Sony Pictures Animation

Sony Pictures Animation Inc. is an American animation studio that is a subsidiary of the Culver City, California-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, and produces animated films through their Motion Picture Group division founded on May 9, 2002. The studio's films are distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing under their Columbia Pictures label, while all direct-to-video releases are released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The studio's productions include animated and live-action feature films, shorts, television and internet series, and specials. The studio made their first film, Open Season in 2006, and their most recent film was Hotel Transylvania: Transformania on January 14, 2022. Their upcoming slate of films includes Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) on October 7, 2022, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two) in 2023. In a similar fashion to the Warner Animation Group, Paramount Animation, 20th Century Fox Animation (now a subsidiary of Disney), and the big guys, the studio outsources their films to other animation companies and visual effects studios, with the majority of their films being animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks (its sister company). Some films, such as Arthur Christmas and ''The Pirates! Band of Misfits were acquired by Sony Pictures Animation to be released under their banner while others, such as Goosebumps and Peter Rabbit'', were made with no involvement from the studio.

Why They Rock

 * 1) Their films have great and unique animation, which it used for the animation services, such as Sony Pictures Imageworks (even on some of their duds).
 * 2) Excellent voice acting is present, with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being the best example.
 * 3) Most of their films tend to have excellent soundtracks, such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania, Surf's Up, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and even mh:awfulmovies:The Emoji Movie.
 * 4) A lot of their films tend to have heartwarming moments, like Arthur reading Gwen's letter and writing her back.
 * 5) There is the only one good live-action film, named Goosebumps, which is much better than the other poorly made live-action films they created.
 * 6) Most of their movies have great concepts, such as surfing penguins (Surf's Up), raining food (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), and a hotel for monsters (Hotel Transylvania).
 * 7) They get very talented people to work on their films such as Phil Lord and Chris Miller and Genndy Tartakovsky.
 * 8) Alongside their movies, they also tend to make good shorts, such as Hair Love as it attached to The Angry Birds Movie 2, to the point where it won the Best Animated Shorts at the Academy Awards.
 * 9) The opening logos are good, but the new logo that introduced on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse are easily the best and unique, because its about geometric letters and flickers and illuminates like a neon sign.
 * 10) Much like DreamWorks Animation, not only did they create computer-animated movies, they also have films for co-productions with Aardman Animation.
 * 11) Ever since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, they have been making decent to critically acclaimed hits, and with what projects they have in store for the future, some see this as a start of a new era for Sony Pictures Animation, and might see them as challenging Pixar as kings of the industry.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) They've made quite a few bad and/or mediocre films like mh:awfulmovies:The Smurfs duology, mh:awfulmovies:Open Season 3, mh:awfulmovies:Open Season: Scared Silly, Surf's Up 2: WaveMania, mh:awfulmovies:The Star, mh:awfulmovies:Peter Rabbit, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (depending on your view), mh:awfulmovies:Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, and let's (sadly) not (yet) forget their most infamous film, mh:awfulmovies:The Emoji Movie''.
 * 2) *Speaking of which, their first television series, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was pretty unnecessary, as it was only made was to capitalise on the success of the film series, which died out way before this show was even made, especially considering that SPA haven't even announced a third movie to the franchise.
 * 3) *Just like Walt Disney Animation Studios, The studio's reputation suffered a moderate decline in quality from 2016 to 2018 (until Into the Spider Verse), as some of their films around that time were either weak/bad/mediocre (i.e. The Star, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, and Open Season: Scared Silly) or only made as an excuse to cash in on certain old franchises or trends (i.e. Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: the Series, The Emoji Movie (which nearly destroyed their reputation), and Peter Rabbit), with Smurfs the Lost Village and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation being the only good films around that time, To be fair, the decline was partially out of Sony’s control.
 * 4) Some of their films, whether good or bad, have bombed at the box office.

Videos
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Trivia

 * Through many theatrical release movies have Columbia Pictures logo in the opening, some theatrical release movies doesn't include the Columbia Pictures logo at the beginning possibly due to only distributing the films and can only be seen in the credits, despite appearing on promotional material. The example are The Star, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (it returned back for the 4th movie), The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Wish Dragon. This also applies to all streaming titles.