The state and future of animation

[Farerb]

I just hope Musker and Clements still get to make Metal Men.

[Ben]

Animation at WBD is going nowhere. And Disney is slowly and quietly ramping up hand-drawn features for D+. The family market basically powers movies these days, and animation is the major component to that. One or two series or movie cancelations does not an industry break.

[Farerb]

What Hand Drawn features?

[Ben]

The one(s) they won’t talk about yet…

[EricJ]

The family market basically powers movies these days, and animation is the major component to that. One or two series or movie cancelations does not an industry break.

No, studios eliminating Middle-Tier titles (of which third-party family movies is a big part during vacation time) by dumping them to...er, promoting them as "Streaming-service originals!" will break an industry.

Or, at least, bring it back to where it was in the 70s-80s, where Disney/Pixar will be the only one who "deserves" to have feature animation in theaters, and all the other weird independent wannabes crawl around the arthouses and HBO.

[Ben]

…except, HBO doesn’t want them either.

[GeffreyDrogon]

With all the cancellations of animated media at Warner Bros. Discovery, is the future of animation hopeless?

[EricJ]

Not unless commercial animation can reinvent itself into something mainstream-marketable for KIDS, not for high-school cult fangirls or for other animators who want to snigger over their own kitschy pop-childhoods.

Disney+/Jr. seems to have no complaints at the moment...

[Dacey]

Except that, you know, animation isn’t supposed to just be for kids…

[Ben]

Didn’t we just get asked and answer this question on the last page, almost word for word…?

[GeffreyDrogon]

I just get a little worried about the state of animation sometimes. Sorry for repeating my question.

[Ben]

No worries. Animation isn’t going *anywhere*.

[GeffreyDrogon]

But when WBD cancels so many animated shows on Cartoon Network and HBO Max, I'm worried that other studios will do the same.

[Ben]

Except that, before WBD commissioned them, those shows didn’t exist then either… Why don’t we wait and see, eh, rather than worry about something that hasn’t happened yet?

[GeffreyDrogon]

Well, it looks like Cinesite now has a majority stake in India's Assemblage Entertainment.

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/animators/c ... 23449.html

Will this mean that Assemblage Entertainment will now have more money for bigger films? Will Cinesite soon grow large enough to challenge Disney and Illumination Entertainment?