Expect a few ripples in the world of animated movies over the coming months. For the past few years, DreamWorks Animation films have been distributed by Paramount Pictures, with the studio taking a fee for its troubles. That deal is coming to an end, however, and when Paramount wanted a little more for its trouble, DreamWorks seemingly refused to play ball, and instead has been talking to other studios about doing a deal.
According to a new piece over at Variety, both Sony and Fox - a pair of studios with solid animation work of their own - are considering a deal with DreamWorks (we'd have thought that Warner Bros would be a more logical fit). If it does a deal with either of those, then it'd be interesting to see where Sony Pictures Imageworks and Aardman would continue to fit within Sony, and what Fox's plans with Blue Sky Studios would be. All of a sudden, that'd be a lot of animated movies to put through either studio, given that they're each making at least one a year apiece.
As for Paramount? Well, a while back is confirmed it was looking to invest more in animation, with the wonderful Rango the first evidence of that. But since the animation division within Paramount was launched last year (Rango was made by ILM), things have been quite quiet.
But no longer. It's now being reported that Paramount is sparking its animated movie arm firmly into life. The first fruits of this will come via its assorted Nickelodeon properties, as The Spongebob Squarepants Movie 2 has been greenlit. Furthermore, there's a possibility that Dora The Explorer, The Legend Of Korra and Monkey Quest could be heading to the movies. Each is cited in the Variety article.
It's involving names such as Mary Parent (currently producer of Noah with Darren Aronofsky) and JJ Abrams in developing material, although there are no details as to what project Abrams is working on specifically. And Paramount will be looking to keep budgets, according to Variety, in the sub-$100m range. That said, films such as Despicable Me, Gnomeo & Juliet and Ice Age: Continental Drift have comfortably cost less than $100m, so that might not be quite as penny-pinching as it may sound.
Over the coming months, we'll find out just where DreamWorks Animation will end up. But with Paramount upping its animated slate, the flood of animation onto the big screen shows little sign of slowing down.
Wouldn't it be great, though, if the increased quantity encouraged a greater breadth of genre and target audience for mainstream animated films? Certainly, Paramount was on the right track with Rango, for our money...
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