Sony Pictures Animation

History

In 2001, Sony Pictures considered selling off its visual effects facility Sony Pictures Imageworks but after failing to find a suitable buyer, having been impressed with the CGI sequences of Good Burger and seeing the box office successes of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek, 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, but never made it to fruition. 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-CGI animation.

Before the establishment of SPA, Columbia Pictures distributed a few animated films from 1959 to 2006 that were produced by outside studios, including 1001 Arabian Nights, The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, The Man Called Flintstone, Jack and the Beanstalk, American Pop, Heavy Metal, Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Eight Crazy Nights, and Monster House.

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 film version of The ChubbChubbs!

On May 27, 2014, it was announced that Netflix had acquired streaming rights to films produced by Sony Pictures Animation.

On November 3, 2014, the studio collaborated with Frederator Studios' Cartoon Hangover on 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.

In June 2019, Sony Pictures Animation announced that they had launched an "International" division headed by Aron Warner at the 2019 Annecy International Animated Film Festival, with Wish Dragon set to be the division's first film. The same day, they also announced an "Alternative" division aimed at producing adult animated content, headed by Katie Baron and Kevin Noel. In addition to Tartakovsky's films Black Knight and Fixed, the division's TV shows are set to include Superbago, a co-production with Stoopid Buddy Stoodios that was originally greenlit as a feature film; and Hungry Ghosts, a series based on the Dark Horse graphic novel by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose. They had previously announced their plans to produce adult content at the 2017 Annecy festival.

In April 2021, Disney and Sony Pictures reached a multi-year deal to let Sony's titles (such as films from the Spider-Man, Jumanji, Hotel Transylvania, Ghostbusters franchises, and other films made by Sony Pictures Animation, etc, and anime licensed by Funimation/Crunchyroll like Attack on Titan and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works) to stream on Hulu and Disney+. A significant number of Sony titles began streaming on Disney+ starting in September 2022. It includes films from 2022 onwards.

Process

In a similar fashion to Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, Paramount Animation and 20th Century Animation, the studio outsources their films to other animation companies and visual effects studios, with the majority of their films being animated by sister company Sony Pictures Imageworks. Some films, such as Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits were acquired by Sony Pictures Animation to be released under their banner while others, such as Goosebumps and Peter Rabbit, were made with no involvement from 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.

Filmography

Main article: List of Sony Pictures Animation productions

Sony Pictures Animation's 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. 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. 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! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012), the latter which was SPA's first and currently only stop-motion film. In 2012, SPA released Hotel Transylvania, which grossed over $350 million worldwide and launched a successful franchise with three sequels and a TV series. Two sequels were released in 2013: The Smurfs 2 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.

SPA's latest releases are Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated superhero film based on the Spider-Man comics and featuring the Miles Morales incarnation of the character, The Angry Birds Movie 2, the sequel to the 2016 film The Angry Birds Movie produced by Rovio Animation, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, a robot apocalypse/road trip film written and directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe while produced by longtime collaborators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Wish Dragon, a co-production with Base FX, the musical film, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Vivo, which marks Sony Pictures Animation's first musical film, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, the fourth installment in the Hotel Transylvania franchise, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Into the Spider-Verse. SPA has since signed Genndy Tartakovsky to a long-term deal with the studio to develop and direct original films starting with Tartakovsky's R-rated animated film Fixed.

Upcoming projects

As of January 2026, upcoming films from the studio include a sports film from Stephen Curry and Erick Peyton of Unanimous Media titled Goat (releasing on February 13, 2026), Buds (releasing on March 12, 2027), and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (releasing on June 18, 2027),. The K-Pop Demon Hunters sequel, directed by Maggie Kang, and Chris Appelhans, is in on-going production. (releasing TBD 2029) Projects in development include an animated Ghostbusters spin-off film, another Tartakovsky project titled Black Knight, Tao, a China-set science-fiction adventure film directed by The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part story artist Emily Dean, Tut, an afro-futuristic coming-of-age story set in ancient Egypt directed by Hair Love creator Matthew A. Cherry, an untitled project based on an original idea by Matt Braly and Rebecca Sugar, and an animated film adaptation based on the science fiction podcast Bubble (a co-production with Point Grey Pictures and Matt Tolmach Productions).{{cite magazine |url=https://variety.com/2020/film/news/seth-rogen-bubble-podcast-movie-sausage-party-1234595604/|title=Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg Turning 'Bubble' Podcast Into Animated Adult Feature with Matt Tolmach at Sony (EXCLUSIVE)

Franchises===<!-- ONLY UPDATE THIS TABLE WHEN A NEW FILM IS OFFICIALLY RELEASED, NO MATTER ITS RELEASE DATE WAS PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED AS IT SUBJECT TO ANY CHANGES.

A FRANCHISE CONSISTS OF AT LEAST TWO FILMS IN A SERIES, A FRANCHISE IS NOT A SINGLE FILM. --

Highest-grossing films

Notes

References

References

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2. Rebecca Rubin. (May 20, 2025). "Sony Pictures Animation Promotes Damien de Froberville to President (EXCLUSIVE)".
3. (March 14, 2017). "Sony Pictures Animation Promotes Pam Marsden to Head of Production". [[Variety (magazine).
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5. (May 9, 2002). "Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment Establishes Feature Animation Unit; Animation Executives Sandra Rabins and Penney Finkelman Cox Named to Top Posts".
6. Raugust, Karen. (May 30, 2006). "The Value of Shorts". [[Animation World Network]].
7. (May 9, 2003). "Sony Pictures Animation Announces Projects for Directors Jill Culton, Anthony Stacchi, Roger Allers, Brenda Chapman and the Brizzi Brothers Cox Named to Top Posts".
8. Szalai, Georg. (May 27, 2014). "Netflix Gets Rights to Sony Animation Films".
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10. (November 7, 2017). "Sony Animation & Cartoon Hangover Launch 1st Incubator Film 'The Summoning'". Animation Magazine.
11. (June 12, 2019). "Sony Pictures Animation Links to Tencent, Sets New 'Boondocks,' Tartakovsky Duo". Variety.
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18. (30 May 2024). "'Goat': Sony Pictures Animation Sets Release Tied To 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend From Director Tyree Dillihay; Stephen Curry & Erick Peyton's Unanimous Media".
19. Couch, Aaron. (July 18, 2025). "'Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse' Moves to End of June 2027".
20. D'Alessandro, Anthony. (March 31, 2025). "'Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse' Back On The Release Date Calendar, This Time In 2027 – CinemaCon".
21. Hermanns, Grant. (2025-11-05). "KPop Demon Hunters 2 Release Window Revealed".
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23. (August 7, 2017). "Ghostbusters: Ecto Force postponed for new film".
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26. Donnelly, Matt. (October 14, 2020). "Oscar Winner Matthew A. Cherry's Debut Feature 'Tut' in the Works at Sony Pictures Animation (EXCLUSIVE)". [[Variety (magazine).
27. (December 14, 2023). "Sony Pictures Animation Developing Thai Fantasy-Adventure Pic from Matt Braly".