John Lasseter will return to the cinema: for those who remember the early days of Pixar, the director of the first Toy Story, creative director of the company until 2017 after being part of its founding core, has long been a major name in global animation. His arc at Pixar / Disney officially ended in 2018, following metoo-related events, but Lasseter was later picked up at the start of 2019 by Skydance Animation, for which he oversaw three animated feature films that you have probably encountered on streaming. The end of the agreement between Netflix and Paramount is however about to change the landscape.
[Photo of John Lasseter by Vanessa Lua, from Wikimedia Commons]
Paramount Leaves Netflix, Skydance Animation Films Will Move to Theaters
Under the artistic direction of John Lasseter, Skydance Animation completed for Apple TV+ the Peggy Holmes film Luck and the series WondLa by Bobs Gannaway, while a subsequent deal signed with Netflix gave rise to Spellbound – The Enchantment by Vicky Jenson and Swapped – In Your Place, the latter one of the most-watched films of the past year on the platform. Yet the musical direction at Skydance is changing: David Ellison, after completing the acquisition of Paramount, with the newborn Paramount Skydance is poised to acquire the entire Warner Bros., as we know well, and has promised at least thirty films per year destined for the theater. In this evolving scenario, it is not surprising that Skydance Animation is also being steered toward the big screen, in a fortunate reverse process of what the pandemic had forced. The Netflix connection has thus been closed, but the two current projects in development will still see the light on that platform, due to pre-existing agreements: we are talking about the highly anticipated sci-fi noir Ray Gunn from the acclaimed Brad Bird (we will see it at Christmas) and a new version of Jack and the Beanstalk, created by Rich Moore of Wreck-It Ralph. Once those projects are wrapped, it will be up to Lasseter himself, returning to directing fifteen years after Cars 2 (2011), to bring Skydance Animation to the big screen with the film Cosmic Motors (described as a “space Cars“). On the other hand, Netflix has reasons to rejoice thanks to its partnership with Sony Pictures Animation, which gave rise to the cultural phenomenon K-Pop Demon Hunters.
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