Fox Animation and Disney veteran Karen Rupert Toliver has been hired on as the new Senior Vice President of Development at Sony Pictures Animation, Deadline reports. Toliver joins SPA fresh off of spearheading development of Fox/Blue Sky’s winter release Ferdinand, out December 13.
“As we build Sony Pictures Animation into a forward-looking studio we feel very fortunate to have Karen join our leadership team,” said Kristine Belson, President of Sony Pictures Animation. “Her experience, intelligence and excellent taste will be a tremendous advantage to achieving our ambitious creative goals.”
In addition to the upcoming bull tale, Toliver supervised the production of Fox’s Rio, Rio 2 and the last three Ice Age movies which totted up more than $3 billion in box-office all together. Previously, she was a production executive at Walt Disney Animation Studios, where her credits include Brother Bear, Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons and brought the “Frog Princess” story into the studio, resulting in The Princess and the Frog (2009).
Sony Pictures Animation’s latest release is family faith film The Star, directed by Timothy Reckart. The nativity story was released Nov. 17 and has raked in $25M worldwide to-date. The studio’s upcoming slate includes Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (dir. Genndy Tartakovsky, July 13), the untitled animated Spider Man movie (Phil Lord & Chris Miller, Dec. 14), and hybrid reimagining Peter Rabbit (Will Gluck, Feb. 9).
