For my sanity's sake, I won't do any of the live-action films, which include The Smurfs, The Smurfs 2, Goosebumps, Peter Rabbit, and Goosebumps 2.
The story of Sony Pictures Animation begins in 1992, with the visual effects company Sony Pictures Imageworks. They worked on effects for movies like Last Action Hero, The Net, The Cable Guy, and Paulie. In 2002, impressed by the CG effects in Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2, Imageworks decided to start making animated feature films. They started with the short films The ChubbChubbs and Early Bloomer. The ChubbChubbs was a short about an alien named Meeper, who looks like Mario's dinosaur companion Yoshi, trying to warn the other aliens about a threat known as The ChubbbChubbs, while also protecting adorable chick-like creatures.
In Early Bloomer, a tadpole gets made fun of for sprouting legs, only for the other tadpoles to sprout legs, too.
Both shorts got very good reviews, and The ChubbChubbs even won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject. In 2003, shortly after the release of Early Bloomer, Sony Pictures Animation was founded and started production on three films. Their first movie was Open Season, released in September 2006.
Open Season was about a trained bear named Boog, and after meeting a deer named Elliot, he gets released back in the wild and encounters a variety of woodland critters, and has to find a way back home while also confronting game hunter Shaw. The movie is basically Madagascar if it took place in North America, but even less compelling. Anyway, Open Season got mixed to negative reviews, but managed to earn over 200 million dollars on an 85 million dollar budget, and even spawned three direct-to-DVD sequels.
SPA's next feature film was Surf's Up, released in June 2007. Directed by Toy Story 2 director Ash Brannon and Tarzan and Frozen (except Frozen didn't exist yet) director Chris Buck, Surf's Up was about a rockhopper penguin named Cody, who participates in a surfing competition at the tropical Pengu Island. After getting wiped out by a tidal wave, Cody meets Zeke, who's also his hero, and he trains Cody to become the best surfer in order to beat the boastful Tank Evans. The movie actually got good reviews when it was released, and even got the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. Unfortunately, the film tanked at the box-office because it had to compete against Shrek the Third, Ratatouille, and The Simpsons Movie.
In September 2009, Sony released Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Based on the book by Judi and Ron Barrett, 'Cloudy' tells the story of an aspiring inventor named Flint Lockwood. He tries improving the lives of the citizens of Swallow Falls, who only eat sardines, with his inventions, but they always end up in a disaster. When one of Flint's inventions actually becomes a success (a device that can turn
I know lots of people like this movie, but I have several problems with it. The characters in the movie only eat sardines, despite there being over 30,000 different species of fish, and they don't even bother diving for crustaceans or mollusks, starting their own farms, or even importing food from other countries! I also don't like the character designs, and feel that they're too cartoony.
I know that this movie is meant to embrace the style of cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s, but those, for the most part, starred animals, like Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, the Looney Tunes (though there were occasionally humans in the Looney Tunes cartoons), and Woody Woodpecker. These characters look like they came from Nickelodeon.
If I were director of the film, I would've explained why the characters can't afford other kinds of food and redesign the human characters under supervision from Ralph Eggleston, Kathy Altieri, and David Goetz (pronounced gets).
Nitpicking aside, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs earned over 243 million dollars at the box-office, got great reviews, spawned a sequel, and even a TV series!
In November 2011, Sony released their first co-production with Aardman, Arthur Christmas. The movie tells the story of Santa's youngest son Arthur, who noticed that St. Nick forgot to deliver one present: A bicycle to a young girl in Trelew, England! Now it's up to Arthur, Grandsanta, and a stowaway elf to deliver the present to her by Christmas Morning. While the movie got great reviews, Arthur Christmas only earned $147 million on a $100 million budget.
Sony's next collaboration with Aardman would be The Pirates! Band of Misfits, released in April 2012. This movie was actually not produced by Sony, but distributed by them, similar to how DreamWorks distributed Chicken Run. I actually reviewed this movie back in 2018, and it can be viewed here.
https://asateriale.blogspot.com/2018/01/movie-review-pirates-band-of-misfits.html
Unfortunately, The Pirates! Band of Misfits didn't meet box-office expectations: It had to compete against The Hunger Games and The Lorax at the box-office, and Sony and Aardman quit their partnership.
In September of that year, SPA released Hotel Transylvania, their most successful franchise to date. The concept about Dracula having a daughter and making a hotel for monsters has been floating around the Sony studios since 2006, and was bounced from director to director. Then one day, Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, took over and had a clear vision for it. This is what he had to say about the movie.
"I took all the esthetics I like from 2D, and applied them here. I don't want to do animation to mimic reality; I want to push reality. I wanted to have an imprint so you'd go 'Well, only Genndy can make this'. It's hard, especially with CG, but I feel that there's a lot of moments that feel that they're very me. So hopefully, it will feel different enough that it has a signature to it."
Anyway, Hotel Transylvania got mixed reviews, but earned over 358 million dollars at the box-office and spawned two sequels and a TV series. There's even rumors of a fourth film in development!
In September 2013, Flint Lockwood and Sam Sparks returned for another adventure with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. I've honestly, as I am typing this, never seen this movie in its entirety, but from what I seen, it looks like Jurassic Park but with food animals. The movie got weaker reviews than the original, but managed to earn over 274 million dollars at the box-office.
In February 2015, after an anonymous group tried hacking into Sony to boycott the adult comedy 'The Interview', Sony as a whole had to go under new management. SPA's president went from Michelle Raimo-Kouyate to Kristine Belson, who worked at DreamWorks on films like Bee Movie, How To Train Your Dragon, and The Croods. Much like how John Lasseter had to breathe life back into Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2006, Belson had to reboot the reputation of Sony Pictures Animation. According to a hacked email, the company was in bad shape: They were completely disorganized, animators hated their jobs, great talents were gone, and no respected filmmaker would want to be caught dead at the place. Hannah Minghella and Amy Pascal had this discussion through email during the summer of 2013.
-Low morale negatively impacts talent retention.
-Studio reputation negatively impacts talent recruitment.
-Only one (proven) director in-house: Genndy.
-SPA no longer has the competitive edge it had before Fox, Universal, and Paramount started their animation divisions.
-ImageWorks moving to Vancouver also impacts the competitive edge that came from being LA based.
-Limited financial success compared with other animated titles. What are the drivers of this? Quality? Originality? Marketing? Dating?
-Limited number of active projects/franchises: Cloudy, Hotel T, Smurfs, Popeye.
-Does the relationship with ImageWorks help or hinder SPA?
She also wanted to find new potential franchises that could fuel the studio.
To be continued in Part 2, which will be posted tomorrow.
BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent writing, very informative!
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