Warner Bros. Pictures Animation (formerly Warner Animation Group) is the theatrical animation studio and division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. It is a successor to the dissolved hand-drawn animation studio Warner Bros. Feature Animation, which shut down in 2003. The company has produced films such as The LEGO Movie franchise, Storks, Smallfoot and Scoob! Warner Bros. Pictures Pictures is a counterpart to Warner Bros. Animation, which mostly produces animated television series, animated direct-to-video and direct-to-streaming movies.
History[]
In January 7, 2013, Jeff Robinov (then head of the studio's motion picture division) founded a screenplay development department, nicknamed a "think tank" for developing theatrical animated films, known as the Warner Animation Group. The group includes John Requa, Glenn Ficarra, Nicholas Stoller, Jared Stern, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Warner Bros. created the group with the hope that the box office reception of their films will be competitive with other animation studios' releases.
On February 7, 2014, Warner Animation Group released their first film, The Lego Movie, a film animated by Animal Logic, which also provided the animation for both spinoffs. It was met with positive reviews and proved to be a box office success.
WAG's second film, Storks, was released September 23, 2016. It received mixed reviews from critics.
On February 10, 2017, Warner Animation Group released The Lego Batman Movie, which received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success. On December 14, 2014 Warner Bros. announced Allison Abbate had been named Executive Vice President, and Chris Leahy has been named Senior Vice President.
The Lego Ninjago Movie, based on the Lego Ninjago toys, was released on September 22, 2017. Upon release, the film was met with mixed reviews from critics and became the first film from the studio to fail to recoup its budget.
Smallfoot, released September 28, 2018, earned a 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with mostly positive reviews from critics and has grossed over $214 million worldwide.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, a sequel of The Lego Movie, was released February 8, 2019 and earned an 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes but only grossed around $190.6 million worldwide, almost barely recouping its budget and becoming the studio's second film to fail to recoup its budget.
An animated reboot of the Scooby-Doo film series titled Scoob! was initially set for a theatrical release on May 15, 2020, but then it was delayed due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. On April 21, 2020 it was announced that it would instead go to video on demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It received mixed reviews from critics.
Tom and Jerry filmography[]
- Theatrical films
- Tom and Jerry (2021 film)
- Untitled animated Tom and Jerry film