Frederator Films

Sony Pictures Animation + Frederator Films.

fredseibert — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:06:10 +0000

Carrie, Eric, Kevin and I are honored to let you about our new multi-year, first look, development arrangement with Sony Pictures Animation, just announced at Cartoon Brew and The Hollywood Reporter. So, in addition to our already active slate of indie animation features, we’ll be able to start becoming active in studio pictures as well.

I’ve known Bob Osher, the President of Digital Production Division of Sony Pictures, and Amy Pascal, Chairman of Sony Pictures, since we worked together at Turner Broadcasting. Together with their great Sony Pictures Animation team, Hannah Minghella (President of Production), Nate Hopper (Senior VP, Development) and Alexa Amin (VP, Development), we’re looking forward to bringing our unique cartoon talent incubator of big ideas to even bigger screens in the years ahead.

Here’s the press release:

…..

For Release after 6:00AM September 11, 2009

Sony Pictures Animation and Fred Seibert’s Frederator Studios to Develop Animated Features

Culver City, Ca. September 11, 2009 – Sony Pictures Animation has set a multi-year deal with Fred Seibert and his Frederator Studios to develop animated feature films, it was announced today by Bob Osher, president of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, and Hannah Minghella, president of production for Sony Pictures Animation. Seibert, a prolific animation producer, promises to be a rich source of original ideas as Sony Pictures Animation continues to advance its development slate.

“It is hard to imagine someone more passionate about animation than Fred Seibert, “ said Bob Osher, who first worked with Seibert at Turner Entertainment, when Seibert was president of Hanna-Barbera Productions. “He is a remarkable creative resource.”

“Frederator Studios is thrilled to be working with Bob, Hannah, and their team at Sony Pictures Animation,” said Fred Seibert. “They’ve given us a unique opportunity to further develop our incubator for big animation ideas.”

“As we look to make a wide variety of animated movies, this relationship with Frederator Studios presents a wealth of fresh ideas and talent,” said Hannah Minghella. “It is exciting to be working with Fred and his creative community.”

The former president of Hanna-Barbera Productions, Seibert founded Frederator in 1998. At Hanna-Barbera he gathered dozens of creative mavericks to create original cartoons. That grand experiment has produced 138 original shorts, an Academy Award nomination, two Emmy nominations, and seven original half-hour cartoon series at Cartoon Network (including THEPOWERPUFF GIRLS, JOHNNY BRAVO, COW AND CHICKEN, I.M. WEASEL, COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG, WHAT A CARTOON! and DEXTER’S LABORATORY). Today, Frederator is regarded as one of the largest and most creative independent cartoon studios, with over 100 projects in active development and production for features, television, and the internet, and several series on the air, including THE FAIRLY ODD PARENTS, MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT, APE ESCAPE CARTOONS and WOW! WOW! WUBBZY!. Currently in production are FANBOY & CHUM CHUM, premiering on Nickelodeon in May, and ADVENTURE TIME at Cartoon Network for May 2010.

In 2006 Seibert recognized the potential of online video and launched the Next New Networks, which has so far launched 25 online micro-networks featuring short, pithy and popular content that has made it the top independent supplier of original entertainment on YouTube. Among Seibert’s earlier career highlights, as the original creative director he launched MTV: Music Television and, later, transformed Nickelodeon into a top cable network and established the Nick-at-Nite concept.

Sony Pictures Animation has recently announced other development deals, including a first look agreement with The Gotham Group and the acquisition of several properties including THE FAMILIARS, HIP HOP and a title from Platinum Studios. Sony Pictures Animation’s next movie, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, opens on September 18.

About Sony Pictures Animation:
Sony Pictures Animation exemplifies the next generation of CGI storytelling to produce a variety of animated entertainment for audiences around the world. Sony Pictures Animation is developing a full slate of films including the mouth-watering 3D comedy CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS which opens in September 2009, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, now in pre-production and, in association with Columbia Pictures, THE SMURFS MOVIE, also in pre-production. In 2007, SURF’S UP, was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature and won two Annie Awards. The company’s first film, OPEN SEASON, was a box office success and the #2 DVD title of the year for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Its sequel, OPEN SEASON 2, released in 2009, was an international family hit. Sony Pictures Animation is an operating unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions.

About Frederator Studios:
Frederator Studios has been a unique incubator for big animation ideas, producing original cartoons since 1998. Over 200 short films have resulted in 16 hit series for television and the internet, including Butch Hartman’s THE FAIRLY ODDPARENTS, Genndy Tartakovsky’s DEXTER’S LABORATORY, and Craig McCraken’s THE POWERPUFF GIRLS. Eric Robles’ FANBOY & CHUM CHUM will debut on Nickelodeon in October 2009, and Pendleton Ward’s ADVENTURE TIME launches in May 2010 on Cartoon Network. SAMURAI JACK is in development at Paramount Pictures with Bad Robot Productions.

