Saturday, November 12, 2011

Getting Crowded

Animated feature films are racking up sizable money in all parts of the globe. It's not surprising then, that new entrants are getting into the marketplace:

... Legos will make a film for the big screen. Warner Bros. will be producing the movie. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," will write and direct, and Chris McKay, director of "Robot Chicken," will join on as co-director.

Warner Bros. is the only large entertainment conglomerate that doesn't have its very own feature animation house. Disney has two. Sony has SPA coupled with Imageworks. Universal has Illumination Entertainment. And Paramount, of course, has just opened its own animation division.

As for Warners, it shuttered its animated feature divisions soon after Quest for Camelot, Iron Giant and Cats Don't Dance underperformed at the box office.

Warners has one robust television animation studio (or two, if you count Cartoon Network), but it's still lacking in the feature area. Maybe that's why it picks up distribution for animated Penguin and European toy movies.

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