Jul 28, 2023

Nickelodeon/Paramount Animation CEO Ramsey Knight talks about moving away from the original feature animation.

Nickelodeon and Paramount are in damage control mode after comments from Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins slammed many in the animation industry this week.

On Wednesday, Variety released an extensive profile on executive and the studio released the original animation to focus on existing proven library properties.

A day after Robbins' profile was published, Variety released Nickelodeon Animation and Paramount Animation. He released a new interview with Ramsey Naito, the president of the studio, looking back on Robbins' comments and saying that the studio is currently developing several original works.

The original Robbins profile is more than 4,000 words long and covers a wide range of topics, but there were certain passages that went viral shortly after the work was published. Robbins was asked to expand Robbins' comments a day later, Naito told Variety, "I'm not going to release an expensive original animated film, but pray that people will come."

About the studio's animation ambitions in the future.:

We are absolutely committed to making original animated films and are developing on several projects. Brian and I believe that we are nothing without fresh voices, faces and stories, adding new perspectives, modern characters and dialects to the culture of storytelling. The original needs to speak to today's audience like the real thing, handle it with care, and make its own mark in our legacy library...And hopefully, when that means we're not a one-size-fits-all studio and our budget is designed to support our storytelling range.

Naito did not give specific examples of the original animations he is working on at Nick or Paramount, but if the project is still in development, that would probably be expected. Studios tend to choreograph very carefully how and when a new title will be announced, and interviews like this don't seem like the best launch point for a new title.

Given the backlash to the original Robbins profile, it's a bit of a surprise that Paramount wanted to set the record straight and add more context to his comments. Within hours of the profile being published, thousands of people, including some of the biggest names in the modern animation industry, took to social media to share their views on Paramount's plans.

Chris Miller explained why abandoning the original animation is a bad idea. He later softened his stance on certain Robbins quotations, which he says read differently in the context of larger works, but Miller's original point remains a good point.

This is an ignorant attitude. There were no studio heads who said they wouldn't make original dramas, action films, biographies, comedies or make avatars. It should be the ip that only proposes the animation.

Guillermo del Toro chose brevity to express his reaction to the quote.

Dear Lord–

Shannon Tindle responded with words that executives might tend to hear, alluding to the amount of money they could make in the original animation.

Toy Story, The Incredibles, Inside Out, Frozen, Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro were all original films that generated millions upon release and continued to make billions in merchandise.