Movies, movies, movies.

fredseibert — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:04:10 +0000

I don’t want to belabor this backstory any more than I have already. Suffice it to say, Frederator’s moving headlong into commercial feature development, and we’re sure hoping we’ll succeed. It’s a big, new market for us, and I think the talented artists and writers we’ve worked with over the years will have a lot to say in the medium.

Basically, we’ve got three approaches to animated feature films that we think will work for us.

• Low budget. In the feature film world that means under $20 million. Samurai Jack’s the first (with Paramount Pictures distributing, and Bad Robot and Frederator Films producing). We’ve got another three or four in development, and I’m sure more coming soon. As always, we like making mass appeal, popular entertainment. We think there’s a lot of big box office, reasonable priced pictures to be made.

• Studio films. These are the big, mostly CG pictures, made for a large audience at a higher budget. There have been successes out there with production budgets anywhere from $20-$150 million. Who knows what ours will be, but we love making films for the general audience the embrace.

• Hyper-low budget. We’re convinced there’s an indie market for animated movies (you probably agree; do all the Family Guy and South Park fans go to Julia Roberts’ films?). Probably $3 million and under for production, with smaller distributors, for specialized audience. Most likely comedies, PG-13 and R-rated (mainly). We’ve got a lot of developments in the works here, and now all we have to do is get some movies across the finish line.

That’s it for now, it’s how Frederator Films is trying to make it’s way in the world. Wish us luck, bring us movies, do whatever you want to do. Thanks for listening.

–Fred

Lunch with Genndy.

fredseibert — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:55:40 +0000

As we zeroed in on how Frederator Films would approach animated feature filmmaking (D’oh! Put the talent first, the same way we did in TV!) I started hanging with the best talent we knew. And, at the head of the list was Genndy Tartakovsky.

That was a pretty easy decision. I was president of Hanna-Barbera when Genndy came to the studio as a key member of Donovan Cook’s 2 Stupid Dogs team. I greenlit his first Dexter’s Laboratory short, and he delivered one of the great cartoons in recent history. Then there was the DL series, also one of the greats. Samurai Jack and Clone Wars were after my time, but I watched Genndy grow as a filmmaker from afar, and I remembered Genndy as one of the best people I’d worked with in my entire career. Talented, smart, dedicated, relentless, amazing leader, moral, and fun. What a rare guy.

I set up the lunch with no expectations. After all, Genndy had just come out of a multi-year relationship with George Lucas, and had set up The Orphanage Animation Studios to develop his own feature films; what could Frederator offer him at this point? But, on the way I realized there was an opportunity. I immediately called Jim Samples, then-President of Cartoon Network, and right away he agreed to a first in the network’s history, granting of rights to an independent production company. They would grant Frederator Studios the animated movie rights to the hit TV series Samurai Jack, as long as we agreed that Genndy would be intimately involved. Agree?!!! How else could we be interested?

Genndy was thrilled when I delivered the news. He’d been disappointed that CN and New Line Cinema had abandoned the project (both animated and live action films) and felt he’d let his fans down. Here was the chance to finish what he’d started, and reclaim a special set of characters he’d created.

Without going into all the details, the deals took forever (forever!) to close (in fact, some of them still have dangling participles) and by the time we announced the formation of Frederator Films in June 2007 surprise was awaiting all of us. J.J. Abrams, a huge Jack fan, had agreed to be my co-producer on the picture through his company Bad Robot Productions at Paramount Pictures. We knew that with JJ and his producing partner Bryan Burk we’d be in more than good hands and improve our chances tremendously of actually seeing the movie on the big screens.

After lunch with Genndy, and the success of starting our company with Samurai Jack, our talent approach to animated movies had a prayer. The unanswered question was “what next?”. In fact, that was really about 1000 questions.

–Fred

(More to come…)

Finally.

fredseibert — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:02:37 +0000

The fall of 2005 was pretty insane.

Random! Cartoons was really heating up (still called Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Season 4) and we were still taking dozens of pitches. Channel Frederator had moved from a vague concept to an almost reality and learning about internet video in those days (ah, those were the days) wasn’t all that easy. And we finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it on feature films.

