Sony Pictures Animation

Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio that is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures through their Motion Picture Group division, founded on May 9, 2002. The studio works closely with Sony Pictures Imageworks, which handles digital production and has animated nearly all of their films. All of its theatrical releases are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, and all home video releases are distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

The studio's movies and franchises include Open Season, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Goosebumps, the 2007 Academy Award nominated film, Surf's Up, and the 2017 Golden Raspberry Award winner, The Emoji Movie.

History
In 2001, Sony Pictures considered selling off its visual effects facility Sony Pictures Imageworks. After failing to find a suitable buyer, having been impressed with the CGI sequences created for Stuart Little 2, and seeing the box office success of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek and Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc., SPI was reconfigured to become an animation studio. Astro Boy, which had been in development at Sony since 1997 as a live-action film, was set to be SPI's first all-CGI film. On May 9, 2002, Sony Pictures Animation was established to develop characters, stories and movies, with SPI taking over the digital production while maintaining its visual effects production. Meanwhile, SPI produced two short films, the Academy Award-winning The ChubbChubbs! and Early Bloomer, as a result of testing its strengths and weaknesses in producing all-CG animation.

On its first anniversary on May 9, 2003, Sony Pictures Animation announced a full slate of animated projects in development: Open Season, an adaptation of a Celtic folk ballad Tam Lin, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Surf's Up, and a feature-length version of the short film The ChubbChubbs!.

Its first feature film was Open Season, released in September 2006, which became Sony's second-highest-grossing home entertainment film in 2007 and spawned three direct-to-video sequels. Its second feature film, Surf's Up was released in June 2007, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and won two Annie Awards. A motion-captured animated film, Neanderthals, written and produced by Jon Favreau, was cancelled sometime in 2008, after four years in development. SPA's first 3D movie since the IMAX 3D release of Open Season, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was released in September 2009, and was nominated for four Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature. The Smurfs (2011) was the studio's first CGI/live-action hybrid and is currently its most successful release. SPA's parent company Sony Pictures had partnered in 2007 with Aardman Animations to finance, co-produce and distribute feature films. Together, they produced two films; Arthur Christmas (2011), and The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012), which was SPA's first stop-motion film. In September 2012, SPA released Hotel Transylvania, which grossed over $350 million worldwide and launched a successful franchise with two sequels and a TV series. SPA's latest releases are Peter Rabbit, a live-action and CGI hybrid film based on the book stories created by Beatrix Potter, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, the third installment of the Hotel Transylvania film series, and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, the sequel to the first Goosebumps film. SPA has since signed Genndy Tartakovsky to a long-term deal with the studio to develop and direct original films.

The studio is currently working on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Wish Dragon (2019), The Mitchells vs. the Machines, a robot apocalypse/road trip film written and directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe while produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (2020), and Vivo (2020). It has many other projects in development, including an animated Ghostbusters spin-off film, an untitled film from Jon Saunders, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Medusa, an animated film based on Popeye, Fixed, Black Knight, and three untitled projects slated for April 3, 2020, July 24, 2020, and September 25, 2020 respectively.

On November 3, 2014, the studio made a deal with Cartoon Hangover to create GO! Cartoons, an incubator series consisting of 12 short films, with at least one short film being developed into a series. The short films were funded by SPA, with the additional goal of attracting new talent for the studio.

According to Kristine Belson, president of SPA, the studio produces films on a 1:1 development-to-production ratio, meaning that the studio puts films into development as much as it places films in production, unlike other animation studios.

The studio also currently has plans to produce adult animated content for digital platforms.

Process
In a similar fashion to the Warner Animation Group and Paramount Animation, the studio relies on other animation studios to provide the animation for their films, with the majority of their theatrical films animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Films in development

 * Combines live-action with animation.
 * Not produced, but released by Sony Pictures Animation under its label.
 * An adult animated production.