From Brink Of Bankruptcy, TeamTO Unveils Six New Shows & Adult Animation Push At Annecy
Last year, storied French animation outfit TeamTO was on the brink of folding. Today at Annecy, its new owners unveiled reinvention and expansion.
The PJ Masks outfit ran into financial problems after 20 years in operation and was bought in late 2024 by Italy's Riva Studios for €2.6M ($3M) after a 'highly competitive auction.'
More from Deadline
Neil Court Joins Coolabi As Chairman Amid 'Warrior Cats' Growth Push And M&A Opportunities
"Je Suis Milhouse": Matt Groening Gets Emotional At Annecy As He Reveals The Motivation Behind The 800-Episode Longevity Of 'The Simpsons'
Sola Media Posts First Deals For Annecy Title 'Captain Sabertooth And The Countess Of Grel'
Six months on, new CEO Marco Balsamo unveiled a sextet of shows, a push into 2D and adult animation, and new technology.
During an Annecy Studio in Focus event that has just finished, Balsamo showed audiences SKWAD!, TeamTO's first adult animated 2D comedy, which is set in the world of MMA, along with Infinity, a cinematic adult action-drama from acclaimed director Jay Oliva.
Tapping into Balsamo's love for soccer – his family owns a soccer team in New York – TeamTO is also making Shadow Soccer, an anime-inspired sports drama with supernatural elements. Completing the sextet are What's Up, Eesha?, a whimsical preschool series co-produced with Maga Animation (Italy) and UMedia (Belgium), Greek mythology show Next Level: Odyssey and H.O.M.E., a sci-fi family comedy about a blended household living inside a retired intergalactic battle robot.
Speaking to Deadline before the Studio in Focus, Balsamo said CGI will 'remain our bread and butter' but 'we've always wanted to branch out and show a variety of what TeamTO can accomplish, and that is in the 2D and adult animation space.' For the foreseeable future, the indie will take a roughly 50/50 split approach to its original IP work and production services, he added.
Balsamo and his team became interested in acquiring troubled studio TeamTO initially to rescue some IP the pair were working on titled Junichiro Jackson – 'In our head it wasn't buying the studio but getting back our IP,' he said – but he quickly realized TeamTO was a 'turnkey' company.
'When we opened up the Pandora's Box there's this incredible team of people,' he added. 'It's a lot more than just CGI. And our job now is to optimize that and do the best we can to instil confidence within our team and our partners that we can re-establish ourselves as a premier animation studio.'
Around 90%, or the 'core group' of TeamTO's circa-39 staff have kept their jobs, Balsamo said, although they were unable to retain the previous ownership 'for various reasons.'
He said 'a handful of poor decisions at a bad time' combined with the 2023 U.S. labor strikes spelt the end for the previous iteration of TeamTO.
'They decided to expand into a huge studio that cost way too much money to sustain because they were under the impression that they were going to handle productions in double digits,' he added. 'When the service projects stopped coming in, the money dried up. It just boiled down to that decision.'
Balsamo notes it is a rocky time for animation but said 'with that comes opportunity.'
The new owner said he is equally happy working with local French players and major American studios, who are out in full force at Annecy this week, and he issued a rallying cry for the industry to come together in a time of strife and in the face of layoffs and the dangers of artificial intelligence.
'I think we're at an inflection point,' added Balsamo. 'Tribalism has to go. At the end of the day the robots are not going to support us or pay our bills. So studios, executives, partners and broadcasters really need to champion stories. Budgets and greenlights are harder to come by so we need to work together.'
With this in mind, Balsamo's team will also unveil this week proprietary tech that it will shop to the market rather than keeping in-house including Tangerine, a real-time animation platform that it says increases animator productivity by up to 30%, and Yuzu, a new production management tool offering real-time visibility.
Balsamo was speaking to Deadline at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.
