This article is about the main feature animation division of Paramount Pictures. For the animation studio that maintain the Hollywood studio, see Paramount Animation.
Paramount Animation Hollywood, formerly known as Paramount Cartoon Los Angeles from 1956 to 1967, Paramount Cartoon Studios from 1968 to 1986 and Paramount Feature Animation from 1986 to 2006, is an American animation studio that serves as in-house animation division of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Paramount Skydance Corporation.
The studio was established on October 1, 1956 by Seymour Kneitel, Isadore Sparber and Nancy Farwell, originally named Paramount Cartoon Los Angeles in order to differentiate it from Paramount's New York-based cartoon studio Famous Studios, as well as to take over the production of Famous' films. It was later renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios after the New York studio was shut down in 1967 before being renamed to Paramount Feature Animation in 1986 and was shortened in 2006 to its current name after Viacom and CBS' split.
Paramount Animation has produced 76 feature films, its first film Return of the Milky Way was released on February 6, 1957, and its latest release was A Series of Unfortunate Events on May 9, 2025, with their next release being Noveltoons: Strange Encounters on September 12, 2025.
Background
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History
Early founding (1956–1967)
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Renaming, and the entrance of Julie Young (1967-1984)
By the fall of 1967, Paramount's new owners, Gulf+Western, had begun the process of shutting down the New York studio and placing the Los Angeles studio as Paramount's main animation studio, a task completed in December. Some of the New York studio's artists came to the Los Angeles studio in fall 1967 after it was shut down by Gulf+Western. The studio later renamed as Paramount Cartoon Studios in January 1968.
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Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg's departure and "rock bottom" (1984–1988)
In 1984, two years after the release of Doodles, Michael Eisner left Paramount and became CEO of The Walt Disney Company, alongside Jeffrey Katzenberg who later become chairman of the company as well as the founder of DreamWorks in 1994, while George Burke and Lana Ponce started as producer of the features.
The studio began the mid-1980s with the release of The Tales of Wind, the last film project to be approved by Eisner and Katzenberg. However, the film was received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office. In 1986, Paramount Animation Studios was renamed into Paramount Feature Animation.
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Successful releases, returning to compete with Disney (1989–1994)
In 1989, the studio released East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which became critical and financial success, grossing over $229 million worldwide, a record for the studio. East of the Sun and West of the Moon was the first of a series of blockbusters that would be released over the next decade by Paramount Feature Animation.
However, Disney's The Little Mermaid was released on the same year and received critical acclaim and a commercial success than East of the Sun and West of the Moon. After the success of East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
The next film, Paramount released its first sequel Little Helpers To the Rescue on the same day as Disney's The Rescuers Down Under and 20th Century Fox's Home Alone. However, the film did not duplicate the success of East of the Sun and West of the Moon. It was accompanied in theaters by the studio's first non-Noveltoons animated short, Lena.
In 1993, Paramount created a computer animation department at the studio's main headquarters that would produce computer-generated productions, including special effects for some of their films. For then, the studio had the traditional animators working for their main hand-drawn animation department, and the computer animators worked on CG productions.
In December 1994, Paramount and Amblimation released Meredith's Journey, directed by Julie Young and Simon Wells. Meredith's Journey earned $969 million at the worldwide box office, to this date a record for a traditionally animated film, earning millions more in merchandising, promotions, and record sales for its soundtrack.
Viacom era (1994–1999)
On July 7, 1994, Paramount Communications Inc. was sold to Viacom following the purchase of 50.1% of Paramount's shares for $9.75 billion. William Mathews and River Becker also became leading animation units for the entire Viacom group. The latter company's CGI division, Viacom Digital Images, was renamed Paramount Digital Images as the computer-graphics division of Paramount Feature Animation. In October 21, 1994, George Burke and Lana Ponce has come to their retirement after the release of Meredith's Journey, while John Cohen has been named president of Paramount Feature Animation.
