Sony Pictures Animation

Sony Pictures Animation is an American digital animation studio founded in 2002. Operating within Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, it develops and produces animated feature films, shorts and series for theatrical and streaming audiences.

Its internal teams concentrate on the creative front end of production: visual development, story architecture, screenwriting, storyboarding, character and environment design, editorial, pre-production and creative production management. The studio’s work spans stylized computer animation, stereoscopic supervision and hybrid 2D/3D visual approaches.

A distinctive production model separates story and visual-development work from large-scale digital asset production. Sony Pictures Imageworks and external creative partners handle much of the modeling, texturing, animation, lighting, simulation, rendering and visual-effects work, while Sony Pictures Animation leads concept development, storytelling and production oversight.

Screen work

The studio’s catalogue includes family franchises and original animated productions such as:

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines
• Hotel Transylvania
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
• Open Season
• Surf’s Up
• Arthur Christmas
• Wish Dragon
• Vivo
• KPop Demon Hunters
• GOAT

Its Spider-Verse films are especially associated with painterly, comic-book-inspired rendering that combines graphic 2D illustration techniques with 3D environments. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse received the 2019 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Sony Pictures Animation was formed following the success of the digital short The ChubbChubbs! and drew on assets and creative leadership from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Adelaide Productions / Screen Gems. The studio is based in Los Angeles, where its creative, visual-development and production-management teams operate from its main studio campus.