The Warner Animation Group is an American feature animation studio that is the feature animation division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. Established on January 7, 2013, the studio is the successor to the dissolved 2D traditional hand-drawn animation studio, which shut down in 2003. The entity is also a sister animation studio of the regular animation studio Warner Bros. Animation. Its first film The Lego Movie was released on February 7, 2014 and its latest release was Scoob! on May 15, 2020; with their next release being Tom and Jerry on March 5, 2021. Films produced by WAG have grossed a total of $1.4 billion at the box office.
History
On January 7, 2013, Jeff Robinov founded a screenplay development department, nicknamed a "think tank" for developing theatrical animated films, known as the Warner Animation Group. The group includes John Requa, Glenn Ficarra, Nicholas Stoller, Jared Stern, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Warner Bros. created the group with the hope that the box office reception of their films will be competitive with other animation studios' releases. On February 7, 2014, Warner Animation Group released their first film, The Lego Movie, a film animated by Animal Logic, which also provided the animation for both spinoffs. It was met with positive reviews and proved to be a box office success. WAG's second film, Storks, was released September 23, 2016. It received mixed reviews from critics. On February 10, 2017, Warner Animation Group released The Lego Batman Movie, which received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success. On December 14, 2014 Warner Bros. announced Allison Abbate had been named Executive Vice President, and Chris Leahy has been named Senior Vice President. The Lego Ninjago Movie, based on the Lego Ninjago toys, was released on September 22, 2017. Upon release, the film was met with mixed reviews from critics and became the first film from the studio to fail to recoup its budget. Smallfoot, released September 28, 2018, earned a 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with mostly positive reviews from critics and has grossed over $214 million worldwide. , a sequel of The Lego Movie, was released February 8, 2019 and earned an 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes but only grossed around $190.6 million worldwide, almost barely recouping its budget and becoming the studio's second film to fail to recoup its budget. An animated reboot of the Scooby-Doo film series titled Scoob! was initially set for a theatrical release on May 15, 2020, but then it was delayed due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. On April 21, 2020 it was announced that it would instead go to video on demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It received mixed reviews from critics.
Similar to Sony Pictures Animation and Paramount Animation, WAG outsources their animated films' production to other studios, such as Animal Logic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Reel FX Creative Studios and Framestore. The budgets for their films tend to range within $60–80 million. Their most expensive film to date, , cost $99 million to make. The screenplay department is reportedly somewhat similar to Pixar Animation Studios' "brain trust" in terms of how its members consult with one another and give feedback on each other's projects. The group is nicknamed the "think tank".
