Universal Animation Studios


 * This article is about the Universal animation studio that controls both the Universal City and Glendale studios. For the main in-house animation division of Universal Studios, see Universal Animation. For the television animation division of Universal, see Universal Television Animation.

Universal Animation Studios is an American animation studio owned by Comcast through its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Founded in 1991 as Universal Cartoon Studios, the studio creates animated feature films, short films, and television programs for Universal Pictures, and currently maintains its main feature animation studio in Universal City, California, which produces a total of 20 feature films including the Computeropolis, Nepola, Paradoria and Luna & Zak franchises, as well as a satellite studio in Glendale, which produces animated television series and direct-to-video and occasional theatrical animated feature films.

In recent years, Universal Animation Studios has primarily focused upon the production of television and feature animation of other properties, notably including those related to films that already exist since 1997.

1986–1991: Restarting the studio
The original Walter Lantz Productions cartoon studio was closed down by Universal Studios in 1972 due to the rising costs and declining returns of short subject production. However, before Universal restarted its animation division in 1991, Universal released its first six animated films during the 1980s which were produced by outside studios, such as Topia in 1981, Density in 1985, An American Tail in 1986, The Land Before Time in 1988, Los Tenpurcos in 1989, and Jetsons: The Movie in 1990. Universal responded to the successes of most of these films by reestablishing its own cartoon studio.



Universal Cartoon Studios opened its doors in 1991 to produce animated television series. The studio's initial head was Jeff Segal, who had been head writer and story editor of Challenge of the GoBots for Hanna-Barbera prior to joining as President of Universal Cartoon Studios. The first series to be produced at the new Universal Cartoon Studios in Glendale was an animated series based on the Back to the Future films, in conjunction with Amblin Entertainment, airing on CBS from 1991 to 1992. There would be some more Amblin/Universal television shows, including Fievel's American Tails (1992), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper (1996–1998), and The Land Before Time (2007–2008), as well as the television special Opus 'n' Bill: A Wish for Wings That Work (1991), based on the children's book of the same name by Berkeley Breathed.

1991–2003: Moving into feature films and the rise of Universal Feature Animation
In 1991, Universal distributed An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a sequel to Don Bluth's An American Tail, which was produced by Amblin Entertainment's London animation studio Amblimation. The film received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office due to lack of promotion. Amblimation produced its last two features We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993) and Balto (1995) which both also received mixed reviews and underperformed. After Balto, the Amblimation studio was shut down in 1997 and folded into DreamWorks Animation (who would later be purchased by Universal's current parent company NBCUniversal in 2016).

Beginning in 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios moved into the direct-to-video film market. The first of Universal's direct-to-video features was The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure (1994), a sequel to Don Bluth's The Land Before Time. This led to a series of several other direct-to-video sequels. Bluth and his animation studio have no affiliation with any of the film's sequels. The sequels have generally been met with mixed reception with several fans of the original disregarding them, while others have embraced the sequels into the canon of the story.

In early 1993, animator Michael Wildshill met with MCA president Sid Sheinberg to discuss the creation of a feature animation division, an offer which Wildshill immediately accepted. That same year, Universal Pictures and several other Hollywood studios moved into feature animation following the success of Disney animated features. Universal Feature Animation was officially established in May 1993 to produce theatrical animated films to rival Disney. John Cohen was brought in to head the new division, which was set up in a building on the Universal Studios lot. To build the talent base, Wildshill brought over artists from Multimedia's feature animation department Multimedia Animation, while Cohen recruited some of the staff from Walt Disney Feature Animation and Amblimation.

Some of Multimedia Animation's artists in North Hollywood came to Universal Feature Animation in 1994, when their last feature was in production, with the rest doing so in the following year when Multimedia's assets were sold to MCA in 1995. In October 1994, Universal Feature Animation announced a full slate of animated projects in development: Ama and the Mysterious Crystal (then titled Legend of the Magic Crystal), an adaptation of T. H. White's Mistress Masham's Repose, Paint World, and Oceanic (which was later shelved).

The first of Universal's animated features was Ama and the Mysterious Crystal (1997), featuring the voice talents of Christina Ricci, Hank Azaria, Patrick Stewart, and Jennifer Aniston. Directed by Michael Wildshill, Ama received positive reviews from critics and was a success at the box office, which overpowered Disney's Hercules. Ama established Universal as one of Disney's first major competitors in feature animation. Animation production for Ama was primarily done at the new Universal feature animation studio, although much of the work was outsourced to animation studios around the world.

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2004–present: Universal Animation today
Upon the unsuccessful release of Magina in 2003, Universal laid off most of the employees at the Feature Animation studio in Universal City, downsizing it to one unit and beginning plans to move into fully computer animated films. A handful of employees were offered positions doing computer animation. Subsequently, on January 17, 2004, Universal Feature Animation officially announced they were becoming a fully CGI studio, now with a staff of 460 people and began selling off all of its traditional animation equipment.

In 2004, Universal released its first fully in-house computer-animated feature film Computeropolis to critical and commercial success. It grossed $687 million worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing film of 2004. Computeropolis established Universal as the fourth studio after Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and Blue Sky Studios to have launched a successful CGI franchise. Ever since the release of Computeropolis, Universal Animation continues to produce successful CGI-animated feature films. These films included Computeropolis 2 (2007), Woo La La (2009), Nepola (2011), Quest (2013), Paradoria (2015), Luna & Zak (2015), Lix (2017), and Paradoria 2: Enchanted Realm (2019), which were all critically and commercially successful.

