In a recent interview with Variety, Paramount CEO Brian Robbins — who rose to the C-suite from an acting and directing career — hashes out the challenges Hollywood studios are facing in the post-COVID era. The WGA and (at the time impending) SAG-AFTRA strikes, decline of traditional entertainment outlets, rising costs from inflation and struggling cinema box office (down 20% from pre-pandemic numbers) have sharply impacted media companies, and Robbins is just one of many captains of the industry trying to find smooth passage in a rough sea.
The studio’s release slate this year is heavy on sequels and established brands — the sixth Scream film, seventh Transformers (which also features a G.I. Joe crossover) and Mission: Impossible outings, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, soon to be released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and upcoming preschool-targeted sequel PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie. Not a wildly different strategy from other studios, but a quote from Robbins in the interview raised hackles with prominent filmmakers in the animation sphere.
Robbins, who spearheaded the reorganization of Paramount’s animation division with a focus on classic Nickelodeon properties, said of the upcoming original animated feature Under the Boardwalk‘s shuffle to direct-to-streaming on Paramount+, “We’re not going to release an expensive original animated movie and just pray people will come.”
Well, that didn’t go over well with the animation community.
Replying to a tweet/x of the quote from DiscussingFilm, Oscar-winning Spider-Verse writer/director/producer Christopher Miller (also known for Sony’s The LEGO Movie and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as well as the cult hit MTV series Clone High) pulled no punches. “This is an ignorant attitude. NO studio head would say they wouldn’t make an original drama, or action movie, or biopic, or comedy, or wouldn’t have made Avatar,” he wrote. “To suggest animation alone needs to be IP is absurd.”
Shannon Tindle, a veteran, Emmy-winning animator who created the hybrid Netflix event series Lost Ollie, whose credits include story on Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings as well as character design for Kubo, Coraline (Laika), Turbo and Megamind (DreamWorks) and is directing Netflix’s fully-animated Ultraman with John Aoshima, pointed out that all successful properties start the same way. “Toy Story, The Incredibles, Inside Out, Frozen, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, etc. were all original films that generated millions upon release and continue to make BILLIONS in merchandise,” he wrote.
Multi-Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, who made a stirring call for animation as cinema when accepting this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Netflix) and has voiced his intent to focus exclusively on animated filmmaking, made a pithier reply:
Dear Lord- https://t.co/QJcgzRNh7A
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) July 26, 2023
Del Toro’s next animated project is an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, also for Netflix.
Co-produced by Paramount Animation, New Republic Pictures and DNEG Animation, Under the Boardwalk (release date TBA) is an animated musical comedy follows the hermit crabs who live under the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore, according to DNEG:
When Armen (a land crab townie) falls in love with Ramona (a sea crab tourist) tensions between their friends and families rise. But when a storm casts the duo far from home, their love will lead them on an epic adventure which unites the divided community.
[Sources: Yahoo! Movies, Variety, DNEG, IMDb]