Best of Deadline
Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds
A Full Timeline Of Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni's 'It Ends With Us' Feud In Court, Online & In The Media
Where To Watch All The 'John Wick' Movies: Streamers That Have All Four Films
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump to attend 'Les Misérables' premiere as protests persist across the country
President Donald Trump is set to attend the opening night of 'Les Misérables,' a musical set against a background of revolution and protest, at Washington, D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday. 'I love the songs, I love the play,' Trump told Fox News Digital last week. 'I think it's great.' The opening night of a monthlong run of the Tony Award-winning show comes amid widespread protests against the president's immigration policies and his decision to deploy members of the military in response. Protesting against power is a major theme in the show, which is centered around student-led demonstrations against the French monarchy. 'Set against the backdrop of 19th-century France, the musical tells an enthralling story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice, and redemption — a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit,' reads the official summary on the Kennedy Center's website. Songs from the musical have been used in protests against governments around the world since the show debuted in 1980, including by pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong in 2019. Protesters sang one of the show's most popular and recognizable hits, 'Do You Hear the People Sing?' which includes the lyrics, 'Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men?' The show will be the first production Trump has attended as head of the Kennedy Center. He did not attend any performances during his first term in office, and in February he replaced the entire board of trustees and had himself named chairman of the board. The shake-up resulted in some concerts being canceled — including a performance by the Gay Men's Chorus in honor of Pride Month — and other artists and productions pulling out of planned shows to protest the changes, including actor Issa Rae and a production of 'Hamilton.' 'Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,' 'Hamilton' producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement in March. A spokesperson for "Les Miz" said Wednesday, 'We are looking forward to performing for DC audiences beginning tonight and throughout the engagement at the Kennedy Center, where the US first saw the original production in 1986.' The performance Wednesday is serving as a fundraiser for the Kennedy Center. First lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, are expected to attend as well. Security will be tightened around the venue for the performance, the Kennedy Center said. 'Please be advised the Kennedy Center will be closed to non-ticket holders on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, due to enhanced security protocols,' the venue's website said. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Andor' Season 2: Crafting Cultures, World-Building, and Story All At Once
'' is an in-depth podcast and video essay series featuring interviews with the stars and creative team behind an exceptional piece of filmmaking. For this edition, the IndieWire Crafts and Special Projects team partnered with Disney+ to take a closer look at 'Andor' with creator Tony Gilroy, executive producer Sanne Wholenberg, actors Alïas Lawson, Diego Luna, and Genevieve O'Reilly, production designer Luke Hull, costume designer Michael Wilkinson, composer Brandon Roberts, cinematographer Mark Patton, director Janus Metz, as well as editors Yan Miles and John Gilroy to explore how building distinct cultures grounded the most explosive moments of the show's second season. There is a whole galaxy full of TV critics, including our own here at IndieWire, who have found 'Andor' Season 2 to be the very best of 'Star Wars' — certainly the entry in the franchise that most compellingly grapples with the romance and sacrifice that power revolutions. The Disney+ series does not do this by leaning into the voluminous annals of existing 'Star Wars' lore, though. More from IndieWire Even Tramell Tillman Is 'Scared' of His 'Severance' Character Milchick: 'Who the Hell Is That Guy Who Has My Face?' Genndy Tartakovsky Knows 'Fixed' Is a 'Unicorn' of an Animated Movie Tony Gilroy and his creative team figured out that showing viewers the repressive opulence of imperial strongholds, that getting us to feel the humanity of the places that the Empire wishes to crush, makes Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his rebel friends' fight against the Empire so much more meaningful. Perhaps the most key location in Season 2 is the planet Ghorman, a wealthy, first-world world that just so happens to have some rare minerals the Empire may want to extract. Every decision about Ghorman, from its fabric export economy to its French and Algerian resistance roots to its spider mascots, was made working backwards from the fact that the Empire was going to perpetrate a massacre there. 