Natalia's Story, the first film produced primarily at the London studio, was released in fall 1996 as the last collaborative project from Paramount and Amblimation. The film earned $876 million in worldwide box office. In the same years, Paramount started producing computer-animated short films to compete with Pixar, after the success of their short film, including Toy Story. These included Busy Tools, The Sounds of the Whale, Peaceful Life and Robot Fight.
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John Cohen's departure, downsizing and conversion to computer animation, Viacom split (2000–2006)
Just after The Dragon and the Magic Pyramid's July 1999 release, it was announced that Feature Animation president John Cohen would be resigning from the studio, before moving on to become VP production at 20th Century Fox Animation.
In January 2002, Paramount Feature Animation announced a slate of CGI animated feature films in development to be produced by its Digital Images division as a result of the successes of Busy Tools, The Sounds of the Whale, Peaceful Life, Robot Fight, Nickelodeon's Future Princess and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; these films included Twin, Duo, & Two, Mission Planet, an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Golden Bird, Circus Bears, Legends, and a feature-length film version of Robot Fight.
The studio's last hand-drawn animated film, Mythic, released in November 2003, underwent production difficulties and received mixed reviews from critics and under-performed at the box office 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. Upon the unsuccessful release of Magina, Paramount laid off most of the employees at the Feature Animation studio in Hollywood, downsizing it to one unit and beginning plans to move into fully computer animated films. Subsequently, Paramount 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, Paramount released its first fully in-house computer-animated feature film Twin, Duo, & Two to critical and commercial success. It grossed $687 million worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing film of 2004. Twin, Duo, & Two established Paramount as the fifth studio after Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, Blue Sky Studios and Valentina Animation to have launched a successful CGI franchise.
In March 2005, Viacom announced plans of looking into splitting into two publicly traded companies under the continuing ownership of National Amusements because of a stagnating stock price. The internal rivalry between Les Moonves and Tom Freston, longtime heads of CBS and MTV Networks respectively, and the controversy of Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, which resulted in MTV being banned from producing any more Super Bowl halftime shows, were also seen as factors. The split was approved by Viacom's board on June 14, 2005, and took effect on January 1, 2006, and effectively reversed the Viacom/CBS merger of 1999.
Reorganization, renaming (2006–2010)
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Current years (2011–present)
After Twin, Duo, & Three, The Flamingo Prince, directed by Young, Goldman, Frederik Du Chau, and Ralph Zondag, was the studio's first hand-drawn animated film in eight years. A return to the musical-comedy format of the 1990s with songs by Alan Menken and Pasek and Paul, the film was released in 2009 to a positive critical reception the film was released in 2009 to a positive critical reception and was nominated for several accolades; it earned $756 million in worldwide box office revenue, making it the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film of the year, overpowering Disney's Winnie the Pooh.
In the wake of critical and box office success of their animated features, Nickelodeon Movies' Rango and Paramount Animation's The Flamingo Prince, heavy fan demand about bring back hand-drawn animation, and the departure of DreamWorks Animation upon completion of their distribution contract in 2012, Paramount Pictures announced that they reposition the studio as an animation house that produces both traditional and computer-animated projects, and extended its animation production unit at Los Angeles, devoted to the creation of animated productions. In order to keep costs down on hand-drawn productions, animation, design, and layout were done in-house at Paramount while clean-up animation and digital ink-and-paint were farmed out to vendors and freelancers.
In October 2011, while Julie Young become the CEO of Paramount Animation, Paramount named a former president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, David Stainton, president of Paramount Animation. In February 2012, Stainton resigned for personal reasons, with Paramount Film Group's president, Adam Goodman, stepping in to directly oversee the studio.
In February 2015, Paramount fired Adam Goodman due to the studio's thin film slate and Goodman greenlighting box office bombs at the studio. In the summer of 2015, Paramount Pictures participated in a bidding war against Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Animation for the rights to produce The Emoji Movie, based on a script by Tony Leondis and Eric Siegel. Sony won the bidding war in July and released the film in 2017. The studio's head Bob Bacon also left Paramount Animation that summer.
