By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Toonz Animation, the first global animation studio from India, is now getting into the feature film business.
Toonz Animation is a company we’ve had our eye on for a while, as it is one of those studios leading the way in the internationalization of entertainment and licensing.
For many decades the United States and to a lesser extent the UK truly dominated the global entertainment space, including film, TV series, music, literature and more. While other countries had their own entertainment productions, those were primarily consumed in the local market, and were seldom exported for general distribution in North America, or just generally abroad.
However, the past decade in particular has seen major changes in entertainment. As TLL reported on May 27, for example, the latest Netflix viewing data shows that roughly one-third of all programs viewed on the platform are non-English language productions, including 9% in Korean, 7% in Spanish, and 5% in Japanese. As well, looking at the top five list in the Netflix report, shows that international productions are growing in viewership and influence. One Piece (71.6 million views) is a US/Japanese co-production of the original Japanese anime; Dear Child is a hit show from Germany, filmed in German; Who Is Erin Carter? is a British series filmed in Spain; Lupin is a French comedy thriller filmed in French; and The Witcher is a US/Polish production based on the original Polish novel, and the video game series that was based on it.
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Toonz is an early example of this trend toward internationalization, turning out quality, premium content for kids and families since the 1990s, when entrepreneur G.A. Menon, who was already a big name in the electronics industry, came across an article in the Los Angeles Times about works related to the software industry, especially animation, moving to more cost-effective locations in Asia and elsewhere.
Menon pitched his idea with the Comcraft Group to start an animation company in Thiruvananthapuram, a city in India’s Kerala state, with Bill Dennis, a long-time Disney executive, as a co-founder.
The result is Toonz Animation India Limited, one of the first animation companies in the country, which has now completed 25 years of operations, during which time it has grown across the globe, with most of that growth happening under the leadership of P. Jayakumar, who has been the Chief Executive Officer of Toonz Media Group for the past two decades.
“It was something totally new for Kerala,” Jayakumar says. “In the initial days, one of our most critical challenges was to train the people to execute projects with international production values. We brought in around 75 expert animators from countries such as the Philippines, Singapore, and Australia. For five years, they stayed at the studio, worked and trained people.
“We also launched an event, which later became the Animation Masters Summit, and brought in well-known names in the industry, to give a platform for Indian animators to interact and learn from them,” he adds. “Our first customer was the Cartoon Network for a show called Get Tooned. Initially, everything was hand drawn, scanned and painted, taking hours to make even a small show.”
Toonz Boosted the Animation Industry by Creating a Training Academy in India
Once Toonz became a well-established animation house in its own right, the company invested in home-grown talent by starting an animation training academy in 2002, with many of the graduates being hired on by the company.
The success of the academy actually led to other governments asking Toonz to set up academies, for example in the country of Bhutan, which is nestled between Nepal and northern India.
In that same year, Toonz moved from creating content for others, to creating their own original content with The Adventures of Tenali Rama, the first animated television series made in India, which was aired on Cartoon Network.
Until then, the channel was showing only American content. It was a milestone that really heralded the arrival of the domestic animation industry in India, which is currently thriving. Soon afterward, the company also worked on India’s first fully animated feature film Hanuman, which proved to be a success.
Those were critical markers on the path to success for animation in India, but the next major step was to break out of the domestic market and become a player in the global entertainment industry. That happened when Toonz produced a show called Finley the Fire Engine, a CGI-animated children’s television series, made for the Hallmark group, that got picked by BBC and was sold all over the globe.
Once that door opened a crack, the team at Toonz literally just kicked it down, as the company has become a major player in the animation industry worldwide. This year, for example, the show Zoonicorn has broken out as a global hit, as well as attracting a wide assortment of licensing partners. The show is already viewed in more than 100 countries worldwide, and also has a rapidly growing presence in the licensing world. Global licensing for Zoonicorn is shared by the two companies, but headed by J’net Smith of All Art Licensing.
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A Decade of Mergers and Expansion
With global distribution deals in place with partners all over the world, Toonz has been very successful in expanding its operations in a sustainable way, either through acquiring like-minded companies, or launching their own new divisions.
In 2014, Toonz made its first acquisition, in a friendly acquisition of the Spanish animation production house Imira Entertainment. This was followed by the acquisition of the multi-Emmy award-winning Irish studio Telegael, which has large live action facilities. Toonz also established a production unit in New Zealand and set up offices in London, Los Angeles, and Istanbul. Chotoonz TV, Toonz’s flagship global YouTube channel for kids, also gained millions of subscribers.
Now, particularly after the merger with Telegael, Toonz has its eyes firmly set on a move into the world of feature films. The company announced in 2023 the launch of an entirely new division dedicated to feature films, both animated and live action. The division produced both its own in-house content, as well as titles from other partners, and third party productions, similar to the partnership between Toonz and Zoonicorn LLC that led to the successful Zoonicorn series over the past year.
Smith, who leads the licensing operations for the hit show, says Toonz has the experience and the global connections that are invaluable when trying to launch a series or film.
“We were excited to connect with Toonz Entertainment, which is now our production and distribution partner,” Smith says. “They immediately got the importance of what we were doing in the area of optimism and resilience, and they’ve taken the look and feel of the brand to another level.”
For that reason, Smith and other partners believe Toonz’s latest venture into feature film will see similar success. After all, the studio now produces an impressive 10,000 minutes of both 2D and CGI kids and family content per year. Toonz has also produced several animated and live action series over the years, as well as major feature films, including Wolverine , The X-Men , and Speed Racer: The Next Generation, among others.
The newly established film division at Toonz is already involved in animated feature film productions including The Canterville Ghost, which is the animated adaptation of the Oscar Wilde classic of the same name, and is looking at a variety of live action films as well.