Morlus Animation

Morlus Animation, LLC (simply known as Morlus) is an American animation studio headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded by Steven A. Morlus and Rodney Ousley on November 3, 1989, the studio has been owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of AT&T through its wholly owned subsidiary WarnerMedia, since 2010. Morlus creates animated feature films, short films, and television series, and is best known for the franchises Zooge Toons, Shenanigans In Mars, Beastz, Supermacaw, Phoenix,. Although the studio also made traditionally animated films in the past, all of their films now use computer animation. The studio has produced twenty feature films, beginning with The Zooge Toons Movie (1995) and leading up to Beastz 3 (2019).

The studio has also produced several short films. On March 8, 2011, Time Warner Inc. (now known as WarnerMedia) acquired Morlus Animation for $3.3 billion, making it a division of Warner Bros. Animation as an acquisition for the animation studio.

Films produced by Morlus Animation were formerly distributed worldwide by Paramount Pictures, from 1993 to 1998, Sony Pictures Releasing through Columbia Pictures from 1999 to 2005, and Warner Bros. Pictures then began distributing subsequent Morlus Animation films. Warner Bros. also now owns the rights to Morlus' previous films. Phil the Fennec Fox, the main character of the studio's animated television series Zooge Toons, is the studio's mascot.

Founding (1989–1992)
Morlus Animation was founded in 1989 as Steven A. Morlus Productions by Steven A. Morlus and Rodney Ousley who wanted to realize their dream of producing their own cartoons.

Morlus had produced a Saturday morning animated television series Zooge Toons, which ran on the Fox Network as part of its Fox Kids block from 1990 to 1995 and then on Nickelodeon from 1995 to 1999. Created by Rodney Ousley and produced by Steven A. Morlus, the series is a variety show, with short skits featuring a large cast of cartoon characters. Phil the Fennec Fox has been Morlus' mascot since the character's introduction in 1990.

In 1992, Morlus thought that he didn't just want his company to only produce Zooge Toons related products, and said that he would want to "develop out of the box". Steven A. Morlus Productions was renamed to Morlus Animation so that he can give a brand name for the studio's productions. The studio introduced a new crop of animated series to audiences, in particular Barry the Banana, Rock N' Stone and Shenanigans In Mars.

Partnership with Paramount Pictures (1993–1998)
After the major success of Zooge Toons, the studio was approached by Paramount Pictures, who would ultimately become its first feature film partner, to produce an animated feature film based off the series, IIn June 1993, Morlus Animation and Paramount Pictures announced that their companies were teaming up to co-finance and distribute The Zooge Toons Movie. Rodney Ousley, the creator of the series, approached himself to direct of the film in his directorial debut, and brought Who Framed Roger Rabbit writers Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman to write the script.

On July 15, 1995, The Zooge Toons Movie was released and received mixed reviews. Despite the film was a slight box office disappointment to Paramount, by only grossing $127 million on a $30 million budget, the film was still considered a moderate success, convincing Paramount to continue their partnership with Morlus Animation to make more animated features at the time. Morlus Animation had established a new animation department reserved for their feature films, starting with their second animated film, The Cry of the Wolf. Morlus hired traditional animators to produce the animation for their feature films.

On 1995, it was announced that Morlus will start production animated feature based on the 1990 children's book, The Cry of the Wolf. The film was released on August 6, 1997, received positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $213 million on a $45 million budget. This motivated both Paramount and Morlus to extend their deal and it set high hopes for their future collaborations.

On the same year, Morlus had expanded their feature animation department for computer-animation. At the time, the computer-generated imagery was used for special effects for some of their films (such as Epic Zooge Toons and Zoomers). For then, the studio had the traditional animators working for their main hand-drawn animation department, and the computer animators worked on CG productions.

On September 25, 1998, Morlus released their third and final collaboration with Paramount titled Sensational Cruise. The film clearly did not perform as well as The Cry of the Wolf, by receiving mixed reviews and was a box office failure, by only grossing $70 million on a $50 million budget. The poor performance of Sensational Cruise has strongly disappointed Paramount, prompting the studio to end their partnership with Morlus Animation.

Partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment (1999-2004)
In January 1999, Morlus signed a six-year deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment to finance, co-produce, and distribute feature films. On March 3, 2000, Morlus released their first film made in partnership with Sony titled Pigeons, the film widespread critical acclaim, with critics praising the story, animation and music. The film was also successful at the box office, grossing $195.3 million on a $47 million budget, making it Morlus' first box office success since The Cry of the Wolf.

Their next few movies however, wasn't not as successful as Pigeons. Both Free Dime and Epic Zooge Toons met with mixed reviews and were considered box office flops. On March 5, 2004, Morlus released both their final collaboration with Sony and their final traditional animated film Zoomers. Despite positive reviews from critics, the film was considered a box office bomb, grossing only $97.8 million on a $65 million budget, resulted in a $70-million write-down for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Partnership with Warner Bros. (2004-present)
Fully realizing the box office success of Pixar, DreamWorks and Universal films, Morlus Animation was reconfigured to become a computer animation studio.

With the exception of Pigeons, the Sony collaborations barely perform well both critically or financially which led to a growing perception that hand-drawn animation was becoming outdated and falling out of fashion in favor of the increasing popularity of computer animation. Morlus had to lay off most of the employees at the hand-drawn department, 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 September 2004, Morlus 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. Despite this, however, the studio still has some hand-drawn animated productions underway, only for direct-to-video and television series, respectively.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, Morlus Animation was in talks with 20th Century Fox to distribute its upcoming computer-generated films. The report also mentioned a possibility where Fox would handle the United States distribution while Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would handle the international distribution, the deal however was declined by Morlus Animation. In February 2005, Morlus Animation signed a five-year distribution deal with Warner Bros. Pictures for all territories.

In 2006, Morlus released its first fully computer-animated feature film Beastz to critical and commercial success. It grossed $285.3 million worldwide, becoming Morlus' highest grossing film to date. Beastz established Morlus as the fifth studio after Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, Blue Sky Studios and Universal Animation to have launched a successful CGI franchise.

On September 25, 2009, it was announced that Time Warner Inc. agreed to acquire Morlus Animation. for $3.3 billion in cash and stock; the acquisition was completed six months later on March 8, 2010. Thus meaning that Morlus has become a division of Warner Bros. Animation. Two months later, Morlus purchased Sony and Paramount's distribution rights to its pre-2009 library, and since then, Warner Bros. has assumed distribution rights to the library. Supermacaw was Morlus's first film to be distributed by Warner Bros. after its acquisition of the studio.

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