In April 2005, Universal Animation announced that it would be creating Computeropolis: A Technical Ride, a 3D ride at Universal Parks & Resorts locations in Orlando, Hollywood, Sentosa, and Osaka. The ride officially opened on June 11, 2006 in Orlando, in Hollywood on March 15, 2008, in Sentosa on March 18, 2010, and in Osaka on March 4, 2011.



In 2006, the Glendale studio was renamed from Universal Cartoon Studios to Universal Animation Studios, while the feature animation studio in Universal City retained its original name until 2007. The same year, Curious George, directed by Matthew O'Callaghan and based on the Curious George books by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey, was released into theaters. According to Michael Wildshill, the film is not considered by the studio to be part of the Universal Animated Features canon, as it was produced at the Universal Glendale studio and was hand-drawn rather than CGI animated. Despite receiving positive reviews from critics, the film under-performed but was successful on home video for Universal's television animation department to produce the children's animated series Curious George (2006–2015) for PBS Kids.

In January 2008, Universal renamed its Feature Animation unit to Universal Animation Studios, and merged its direct-to-video and television animation units with the feature animation. Animators at Universal City worked on projects based at the Universal City studio, but also assisted in projects based in the Glendale UAS studio. Two months later, Universal announced a deal with an up-and-coming animation studio named Illumination Entertainment, positioning it as NBCUniversal's family entertainment arm within its feature animation group consisting of Universal Animation. This meant Universal would be able to release as many as three animated films in a year divided between the two studios. Many felt this decision was made to help Universal to establish itself as a competitor to Disney's feature animation group, which consists of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Michael Wildshill later explained that after the merger, to maintain the studios' separate identities and cultures (notwithstanding the fact of common ownership and common senior management), he and the Universal Animation executives "drew a hard line" that each studio was solely responsible for its own projects and would not be allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other; the rule ensures that each studio maintains "local ownership" of projects and "can be proud of its own work". Thus, for example, when Universal Animation had issues with Nepola (2011) and Illumination with The Lorax (2012), "nobody bailed them out", and each studio was required "to solve the problem on its own", even when they knew there were personnel at the other studio who, theoretically, could have helped.

In September 2012, Universal named former Walt Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider the new president of Universal's Feature Animation division; however, in January 2013, Schneider resigned for personal reasons. In September 2013, Universal named another former Disney Animation president David Stainton as the president of the feature animation studio. In October 2015, Universal named former Cartoon Network president Stuart Snyder as the executive vice president of the Universal Feature Animation Group.

On April 28, 2016, NBCUniversal announced its intent to acquire competing studio DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion, making DreamWorks Animation a sister studio to Universal Animation Studios and Illumination; the acquisition was later completed on August 22, 2016. Additionally, the television animation divisions of Universal and DreamWorks merged after Universal completed its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, but Universal Television Animation remains as a separate entity.

Universal City
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Glendale
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DreamWorks Animation
Since working together in the same building on the Universal Studios backlot, Universal Animation and DreamWorks Animation have had a close relationship. Universal had released both studios' animated films on home video. They have made similar types of animated films. For example, in the late 1990s, Universal's Ama and the Mysterious Crystal in 1997 and DreamWorks' Antz and The Prince of Egypt in 1998 both competed with Disney's animation field as highly original and successful debut for the two companies. In 2003, Universal and DreamWorks stopped working on traditional animated features after the box office failures of Magina and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas respectively, and both studios moved on to only work on CGI features since then. However, Universal continued to release traditional animated films from other studios since then.

On August 22, 2016, Universal's parent company NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks Animation, appointing it a sister studio to Universal Animation. Both Universal Animation and DreamWorks Animation have stated that they do not have plans for making a film together, even though Avalanche Software developed Universal Studios Legendary Heroes, a toys-to-life video game which featured characters created by both Universal and DreamWorks as well as characters created by Illumination.

Illumination
Since 2008, Universal Animation and Illumination have been separate sister companies owned by Universal and had a close relationship. Many members worked extensively with both studios. Like DreamWorks Animation, Universal and Illumination have made similar types of animated films. For example, Universal's Computeropolis franchise and Illumination's Despicable Me franchise both competed as Universal's character-heavy computer-animated films with imaginative environments. During this period, Illumination also had commercial success with the two Despicable Me sequels (and its spin-off Minions), The Lorax, The Secret Life of Pets, Sing and The Grinch, while Universal Animation's success continued with Nepola (and its sequel), Quest, Paradoria, Luna & Zak, Imagimals, and Lix; however, some of Universal Animation's films—such as Plucky Chicken—and Illumination's The Lorax, Minions and The Grinch received mixed reviews but they were box office successes.

According to resources, both studios were intended to prompt Universal to establish a hugely successful track record of animated films from the two studios that would compete both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios—both owned by The Walt Disney Company—in feature animation; nevertheless, Universal became the second film studio to operate two feature animation units following Disney. Much like Disney Animation and Pixar, both studios often share common ownership and senior management but the deal was structured so that Illumination and Universal Animation would operate as completely separate studios under the Universal corporate umbrella so that that each studio is to remain solely responsible for its own projects and is not allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other. Both Universal Animation and Illumination had worked together on their first collaborative project Despicabopolis, a crossover direct-to-video film of Despicable Me and Computeropolis.

Gallery
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Trivia

 * Woody Woodpecker is sometimes considered to be a mascot of Universal Animation Studios.