Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sat on a video revenue call last month, crossing his arms and casually mentioning that, by the way, under the company’s many ambitions, he also wants to dethrone Disney from his place as the longtime world leader in animation.
“We are very excited to capture them in family animation,” Hastings said. ‘Maybe eventually pass them by. We’ll see. “
Netflix today announced its biggest step so far in the direction of the dream of beating Disney over what it does best. The company owns the rights to all 22 books of Redwall, the award-winning children’s fantasy series by English author Brian Jacques about the adventures of a group of anthropomorphic animals. Netflix will produce an animated film based on the first book of the series, as well as develop an “event series” (also animated) about the character Martin the Warrior, a heroic mouse.
Published from 1986 until Jacques’ death in 2011, Redwall has sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into 20 languages, enchanting several generations of children around the world. It has long been the pinnacle of wish lists to be adapted into a major Hollywood movie or TV series, and now Netflix will get a hit.
The news comes as Netflix quickly builds up its ever-emerging animation unit to cut into Disney’s lead in space. It is now planned to release six animated films a year – far more than the two that Disney’s major animation studios (Pixar and Walt Disney Animation) release each year.
For a business primarily engaged in growing global subscriptions, animation helps make families more loyal customers. One way to increase the chances of households not only turning into Netflix households but also staying that way is to offer content that appeals to all members of the household – especially as subscriber prices rise. Netflix said its data shows that children repeatedly watch the same animated movies.
The genre is also a chance to undermine the growth of Disney around the world. Disney has been producing animated films since the 1930s and has remained a juggernaut in the space and has regularly been featured in the box office with films such as Frozen, en Toy story. In 2019, two of the three most lucrative films in the world, Frozen II and the lion king remake, was Disney animated films. While other challengers have emerged over the past few decades, no other studio has made a serious dive into Disney’s animation dominance. Disney bought the one studio that came close – Pixar.
Developing a robust animation page can help Netflix ward off the Disney streaming challenge. To some extent, it could be a mere show of strength – a final hill for Netflix to conquer after it has been proven that it can succeed virtually anywhere else.
In addition to making more animated originals, Netflix is enhancing its licensed range of animated titles. Last year, it acquired the international rights to 21 films from Studio Ghibli, the famous Japanese animation studio responsible for Carried and Princess Mononoke. (In the US, Studio Ghibli’s catalog is available on HBO Max.) Netflix is also developing a number of animated co-productions with other studios, including the stop-motion horror comedy. Wendell and Wild, co-written by and starring Jordan Peele.
Netflix acknowledges that dethroning Disney will not happen overnight. “It’s going to take a while,” Hastings told the Hollywood Reporter. “I mean, they’re really good at it.” But that the company intends to happen at all is another clear sign of its unlimited ambition.
Meanwhile, Disney has Blue Sky Studios, the animation studio that Ice Age and Rio film series, and one of the last remnants of the acquisition of Fox’s entertainment empire in 2019. Referring to the financial pressures of the pandemic, Disney no longer has the desire (or means) to run a third animation division. According to Deadline, Disney will take over Blue Sky’s remaining intellectual property (and help place some of its employees at the company’s other studios) – perhaps to prevent Netflix from doing so.