South African Animation

From the Reporter:

Triggerfish Animation Studios (South Africa) will launch The Triggerfish Story Lab with the support of the Walt Disney Co. and the country's Department of Trade and Industry.

Triggerfish said Wednesday in announcing the partnership that it would be investing up to $3.5 million over the next three years in the Story Lab, which is designed to give African storytellers and filmmakers the opportunity to develop their ideas alongside Triggerfish’s international network of mentors. "Selected storytellers will potentially have their concepts developed into episodic TV content or an animated feature film for the global market," the company said.

The animation studio in Cape Town has had international success with its first two feature films, Adventures in Zambezia and Khumba. They were distributed in more than 150 countries and dubbed into over 27 languages. ...

Established in 1996, Triggerfish had its first feature hit with Zambezia (2012), starring Jeremy Suarez, Abigail Breslin and Samuel L. Jackson. It followed that up with Khumba (2013), starring Jake T. Austin, AnnaSophia Robb and Liam Neeson. The two movies are among the top 5 highest-grossing South African films of all time. ...

It isn't just domestically created animated features from IE, Pixar, Blue SKy and DreamWorks Animation that do well at the world box office. There are features that large swaths of America never hears of that are profitable for their creators.

The fact that they don't get a big release in the U.S. doesn't make them unsuccessful. Just unknown in North America.