In July 2017, Paramount Pictures named former DreamWorks Animation co-president Mireille Soria as the president of the studio in Hollywood and Los Angeles. Soria restructured the studio, increasing its number of employees from 10 to over 110, and created a new goal of releasing two tentpole animated films a year with different animation styles and genres. She would also look over the completion of Sherlock Gnomes, Twin, Duo, & Forever and Wonder Park, which were in production before her arrival.
In April 2018, Paramount Pictures named former Blue Sky Studios and Nickelodeon Movies producer Ramsey Naito as the executive vice president of the studio in Hollywood and Los Angeles. She later left the company in order to become the head of animation at Nickelodeon. In the same month, Soria greenlit the studio’s first three animated features under her leadership to be released in 2020 and beyond: The SpongeBob Movie: It’s a Wonderful Sponge (later renamed Sponge On the Run), Reel FX’s Monster on the Hill (later renamed Rumble), Virtual Journey: Game Changer, Beyond and Skydance Animation’s Luck.
In September 2019, Paramount Animation introduced its new logo for both Hollywood and Los Angeles and new mascot, a tween girl named Star Skipper, while Friendly from Friendly Fox is now the mascot of ViacomCBS. In November 2019, the studio released the fourth installment in the Twin, Duo, & Two franchise, Twin, Duo, & Forever. The film became the second film to earn $1 billion for the studio.
On September 30, 2021, shortly after Brian Robbins replaced Jim Gianopulos as the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, it was announced that Ramsey Naito would replace Mireille Soria as the president of Paramount Animation in addition to her current role as the president of Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
On January 20, 2022, Latifa Ouaou (a veteran of both Illumination Entertainment and DreamWorks Animation) was hired as the executive vice president of movies and global franchises for both Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation Studio. In this position, Ouaou will oversee both streaming and theatrical films for the two companies.
Following the announcement of parent company Paramount Global's plans to merge with Skydance Media in July 2024, Julie Young was considering leaving Paramount due to her concerns over the company's merger with Skydance, in which she "has grown less comfortable than ever". In December 2024, Paramount announced that Young resigned from the company and was leaving when the merger is complete, taking a consulting role until then.
Upcoming projects
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Filmography
Feature films
- Further information: List of Paramount Animation films
Short films
Further information: List of Paramount Animation short films
Television programming
Paramount Animation announced its expansion into television programming in 2021, and is currently producing 3 original shows for Paramount+.
| # | Title | Release date | Network | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ToonMania: Unleashed | March 10, 2022 | Paramount+ | Providing development |
| 2 | Puffy's School Life | September 15, 2022 | ||
| 3 | TBA | 2023 |
Franchises
| Title | Release date | Movies | TV Seasons |
|---|---|---|---|
| World of Wonderland | 1970–2000 | 2 | 0 |
| Little Helpers | 1972–1997 | 4 | 6 |
| Crawler, Liger and Ratty | 1975–present | 20 (appearances in main PA films)
2 (spin-off films) |
8 |
| Noveltoons | 1976–present | 17 | 21 |
| The Snow Queen | 1979–2004 | 2 | 0 |
| Doodles | 1982–present | 2 | 4 |
| Meredith | 1994–present | 5 | 3 |
| Natalia's Story | 1996–present | 4 | 7 |
| Edwin & Triston | 1997–2005 | 2 | 8 |
| Twin, Duo, & Two | 2004–2019 | 4 | 7 |
| Virtual Journey | 2009–present | 4 | 4 |
| Jeremy Jaguar | 2013–present | 2 | 0 |
| Puffy | 2014–2022 | 3 | 6 |
Accolades
- Main article: List of accolades received by Paramount Animation
Gallery
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Trivia
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See also
- Paramount Animation
- Paramount Television Animation
- DreamWorks Animation
- Games Animation
- Viacom Animation
- Nickelodeon Animation Studio
- UltraToons Studios
- Miramax Animation
- Amblin Animation
- List of Paramount Animation productions
- List of Paramount Pictures theatrical animated features
- List of unproduced Paramount Pictures animated projects