Basically, the only modern studio consistently putting out stop motion animation movies, is Laika Studios. And yet, Laika has only had one financially successful movie, Coraline from 2009, while all their other movies have under performed.
However, Laika is currently led and owned by Travis Knight, son of Phil Knight, the owner of Nike. This has enabled Knight to continually bank roll Laika whenever they under perform, essentially making the entire stop motion animation film industry a nepo baby’s pet project.
That being said, this is actually a positive story, and reminiscent of how artists previously would be financially supported by wealthy benefactors.
Aardman also produces stop-motion, so it is untrue that Laika is alone.
Not such a positive story for Will Vinton, who had a hostile takeover of his studio, and then was fired and replaced by the new owner’s son.
I mean at least he’s doing something productive with his wealth. That puts him insanely far ahead of most wealth babies.
If I had that dude’s wealth I would be putting so many artists on my payroll.
It sounds like he is.
this is actually a positive story, and reminiscent of how artists previously would be financially supported by wealthy benefactors
Idk that sounds profoundly negative to me lmao
I liked Kubo and the Two Strings a lot.
However, Mathew McConaughey? He was a very strange choice for voice talent in that film. It did not fit the aesthetic at all, he stuck out like a sore thumb. That southern drawl thing he’s got in a movie that has primarily Asian characters? Well all right all right all right.
Thank you! I hated his voice for that character. Love the movie, but I feel that was such a mistake.
I just hope they survive long enough to release Piranesi.
i heard about this on a podcast. it is great news for stop-motion, and considering how many shitty rich people there are, it’s nice to know there’s a couple good ones promoting art.
Also their movies are good and all but one of their movies made tens of millions of dollars.
for stop-motion, a very niche art-form, making 10-130 million dollars profit per film is laudable.
went too big with missing link though, which i haven’t seen yet.
Wow, I usually keep track of their films as I like stop motion, but I wasn’t aware Missing Link existed at all, and it came out 7 years ago!
Ive seen all of these but Missing link too. Watched them with my young son, we loved all of these movies. theyre all gems and you can see the art. I love hearing all this about it, freaking neat
$418.5M profit on $60M budget, over four movies. $100M profit per movie
Not 60 each? 418 from 240?
the table says $60M budget over four movies, not per movie
Was that the budget of all of them, or each individually?
table says together. I didn’t look further because who would be stupid enough to format a table like that if that’s not what they meant
I don’t know if motion animation is the same as other types of films, but for most of the industry you need box office sales to be double of the film budget for it to be considered profitable. Mainly due to marketing budgets and the huge percentage of profit that theaters get for the first few weeks of a film’s release.
huge percentage of profit that theaters get for the first few weeks of a film’s release.
This is backwards. Theaters actually get very little percentage early on in the release and only get more later. Most early profits go to the film studio/publisher. Or at least this was how it worked ore-Covid. Maybe it’s different now.
And to explain your comment a bit more, the production budget doesn’t include the very real costs of marketing, distribution, and any back-end royalties calculated from the gross. Plus generally speaking, the movie is financed by lenders and production companies that will need to be repaid with interest, too.
If you’ve got a $50 million movie and you spend $10 million on marketing/distribution and promised 10% of the gross to people, and the theaters are keeping 10% of the gross, getting a $75 million box office breaks even ($7.5 million to royalties, $7.5 million to theaters, $10 million to marketing/distribution). And that’s assuming nothing lost to interest/financing/inflation.
Side note: generally, theaters don’t get much in the first few weeks. It’s only when a movie shows longer than 3 weeks that the theater starts getting a bigger and bigger cut of the gross.
It’s pretty different from live action according to creators and producers, it’s such a small market and stop motion is so difficult to explain and get off the ground and promote that financial expectations are much more realistic.
You’re right that if a live-action movie costs $100 million to make grosses $180 million, the producers are upset, but that’s a greedy, ego-driven convention of the modern studio system, they are still making tens of millions of dollars before everything on the back end is added in.
The stop-motion world has a more realistic perspective on production and the artists love every single piece of art they create, so also making $40 million as evidence that their art style can succeed in mainstream culture is the cherry on top of any project that even gets to be fully produced.
It’s more that if a movie costs $100 million to make, it’s usually $100 million in marketing. So it would need to make $200 million to break even. Making $180 million means someone lost $20 million dollars, so I wouldn’t really call it greedy. If the movies are not making the money then they’d need to just start reducing scope or just hope someone will keep bank rolling them.
For the other movies, while they dont meet Hollywood standards of success, they still succeeded. If you spend $60 mil employing people for 2 or 3 years, and are doing what you love, and it pays you back $60 mil to do it again, that’s success. Even with the flip in there, the others covered it. As long as they break even, it bankrolls the next movie.
‘Propping up the stop motion film industry’ is quite the statement. Aardman Animaton has been releasing feature length stop motion movies since 2000 and all have done very well. Also Laika only worked on Corpse Bride of Tim Burton’s multiple very successful stop motion movies.
Isn’t Aardman (shaun the sheep, wallace & gromit) still consistently put out stopmotion? Or are they just cheating the visual style with 3d animation?
Yeah, Aardman are very much still stop motion (with a few tiny cheats, the stadium audience in Early Man and the sea in Pirates on an Adventure with Scientists).
Knox Claymation and Wallace & Grommet beg to differ!
Wes Anderson put out a wildly successful stop motion picture in 2009.
Consistently, sure, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s dead.
Isle of Dogs is one of my favorite movies
Oh shit he did it again in 2018, haven’t seen that but it’s going on my list!
Or here me out… we tax him and his dad. Then use the money to pay stop animation artists so they arent beholden as some rich kids pet project. could even start a few studios instead of one. Early 00’s there were a few independant stop motion artists. Only reason they still arent around is due to art grant funding.
This sounds nice but I expect it will not work as good in reality plus there may be more artists than money if we limit it to only those two.
Tax everyone properly and provide basic income sounds like a way to go anyway
Thats what what i meant. Artists should have better access to funding and foundational wage streams such as a basic income that Ireland is currently doing with musicians.
Have you never seen any Aardman Animations films?
they were mentioned in the video
It’s a case of Americans thinking they are the entire world.
its hyperbole for clicks. the guy recognizes Aardman in the video and basically just says they are not doing well financially which seems true. https://www.business-live.co.uk/enterprise/aardman-animations-faces-financial-woes-32724904
Aren’t they closing up shop because the company that makes their animation clay is closing down? https://www.dtmovies.com/the-company-that-made-modeling-clay-for-aardman-studios-has-closed/
Not at all, and that was never a possibility. Aardman has several years’ supply in storage, and is securing an alternative supplier. They even have the capability to manufacture it themselves if they needed to.
No, it’s a case of a sophomoric view on a subject.
There are certainly worse ways to spend your obscene wealth.
I talked to some folks who worked at Laika a while back at a party. They loved working there. This was some years ago, and my memory is a bit beer soaked, but they seemed happy and proud of what they did.
Got some sources to share? The quick search I did doesn’t support your argument.
Also, Aardman is a rocking studio with quite a history. (Yes, I know they went digital for a bit after the fire)
The fire is irrelevant. That was storage of historical assets. They have never stopped using models, but also entered the CG business as diversification.
