Will Paramount Ever Release Another Original Animated Movie in Theaters?

Paramount CEO Brian Robbins has had a career that's taken him all over Hollywood. He directed movies like Norbit and Good Burger, ran AwesomenessTV, and now runs one of the big studios. This unique perspective gives him insight into the way Hollywood has been run for a long time.

But under his watch, he's trying to change things at Paramount.

To make the animation wing more profitable, Robbis is jettisoning original ideas to Paramount+ and ensuring their theatrical releases with big marketing spends are famous IPs, like Spongebob and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In an interview with Variety, Robbins said they wanted to move away from putting original animated ideas into theaters. He said, “We’re not going to release an expensive original animated movie and just pray people will come.”

This was met with much chagrin across the industry, with people upset over the idea that original ideas would be relegated to streaming and nothing else.

While Robbins didn't draw a hardline in the article or the quote, it does seem like he's letting IP be where he takes box office swings, and then originals would build out the library.

Studios execs are rarely rigid in these ideas, so this may all be house cleaning because they were ideas greenlit before him, but this is a disturbing turn, especially for people who have original ideas. You could estimate this would mark a move away from them in general. Why spend money on ideas you do not plan on releasing?

We'll keep an eye on this as it develops - let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Variety