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Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cartoon Network Studios Icons McCracken, Tartakovsky, Sugar, Quintel, Ward and Muto on The Studio, State of the Industry and What Inspires Them
In an intimate and candid discussion at this year's Annecy Animation Festival, the biggest names behind some of television's most iconic animated series met with Variety to talk legacy, change and the shifting landscape of the medium they helped define. Creators Craig McCracken ('The Powerpuff Girls' 'Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends'), Genndy Tartakovsky ('Dexter's Laboratory,' 'Samurai Jack'), Rebecca Sugar ('Steven Universe'), Pendleton Ward ('Adventure Time,' 'The Midnight Gospel') and J.G. Quintel ('Regular Show') and 'Adventure Time' executive producer and showrunner Adam Muto opened up about the origins of their work, a new era of creation and what it means to still be pushing boundaries after decades in the business. More from Variety Taicca and Gobelins Paris Announce Partnership at Annecy to 'Nurture Original Stories from Taiwan': 'Dream Bigger and Reach Further' 'Arcane' Producer Fortiche Teaming With ARTE France on Coming-of-Age Mini-Series 'Miss Saturne' GKIDS Acquires North American Rights to Hong Kong Animated Feature 'Another World,' Premiering at Annecy (EXCLUSIVE) The conversation ranged from nostalgic memories of Cartoon Network Studio's golden era – Annecy hosted a celebratory 25th anniversary panel for the studio on Tuesday afternoon – to bold speculation about the future of animation. At its core was the recognition that while technology, audience behavior and corporate structures have transformed dramatically, the creative spirit that fueled their iconic shows still drives the creators, and likely the next generation, too. 'There are people who are making independent animated shows themselves,' McCracken said, pointing to projects like Vivienne Medrano's hugely popular YouTube pilot-turned-Prime original series 'Hazbin Hotel' as evidence that a new wave is possible, though likely through free online platforms such as YouTube first, not television. 'You almost go the independent route first, get noticed, get an audience, and then the channels and the streamers.' Sugar and Muto were quick to praise Green Street Pictures' 'Scavengers Reign' and 'Common Side Effects' as other examples, the former having started life as a short that gained significant recognition online before resulting in a series greenlight. Tartakovsky wasn't so sure about the scalability or reliability of those models to result in long-term commercial successes, though. 'IP is the only word now,' he proposed, lamenting studios' current focus on rebooting existing franchises. 'It's harder for a new generation to break out like this again when [the studios] are just trying to do things that already exist,' echoing a plea Mudo made during the anniversary panel for studios and broadcasters to 'start greenlighting things, please.' Quintel added a silver lining: while short programs and incubators may be on pause, the mentoring tradition is alive. 'We're hiring people straight out of school. They've never done it, and they're learning on the show how to board, how to do premise-driven animation.' Several of the speakers emphasized that the animation industry has long been subject to cycles, and more original content could break through in the future. A recurring theme during the afternoon's discussion was how arbitrary past constraints now seem in the age of digital distribution. 'The reason our shows are 11 minutes is because that's how you divide 22,' McCracken said. 'But who says a show has to be seven minutes or 11 minutes? Why can't it be two minutes? Or an hour?' When it came to audience impact in the modern distribution ecosystem, the room was somewhat split between creative independence and audience-driven development. 'When you put something online, you can see how the audience reacts and adjust based on the feedback… just sharing with the people viewing,' McCracken mused. Tartakovsky pushed back: 'Maybe this is an antiquated way of thinking, but if we follow the audience, it's really dangerous. I want to give the audience what I think is going to be good. I want to do something original and unique that can stand out.' The assembled artists acknowledged the massive transformation of global collaboration thanks to new tools and technologies as well as the prominence of social media platforms and portfolio sites. McCracken now runs almost his entire show, a preschool 'Foster's spinoff' out of London, working remotely from Los Angeles. 'It's exactly the same job. It's just remote. It's no different than being back at the studio,' he said. Tartakovsky's teams are similarly international. 'I have a running list of Instagram people I want to work with,' he said. 'That's how I found the studio that did 'Primal,'' he explained, surprising some at the table. 