Like I’ve said before, we were looking ahead to a slowing kids TV market, we’d plunged into internet video, and we looked at the feature marketplace and realized we had just as unique a spot there as in television. Frederator Films would be stake it’s bet on talent; we weren’t going to be working on “properties” or “franchises.” Our strength had always been believing in artists and writers with a vision, a belief in cartoons and cartoonists; it didn’t look to me like the feature world felt the same way. It was often hard for anyone to summon up the name of the driving force behind the popular animated movies, just like when we first got into television.

So we cooked up our feature pitch:

• Rely on great talent. We start with artists who write, but we weren’t going to be limited.

• 2D, CG, claymation, flash, whatever. Frederator Films would be technique agnostic. When we decided to move on a filmmaker’s project, we’d roll with their approach to the movie.

• Let’s stay with budgets under $20,000,000. In the feature world that was called “low-budget” (the popular movies most often are made for $100 million and UP), but to us that was really expensive. Our experience had taught us that budget and popularity are not necessarily linked.

• To market low-budget pictures, you need a built in audience; they’re more loyal and find out about the movies in ways outside the mainsream channels. Those are the audiences for “genre” pictures, and genre pictures was the ticket for Frederator Films. Comedy, science fiction, horror, and even some family films were all ‘genre.’

Simple, right? Well, pretty much no one had ever made any money in Hollywood on animated genre films. I wasn’t sure we were going the right way until one day I had lunch with Genndy Tartakovsky.

–Fred

(More to come…)

Talent rules.

fredseibert — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:01:52 +0000

Cartoon by Nataliedee

I always get very confused moving into a new endeavor, and the contemplation of producing of movies was no different. We don’t know anyone in the movie business, how do we get started? How do other people make animated movies? Do I even like animated movies?

Really, they have to be CG? Really?

But, I’m old enough now to recognize when I’ve been down a similar path before, and in this case I took a deep breath and realized that we’ve never succeeded by being a cog in the wheel, even in a cog business like show business.

The road we’ve taken in cartoons has been to basically ignore the conventional wisdom and create a development and production process that works well for us. Our focus has always been on the talented people who actually create and make films, rather than on ‘concept’ and ‘franchises’ or ‘merchandising’ or ‘who’s-got-the-highest-ratings-let’s-do-what-they-do.’

It seems to me [Read more…]

Alan Goodman & Tom Leopold in the house

fredseibert — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:23:57 +0000

My great friend, former partner, and writer/producer Alan Goodman (co-creator of Random!’s Bronk & Bongo) stopped by the other day with his friend and colleague, writer/producer Tom Leopold (Seinfeld, Cheers) to share some of their ideas for animated hyrid feature films. Thanks guys.

Chris McDonnell in the house.

fredseibert — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:10:33 +0000

Chris McDonnell worked with Kevin over at Spümcø International and with Frederator on Ape Escape Cartoons. Many of you might know him as the co-author of the recent book length overview of Ralph Bakshi’s career, or as the editor of the Meat Haus comic compilations. Chris came by Frederator/NY the other day to share his idea for an animated feature film called Haze.

Thanks to Chris for kind permission to use some of his Haze artwork.

No movies?

fredseibert — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:02:49 +0000

Basically, I avoided thinking about animated movies throughout Frederator’s history, for reasons I’ve mentioned before. But, I would still call a friend of mine about once a year to talk about it. He’d trained as a filmmaker, worked in business at Disney, was a colleague when Ted Turner made animated movies, and ran Miramax’s Hollywood operation for a number of years, before going back to a big studio. He understood Frederator’s approach, and I thought he’d be a good sounding board. He was so smart about everything that the one phone call was all I needed to avoid thinking any more about Frederator and features.

But I couldn’t shake it. We needed new markets –every producer needs new markets because the writers, directors and animators need more places to create– and movies were a logical step. After about five years my same movie friend moved over to Sony Pictures and I went [Read more…]

Daisy Edwards in the house.

fredseibert — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:45:23 +0000

We’ve known the happy Daisy Edwards since she was an intern animator for The Meth Minute 39 and animated on the Nite Fite series. So, we were thrilled when she agreed to develop a feature script with us. She was in last week (from her perch two desks away) to tell us the progress on her story.

–Fred

The trouble with movies.

fredseibert — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:38:30 +0000

Movies might be a new market for Frederator, but –

There aren’t too many animated movies released each year.

The popular ones are almost all made by the major studios with their in-house animated units; they’re usually produced for over $100,000,000.

The other ones are often great, but we tend to make mainstream, popular entertainment.

There are some who think only CG movies will succeed. “It’s finished.” We think that’s bs. The inspired filmmaker makes a film work (no matter how they produce it), the audience goes.

Money follows conventional wisdom in the movies business. Understandable.

Our approach to making animated films has never followed conventional wisdom.

Hmmmm.

(More to come.)

–Fred