Sony Moving Into CG Movies

According to a LA Times article reprinted by Anime News Network, Sony Pictures Entertainment will be starting a film production unit exclusively to produce one full CG animation movie every 18 months. The new production studio will be run by Penney Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabins, who started DreamWorks SKG’s animation division and executive produced Shrek.

The article cites the massive success of recent full digital films including the Toy Story movies, Shrek, Monsters, Inc., and Ice Age compared to disappointing box office results of 2D animated films including Road to El Dorado, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Osmosis Jones. (However the article doesn’t take into account the fact that the cited CG films were actually good quality films while the 2D films mentioned essentially sucked.)

The article also cites the fact that digital animation can be produced cheaper and faster than traditional 2D animation. “It takes 400 artists four years to bring a 2-D movie to theaters… It takes half that number in three years to accomplish the same for a computer-generated movie. As a result, a digital movie typically costs about $80 million, compared with $150 million for a traditional animated feature.” However, these figures apply only to America considering that last year’s 2D Japanese Sakura Wars theatrical movie cost the American equivalent of only $4 million to produce.