'They had a short film based on one of their comic books, and I didn't want to do things the old way, so I contacted them at their very small studio in Paris, and they agreed to do it. And what they did was incredible.' Most of the creators use social media and video platforms to find inspiration and potential collaborators, while Quintal and Sugar said they've made transformative connections at comic conventions. Muto argued that individual portfolio sites, popular in decades past, have been making a comeback, and Ward pointed out that 'the Women in Animation website is a great resource for finding artists.' But for all the changes, some things have stayed the same, especially the camaraderie that has kept this group linked for decades. 'You hook onto talent that you like,' said Tartakovsky. 'My art director from 'Samurai Jack' has done pretty much everything with me. I have a background designer who worked with me all the way back on 'Dexter' who I just started working with again. You love these people.' McCracken agreed. 'It takes a very special, insane brain to do this job… It's bananas that we do this,' he laughed. 'So if any of us pull it off, we're like, 'Great job,' and we want to work with those people again and again.' 'It's so hard to build a crew,' admitted Mudo. 'Every time you have to lay off everybody and completely reconstitute, which is something that is a bigger part of the modern streaming cycle, it feels like you have to make a new show, even if it's just a new season of the same show. That explains a lot about why we end up working with the same people.' Each having varying degrees of experience working on more mature productions, the creators celebrated the freedom that adult animation now offers. Sugar recalled, early in 'Steven Universe's' broadcast run, that she would often be told that smaller fandoms of her show were insignificant to the network, as it was more interested in capturing a wide TV audience of all ages and demographics. With adult animation, she argued, fandoms are now more important than ever, and smaller groups of dedicated viewers can have a much more significant impact on a show's success. 'It seems like now we can start something where that is what matters most,' Sugar said, referring to the specificity and passion of modern fandoms. 'That can matter the most.' Even with a billion-dollar global success like the 'Hotel Transylvania' films under a filmmaker's belt, in the case of Tartakovsky, getting original ideas greenlit remains difficult. 'Three 'Hotel Transylvania' movies, almost $2 billion, and I still have a hard time getting an original greenlit,' Tartakovsky said. 'Every time I pitch, I hear that they love it, but that somehow they also don't love it.' After three decades, these creators aren't just surviving in an ever-shifting industry. They're still experimenting, still mentoring, and still hungry for what's next. Best of Variety 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inspired By ‘The Princess Bride', French Animated Movie ‘Pil's Adventures' Pulled In Punters After The Pandemic & Is Now Gearing Up For Some Small Screen Fun At Annecy
Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline's fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it's ever been, but breakout hits are emerging in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. That's why we're doing the hard work for you. The big to small screen journey can sometimes feel an arduous trail but with France's it just felt right. As the TV spin-off of the 2021 big screen hit gets ready to premiere, sales execs will be seeking pre-sales of the inspired project at Annecy this week. The show's promo art will even be emblazoned on the side of shuttle buses. More from Deadline 'Dexter's Laboratory' & 'The Powerpuff Girls' Creators On How They Broke The System At Cartoon Network From Brink Of Bankruptcy, TeamTO Unveils Six New Shows & Adult Animation Push At Annecy Neil Court Joins Coolabi As Chairman Amid 'Warrior Cats' Growth Push And M&A Opportunities Name: Pil's Adventures Country: France Producer: TAT Productions Distributor: Folivari International (previously Federation) For fans of: The Princess Diaries, the 2021 movie of the same name If the thousands of attendees at this week's Annecy International Animation Festival get a bit weary on their feet, they can take up the fest's offer of a shuttle bus across town between the MIFA industry market and enormous screening halls. Emblazoned on some of these shuttles will be Pil's Adventures, a box-office hit of the recent past that is being touted for the small screen at Annecy as the great and good of the animation sector, including execs from all the major Hollywood studios, gather for their annual confab. France's Pil's Adventures show will launch in several months' time and the creative team are hoping this set of 52 mini adventures can deliver sustained success. Spinning off from the 2021 movie of the same name, the show is about Pil, a spunky vagabond girl living in the medieval city of Foggyborough. In the movie, while sneaking into the castle, Pil witnessed the sinister Regent Tristain casting a spell on Roland, the heir to the throne. She realized it was now up to her to find a way to reverse the spell and save the prince's life. The daring adventure turned the entire kingdom upside down and taught Pil that nobility can be found in all of us. Pil's Adventures studio TAT Productions had worked with the movie's creator Julien Fournet on their hit kids show Jungle Bunch for many years and pivoting Pil to the small screen seemed an obvious step as studios look to build out franchises in a risk-averse landscape. 