Bloomberg Businessweek ran down the numbers for animated movies this year and concluded that this was a profitable year for studios. Frozen is projected to make $250 million and the article lists other earnings:
• Despicable Me 2 at $367 million
• Monsters University at $268 million
• The Croods at $187 million
Despite the happy dollar signs, 2013 had some disappointing news and Bloomberg thinks that 2014 might not have as much success.
Earlier this year, DreamWorks laid off 350 employees, because Rise of the Guardians (last year’s holiday movie) did not yield the desired results. Pixar also decided to push back The Good Dinosaur to 2015, Bob Petersen was removed from the project, and some Pixarians were also let go. Not to mention, Pixar Canada shut their doors.
2014 will not have a new Pixar film. Pixar is looking at protecting their brand and setting themselves apart from the corporate Disney studio. They’re holing up to come out with something original.
DreamWorks diversified their portfolio by picking up the Classic Media library, but Turbo had a less than large return and it had a lot of merchandise riding on it. The studio is hoping the Netflix original series will pick up the numbers.
Next year sounds like it will be pretty quiet on animated pictures, but “Frozen’s journey to the screen has taken some seven decades; it began as a project dreamed up by Walt Disney himself. Perhaps good things come to animation studios that wait.”