Netflix has made the recent announcement that they’re moving to revamp their animation departments. And starting with that is the acquisition of Skydance Animation. Originally partnered with Apple, Skydance is bringing with it its entire roster of upcoming films, starting with “Spellbound,” a property meant exclusively for Apple TV that will now be available on Netflix.
This is fairly exciting news considering the landscape of animation lately. Apple TV is notorious for purchasing and producing animated properties without publicizing any of it. A perfect example being Cartoon Saloon’s “Wolfwalkers“. An incredibly special and traditionally animated film made exclusive to Apple TV that received little to no attention. And was nonchalantly buried in their movie collections. Belonging to Netflix means the animated works will get the chance to be seen properly.
Netflix has gone through a bit of a rough cycle when it comes to their animation department. Amongst shows and movies getting cancelled, and layoffs within their department, they’ve done their best to restructure under animation head Karen Toliver. “It’s a very long cycle of development and production, sometimes it can take a decade to deliver a really great animated feature film,” Netflix Co-Chief Ted Sarandos said. “That deal helps us to complement the work that we’re doing, there’s a lot of appetite for animated features and we’re committed to that part of the business.”
The other films soon to be made available are Brad Bird‘s “Ray Gunn” and Nathan Greno‘s “Pookoo.” As well as an untitled Jack and the Beanstalk retelling from “Zootopia” director Rich Moore. The non-animation branch of Skydance will be staying with Apple. At least until 2022, when their contract expires. What that will mean for the remainder of the studio remains to be seen.
