Warner Bros. Pictures Animation

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation (WBPA), (formerly known as Warner Animation Group (WAG)) is an American animation studio by Jeff Robinov, the studio is the successor to the dissolved 2D traditional hand-drawn animation studio Warner Bros. Feature Animation, which shut down in 2004, and is also a sister to the regular Warner Bros. Animation studio.

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation

Logo used since January 11, 2024.
Company type	Division
Industry	Animation Motion pictures
Predecessor	Warner Bros. Feature Animation (1994–2004)
Founded	January 7, 2013; 12 years ago (January 7, 2013)
Founder	Jeff Robinov
Headquarters	4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California , U.S.
Key people	Allison Abbate (Executive Vice President) Chris Leahy (Senior Vice President)
Products	Animated films
Parent	Warner Bros.

History

On January 7, 2013, Jeff Robinov (then head of the studio's motion picture division) founded a screenplay development department, nicknamed a "think tank" for developing theatrical animated films, known as the Warner Animation Group. 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 spin-offs. It was met with critical praise and proved to be a box-office success. Due to the movie's success, a media franchise was created, with two spin-offs, The Lego Batman Movie^[1] and The Lego Ninjago Movie (both 2017),^[2] and a sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019). While The Lego Batman Movie proved to be successful at the box office, The Lego Ninjago Movie and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part were both unable to recoup its budget, with Ninjago being the first film from the Warner Animation Group to be a box-office flop.

Released movies

#	Title	Release date	Distributor/Co-production with	Animation service	Released by	Notes
1	The Lego Movie	February 7, 2014	Warner Bros. Pictures Village Roadshow Pictures Lego System A/S	Animal Logic	Theatrical	First Warner Animation Group in 3D.
2	Storks	September 23, 2016	RatPac-Dune Entertainment	Sony Pictures Imageworks		Second Warner Animation Group in 3D. First Warner Animation Group in IMAX.
3	The Lego Batman Movie	February 10, 2017	Warner Bros. Pictures DC Entertainment	Animal Logic		Third Warner Animation Group in 3D. Second Warner Animation Group in IMAX.
4	The Lego Ninjago Movie	September 22, 2017	Warner Bros. Pictures Lego System A/S RatPac-Dune Entertainment			Fourth Warner Animation Group in 3D.
5	Smallfoot	September 28, 2018	Warner Bros. Pictures Zaftig Films	Sony Pictures Imageworks		Fifth Warner Animation Group in 3D. First Warner Animation Group’s Musical.
6	The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part	February 8, 2019	Warner Bros. Pictures Lego System A/S			Last Warner Animation Group in 3D. Last Warner Animation Group in IMAX. Last Warner Animation Group’s Musical.
7	Scoob!	May 15, 2020	Warner Bros. Pictures	Reel FX Creative Studios	Digital
8	Tom & Jerry	February 26, 2021	Warner Bros. Pictures The Story Company	Framestore	Theatrical and Digital	First Warner Animation Group film released thought Theaters and HBO Max.
9	Space Jam: A New Legacy	July 16, 2021	Warner Bros. Pictures Proximity The SpringHill Company	Industrial Light & Magic	Theatrical and Digital	Last Warner Animation Group film released thought Theaters and HBO Max.
10	DC League of Super-Pets	July 29, 2022	Warner Bros. Pictures DC Entertainment Seven Bucks Productions	Animal Logic	Theatrical	Last film under the name of Warner Animation Group.

Upcoming

#	Title	Release date	Distributor/Co-production with	Animation service
11	The Cat in the Hat	March 6, 2026	Warner Bros. Pictures Dr. Seuss Enterprises	-
12	Thing One and Thing Two	2026
13	Bad Fairies	July 23, 2027	Locksmith Animation Sketchshark Productions
14	Margie Claus	November 5, 2027	On the Day Productions
15	Oh, the Places You'll Go!	March 17, 2028	Dr. Seuss Enterprises Bad Robot Productions	-
16	Dynamic Duo	June 30, 2028	DC Studios 6th & Idaho Swaybox
17	Coyote vs. Acme	TBA	Two Monkeys, a Goat, and Another, Dead, Monkey
18	Toto	TBA	Warner Bros. Pictures Turner Entertainment Co.
19	The Lego Movie 3	TBA	Warner Bros. Pictures Animation

Process

Similar to Paramount Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation outsources their computer-animated films' production to other studios such as Animal Logic (The Lego Movie franchise, DC League of Super-Pets and Toto), Sony Pictures Imageworks (Storks and Smallfoot), Reel FX Creative Studios (Scoob!), Framestore (Tom & Jerry) and Industrial Light & Magic (Space Jam: A New Legacy). However, Space Jam: A New Legacy did also include hand-drawn animation, which is done in-house and also outsourced from Company 3 Animation, and Tonic DNA.

The budgets for their films tend to range from $60–80 million. Their most expensive films to date are The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part ($99 million), Scoob! ($90 million), Space Jam: A New Legacy ($150 million), and DC League of Super-Pets ($90 million).

Filmography

Franchises

Title	Films	Short films	Release dates
The Lego Movie	4	11	2014–2019
DC	2	0	2017–present
Tom & Jerry	1		2021–present
Looney Tunes			2021–present