'Ghorman was built to be destroyed,' Gilroy told IndieWire. 'The social climate of Ghorman is crucial for this season, so all this investment is done in terms of storytelling, of time spent in this place, and in terms of design and building,' Luna said on an episode of IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. 'In our story, it's important to go deeper and get to understand the community.' On 'Andor,' the Empire is crushing communities everywhere, even the ones where everything seems lovely and fine. Season 2 spends much of its first three episodes on Chandrila, the homeworld of rebel leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), in no small part to show the personal cost of her choosing rebellion over family, friends, and her own moral compass. Mon's tacit consent to the murder of childhood friend/shaky banker Tay Kolma (Ben Miles) culminates in a dizzying dance number, but everything we learn about Chandrila's traditions before that gives the audience a vivid sense of why Mon is making that choice. In the videos below, watch how the 'Andor' creative team constructed the cultures of Chandrila and Ghorman to build to some of the most visually detailed, emotionally heartrending, and thematically meaningful sequences in 'Star Wars' history. Genevieve O'Reilly has played the character of Mon Mothma across multiple 'Star Wars' films and series now, going back to a deleted scene cameo in 'Revenge of the Sith.' But 'Andor' was the first time she got any real context for where the character came from, or why she'd made the choices that would lead to her becoming a rebel leader. Going to Chandrila, getting to experience its old world opulence and rigid, ancient wedding traditions, was deeply revelatory. 'It made so much sense. The complexity of tradition within oneself partly defines who we are, whether we accept that or reject that. And in fact, it gave me a window into what [Mon's] first rebellion really probably was, which was to find her way out of that culture,' O'Reilly told IndieWire. The work of creating those traditions was spread across the 'Andor' creative team — including composer Brandon Roberts' blend of classical polish, tribal rhythms, and EDM remixes on the score, Luke Hull's melding of 'Star Wars' shapes and expensive textures in the Mothma family home, and Michael Wilkinson's richly layered costumes that conjure a sense of nobility while drawing on a diverse set of cultural styles. Every aesthetic choice for Chandrila is part of a setup for the end of Episode 3, 'Harvest,' where Mon dances away the pain of all the lives she's having to ruin, not least her own, in service of fighting the Empire. For a moment, she drowns in the concentric circles of, as Gilroy puts it, Chandrila's 'wealth utopia,' just to keep herself from screaming. 'We talked a lot about sort of circular movements, swirling and raising arms, and using the fabrics for the camera to sort of find her as everything descends into chaos,' Wilkinson said. The costume designer worked with fabrics specifically chosen to accentuate movement during the dance sequence, so that each twist and turn of the dance would look as dramatic as Mon's emotional turmoil. In the video above, watch how Wilkinson, Hull, Roberts, and the entire 'Andor' creative team crafted a gilded cage to trap Mon Mothma, even as she tries to dance her way free. The Ghorman Massacre is part of 'Star Wars' lore. It's the inciting incident that causes Mon Mothma to leave the Senate, and hence a turning point for the Rebellion that Gilroy knew would be a tentpole moment going into the Season 2 writers' room. But little had been established about the planet itself. '[Ghorman] was a blank book, it was a complete void,' said producer Sanne Wohlenberg. 'You knew about the Ghorman Massacre, you knew all that history through canon, but really nobody had been to Ghorman, and so 'Who are these people and what is the culture?'' As Gilroy and team detail in the video above, this meant they would build the society and its history from the ground up, even inventing its economy (fabrics), the native spiders whose webs were used to produce the famed twill fabrics, and a sophisticated culture that's proud of its history. 'We always knew that it was a new culture and we wanted to create a new language for it,' said Wohlenberg. 