Paramount, Studio Behind SpongeBob Movies, Won’t Release Any Original Animated Feature Films, To Focus on Sequels of Existing ones: “Just pray people will come”
Started in 1916, Paramount Pictures, an American film and television production and distribution company, is the fifth oldest studio in the world and the second oldest in America, just after Universal Pictures. In more than 100 years of the studio’s existence, it has given the world some of the greatest movies of all time.
From action movie franchises, Indiana Jones and G. I. Joe to animated feature films such as Teenage Mutant Ninja and Kung Fu Panda, Paramount has produced stuff aimed at audiences of all ages. No wonder it has produced some of the biggest movie franchises known.
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Paramount Has Been in The Game for A Long Time
Paramount has undoubtedly given its audiences some of the greatest watch experiences. Some of its franchises have been running for decades on end. Some of these are Beverly Hills Cop, The Naked Gun, and Top Gun. All of these franchises have been successful and at times, even the ones with the highest-grossing movies.
Two of these franchises rely on action superstar Tom Cruise alone. Of these, Top Gun is the older one having started in 1986. The latest installment of this franchise Top Gun: Maverick, released in 2022, grossed $1.49 billion on the box office.
The seventh installment of Cruise’s other franchise, Mission: Impossible titled Dead Reckoning Part 1 doesn’t seem to be doing great at the box office with $80 million over its 5-day launch owing to its competition against Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Paramount has also produced and distributed some of the best-animated franchises such as Shrek, Paw Patrol, Madagascar, and SpongeBob SquarePants. While Madagascar and Shrek wrapped up in 2012 and 2011 respectively, SpongeBob SquarePants is still running.
Paramount Pictures is Changing its Strategy
With the recent changes in the trends of the consumption of media, it is becoming increasingly important for media houses to switch their strategies if they want to survive. The COVID-19 pandemic has made people more akin to enjoying movies and television from the comfort of their homes, and streaming services have become way too expensive.
Paramount is no exception to this downward trend as the seventh installments of two of its big franchises, namely Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One are underperforming at the box office and might fail to turn in a profit given their massive budgets.
Brian Robbins, the President of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, is the mastermind who is trying to pull Paramount out of its slumber even if it means releasing animated movies only digitally and not in theaters. He said: “We’re not going to release an expensive original animated movie and just pray people will come.”
The above statement was made following his plan of releasing only sequels to the already existing animated movies like SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Paramount will be releasing original animated movies only on OTT platforms. The sequel of the animated movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, set to be released in August 2023, is already in the talks.
Source: Twitter
