Apple TV+ and Skydance Animation part ways

After the middling success of "Luck," Apple TV+ and Skydance Animation agreed that the upcoming "Spellbound" isn't a good fit as the studios part ways at the end of their contract.

Apple TV+ has been rearranging its content plans in recent weeks, with Skydance Animation the latest on the chopping block. Previously, Sony decided to take "The Afterparty" elsewhere while "High Desert" was canceled after only one season.

According to a report from Deadline, Skydance Animation and Apple TV+ mutually agree that the studio's animated features don't fit in with Apple's content lineup. So, the John Lasseter lead Skydance Animation won't be renewing its contract with Apple TV+ and is taking "Spellbound" with it.

Skydance Media will continue to work with Apple TV+ on its various movies and television series like "Foundation." That partnership remains strong and more titles are incoming, like "The Family Plan" with Mark Wahlberg and "Mayday" with Ryan Reynolds.

Skydance Animation previously released a short film called "Blush" and a feature-length animated film called "Luck." Both offered excellent animation that was compared to Pixar, but did not generate the hype expected from such a project.

Separate reports suggest Skydance Animation has found a home with Netflix, which is where "Spellbound" will now premiere in 2024.

It isn't clear if Apple intends to pursue a different partnership for feature-length animated films. By contrast, the independent animated film "Wolfwalkers" scored an Oscar nomination, suggesting Apple should keep an eye on the space.

5 Comments

Marvin 15335 comments · 18 Years

About 1 year ago

coolfactor said:

Who is Skydance? What are they known for? Never heard of them before, and that might be part of the problem. Names like "Disney" and "Pixar" are genius in that they are short, sweet, catchy and have a reputation, but now we have "Skydance Animation" and "Skydance Media"... two separate entities sharing the same name? Any notable recognition immediately gets lost.

There's so much competition for "mind space" these days. So much noise. Companies can't afford to be willy-nilly about their branding. When someone hears "another Pixar film"... it's already a "must-see" thing, no matter where it's being offered.

There should just be one Skydance name in the entertainment production market, and it should be known for one thing.

Most of this is covered on the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydance_Media

Skydance does film primarily and the animation is from a subsidiary animation studio. Disney has a separate structure too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Animation_Studios

Skydance is from Larry Ellison's son, he gave a lot of initial funding to the studio.
Larry Ellison's daughter setup Annapurna studios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Pictures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Interactive
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/1/23487911/annapurna-animation-nimona-andrew-millstein-robert-baird

Larry Ellison was close with Steve Jobs and Apple. Some Annapurna games are on Apple Arcade. I imagine these sort of deals happen through long-term connections.

The company brand doesn't matter so much. Pixar was a complete unknown when they launched Toy Story. All a studio needs is a good story and they'll make a name for themselves like Illumination with Minions.

The animation and film industry is going to get more and more stagnant because it relies on variations in a limited resource. A story is just a combination of characters and plots and these are limited. You can see this in recent movies like Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. They have the same themes playing out - car chase, train, running around, some timer running out, top bad guy fights top good guy in hand-to-hand combat, models who are also deadly assassins, Simon Pegg being sarcastic. After a while you are watching the same movie as previous ones with some tweaks here and there.

Pixar relies heavily on the anthropomorphism theme:

https://screenrant.com/every-pixar-movie-what-if-had-feelings-formula/

Major themes: toys, bugs, superheroes, monsters, fish, cars, old people, rat, robots, dinosaur etc. They do one of each theme with sequels but when the big themes run out, they can only go more abstract like Onward, Soul, Luca, Turning Red, Elemental and Skydance's entry with Luck.

For some reason, animation studios don't use movie themes much. There are a few movie themes like explorers, pirates, time travel, sci-fi and iconic human characters to make in each theme. Like what Disney used to do with their early animations. Even then, they will run out of good stories to tell.

Honkers 156 comments · 1 Year

About 1 year ago

coolfactor said:

Who is Skydance? What are they known for? Never heard of them before, and that might be part of the problem. Names like "Disney" and "Pixar" are genius in that they are short, sweet, catchy and have a reputation, but now we have "Skydance Animation" and "Skydance Media"... two separate entities sharing the same name? Any notable recognition immediately gets lost.

There's so much competition for "mind space" these days. So much noise. Companies can't afford to be willy-nilly about their branding. When someone hears "another Pixar film"... it's already a "must-see" thing, no matter where it's being offered.

There should just be one Skydance name in the entertainment production market, and it should be known for one thing.

Very few people care about the production company behind a film. Disney and Pixar are standouts for having name recognition, but plenty of other studios do just fine without it. Skydance included, they're very successful.

genovelle 1481 comments · 16 Years

About 1 year ago

I think the real problem with Lucky was the story telling. I enjoyed it fairly well, but the characters didn’t win me over. My 10 year old was bored with it and he loves Pixar and Disney characters. I can’t put my finger on it, but something important is missing.