'Tony had this great idea, so why don't we cast French people whose natural way of speaking French lends itself for the new language. He started creating alphabets and literally they built a language. Our actors could actually speak Ghor to each other and eventually became fluent.' For the Ghorman Massacre in Episode 8, Gilroy and Season 1 composer Nicholas Britell had even written a national anthem for the proud Ghor to sing in protest as the Empire's trap starts to tighten. 'Just being in a crowd and us singing together and chanting together, it just felt very real,' said Alaïs Lawson, the French-speaking actress cast to play Ghorman Front fighter Enza Rylanz. 'I actually have kind of chills thinking about it.' Much like with Ferrix in Season 1, these building blocks of Ghor society were created with the arc of the season in mind. Whereas the Ferrix storyline would culminate with the working class residents' anger boiling over into rebellion, the Ghor's peaceful protests would end in a pre-determined slaughter. As Gilroy says in the video, 'Ghorman was built to be destroyed.' Added series production designer and producer Luke Hull, 'We really were working back off this notion that this becomes a killing field.' In the video above, Hull and team break down one of the biggest builds in TV history: The circular Ghorman town center backlot set. 'You are working within a set that's the size of two football fields, and it's a real plaza. It's got a fountain, it's got a hotel, it's got a cafe,' said episode 7-9 director Janus Metz. 'At some point, you forget that the sets are sets, you're just living within the reality of [the place].' The Ghorman backlot set is not only the beating heart of its culture and history, it's the noose the Empire places around their neck in Episode 8, as the storylines of Cassian, Dedra (Denise Gough), Syril (Kyle Soller), Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) converge in the fateful clash between the Ghorman Front and the Empire. 'I'm a freak for geography and action that you always have to know where you are always,' said Gilroy. 'But Luke's set lets you know where everybody is all the time if you're taking attendance. And it pushes the directors into always being proper about it.' In the video above, Metz, episode 8 editor Yan Miles, and cinematographer Mark Patten break down how they kept the action clear and the masterful episode's drama mounting toward its dreadful conclusion. Deep Dive 'Andor' Season 2: Crafting Cultures, World-Building, and Story All At Once Watch Tony Gilroy, Diego Luna, Genevieve O'Reilly, and the Season 2 production team break down the Chandrila wedding and the Ghorman Massacre. By Sarah Shachat, Chris O'Falt 1 hour ago Deep Dive 'The Substance': The Cinematic Metamorphosis of Elisabeth Sparkle IndieWire goes under the skin of Elisabeth's transformation with Demi Moore, writer/director Coralie Fargeat, and the filmmaking team. By Chris O'Falt December 20, 2024 11:30 am Deep Dive How 'The Boys' Shaped the Emotional Journey of Season 4 Watch 'The Boys' creative team explain stirring the psychological and political pot for the Prime Video series' penultimate season. By Daron James December 6, 2024 4:40 pm Hi Barbie! How 'Barbie' Became Real The creative team behind 'Barbie' breaks down how they built the film's box of more than just toys. By Sarah Shachat November 30, 2023 4:00 pm Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Disney, Universal Sue AI Image Creator Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
Entertainment giants and rivals Disney (DIS) and Universal have teamed up to sue AI image creator Midjourney for alleged copyright infringements, including those of "Star Wars" and "The Simpsons." "For more than 100 years, Disney and Universal have delighted audiences around the world by investing in and fostering American creative innovation and producing some of the greatest motion pictures and fictional characters of all time," read the complaint. "Midjourney, however, seeks to reap the rewards of Plaintiffs' creative investment by selling an artificial intelligence (AI) image-generating service that functions as a virtual vending machine, generating endless unauthorized copies of Disney's and Universal's copyrighted works." The companies allege that "Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism," and include in the lawsuit several AI-generated images of copyrighted characters like Darth Vader, Homer Simpson, Shrek, and the Minions, which they allege Midjourney produced. Disney and Universal, who allege that Midjourney generated $300 million in revenue last year, and ignored their demands to stop its actions, are seeking a jury trial. Midjourney did not immediately respond to an Investopedia request for comment. Read the original article on Investopedia Sign in to access your portfolio
