The Ever-Changing Cartoon Biz

Now with healthful, gluten-free Add On (see below).

Ed Catmull retires next month. John Lasseter is looking to make a comeback in Cartoonland (at a studio not named Disney). Animation, in ways similar to live-aCtion, has become a roiling sea.

Companies are beset by mergers, or #MeToo scandals. Studios are wedded to big ambitions, or shackled to past successes.

And internal questions are only the start. Leaders such as Disney and Pixar are trying to maintain dominance over the field, while close competitors like Illumination are closing in. Once-great studios such as DreamWorks are struggling to find their way back. And well-funded upstarts from Sony to Netflix are seeking to knock them all off.

“We are witnessing fundamental change right before our eyes,” said Dan Sarto, editor at the industry-watching Animation World Network and a close observer of the category. “It’s totally unprecedented. Everything is subject to disruption.” ...

A big reason animation is in flux is, it isn't a sleepy little corner of the movie business anymore. (Truth be told, it hasn't been small or sleepy for years.) Every entertainment conglomerate produces and releases animated features. Every conglomerate produces and distributes TV cartoons. Netflix and Amazon, to upstart pretenders to the Hollywood throne, produce animation because the formate draws LOTS of eyeballs. And well-watched content is the ane of the game.

Standard rule of thumb: the higher the stakes, the more vicious the in-fighting. That's why there is more back-stabbing and maneuvering at higher levels than there ever was before. That's why fewer big-shots talk to the mainstream media. (Kindly note that highly-placed animation execs delivered quotes to the Washington Post story directly above. They have more to lose than gain from press accessibility.)

Yes, the industry is going through Big Change, but it has gone through change and upheaval before. (Television, labor strife, cable networks, etc.) The difference now is the profits are far bigger and the stakes far higher. Internal turmoil is one thing when cartoons are a sleepy sideshow, quite another when the money is big and the competition fierce. The business is not just Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and a few small upstart studios anymore. Now it's seven hungry corporations with very long knives.

Add On: But, of course, it isn't just the animation biz in turmoil. The wider live-action industry is also going through painful change, as one of our major metroploitan dailies details here.