'I was totally crazy about the idea,' Fournet tells Deadline in the days leading up to Annecy. 'I wanted to mix in some comedy with some adventure, keep the main characters and then create more while expanding the universe.' The TV show takes place just after the movie ends. Pil is now a young wannabe vigilante, facing up to dangers including car chases and monsters in each episode as she and her friends take on the world. While Jungle Bunch has lent him great experience in writing dozens of short animation episodes and he was bursting at the seams with ideas, Fournet says the challenge centered around 'making the stories as funny for parents as they are for kids.' 'We are exploring different ways to write things but this was an interesting challenge,' he adds. 'This is maybe a bit more comedy-oriented and less epic than the movies. We are more in the daily life of our characters. It's that freedom you can't have in a film, you can try something new for each episode.' Jean-François Tosti, a producer at Asterix & Obelix studio TAT and animation vet, says the TV version builds off a winning formula. 'The interesting thing with Pil and Jungle Bunch is every episode can be similar but with different stories,' he adds. 'It is an interesting playground for this. We need someone like Julien with a strong imagination to make that happen. With a traditional showrunner, this would be impossible for us.' The movie's inception goes back a fair few years now and the inspiration came from a rather unlikely source, which drove the creative team to go in with the idea that they needed a heroine, not a hero. 'Princess Bride' Provides Unlikely Inspiration 'We were totally agreed that we loved the renaissance movie The Princess Bride,' says Fournet of the beloved 1987 Rob Reiner fantasy adventure starring Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin. 'We wanted this subtle mix of adventure with crazy characters, lots of comedy but also strong emotion behind it. The idea was to have this young, female character who is not really a princess but is a real engine for the script and can be strong in front of the bad guys.' The spirit of the Princess Bride carried the team through the lengthy production period that was stymied by the Covid pandemic and Tosti points out that the movie defied odds by making box office money in 2021 when cinemagoers remained reluctant to head to the theater. '2021 was a very hard time,' says Tosti. 'We sold almost 500,000 tickets, which in normal times would have been maybe 900,000 or 1 million.' The movie went on to sell 1.7M tickets worldwide, was dubbed into English starring Dalila Bela and Carlos Mencia and grossed around $15M for all versions. Tosti was delighted to see the movie perform well in regions like CEE, Israel and the Middle East. Now, having taken over Pil's distribution from Federation Kids, new seller Folivari International has struck pre-sales for the small-screen version in France (France Télévisions), Sweden (SVT) and Switzerland (RTS), with the show likely to launch around Xmas time or early next year. 'France Télévisions is very excited and this could be one of their biggest kids shows for next year,' says Tosti. But all is not well in the animation sector more broadly, Tosti says, as he cites how studios 'grew too quickly' after the pandemic and now 'the ask for animation is really shrinking,' with pre-sales becoming more and more difficult to strike. 'TAT turns 25 this year and this is the first time I see such a crisis,' he adds. 'Producers have to take huge risks to complete a feature or series then sell it. It is a very strange time for animation producers.' Tosti remains optimistic the market will 'normalize' by next year and he feels he is lucky to have risen through the ranks of a French animation sector that has a 'great tradition.' 'Every producer from abroad wants to know why their sector isn't like ours,' he adds. 'When I was a kid I only watched U.S. and Japanese animation and European animation barely existed but now we have subsidies, markets, very strong national broadcasters and are financing first-rate French TV series. This leads to great talent, studios and broadcasters, so we have everything to develop animation.' As Annecy attendees are dazzled by the next Stranger Things or Bojack creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg's latest, the success of local shows a little closer to home will hopefully shine through. 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