“Beans”, Cinesite’s short animated film, has proved a huge internet hit. Since it was released on YouTube on Monday, it has clocked up over 2 million hits (at time of writing).

Its runaway success has been attributed to high production values, some brilliant character animation and a touch of cheeky humour.

The short, written and directed by Alvise Avati, follows a space monster launching a devastating attack on a group of astronauts, as they plant a territorial flag on the moon, resulting in a rather unexpected ending.

Over the past few months, whilst working on Beans, Cinesite has also been creating visual effects for several forthcoming 2014 releases, including The Monuments Men, Into The Storm, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Edge of Tomorrow, 300: Rise of an Empire and Robocop.

“We are passionate about animation,” says Eamonn Butler, Producer of Beans and Animation Director at Cinesite. “So we have been overwhelmed by the positive response from clients, ad agencies, visual effects artists, the press and the general public.  Their support has been very inspiring to everyone who worked on it.”

Antony Hunt, Cinesite’s Managing Director, says, “We’ve got some world-class animation talent at Cinesite, and the entire team is set up to create fantastic work.  Animated film and content creation is a new business that we’re actively exploring and we’re currently looking at several exciting new projects. Beans has been a great platform from which we’ve been able to show off our animation skills to a very broad audience.”