti, will get underway in late February.

“We’re crowd-sourcing the scripts and we’re making four three-minute webisodes, recording them here,” Shatner said.

“Our goal is to get [Zenoids] popular and place the project with a studio, either in Canada or the U.S.,” he added.

Photo: Jerry Avenaim