Thursday, March 12, 2015

Down at the Culver City SPA

Sony Pictures Animation e-mailed us their latest:



And as it happened, Steve Kaplan and I motored to Sony just a few days ago ...

The division is going through a morphing stage. Staffers we talked to said the new management team has put development of some pictures on hold and (per employees) will be working to ramp up new projects.

So this is kind of a "limbo period" for the division. Osher exited in the usual way that division heads exit: his chief supporter (in this case, Amy Pascal)was nudged off the top of the corporate heap, and Bob quickly followed. None of the Sony artists we talked to were surprised Osher left, but a few were taken aback at the speed of his departure.

Kristine Belson, the new division chief, is likely itching to put her own stamp on SPA, so look for some previously-announced pictures to be pushed back .... or pushed overboard.

2 comments:

Grant said...

No surprises here. Sony and the new management aren't really interested in new ideas or even older properties. Just hip, franchise material. Not sure Belson is the person to do this or not--really no experience in developing animation. And Sony doesn't really have any directors with strong storytelling experience at all except for Kelly Asbury. Thankfully they've cancelled Popeye. At least the awful version being developed.

Steve Hulett said...

Yeh, we had heard that "Popeye" story development wasn't grabbing some people, but this seems perplexing. The Fleischer Sailor Man featurettes are a pretty swell jumping off point (and template). Nobody wants to go that way?

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