Jul 26, 2018

Gendi Tartakovsky directed R-rated comedy with Sony Pictures Animation

Following the success of Hotel Transylvania 3, which crossed $100 million at the U.S. box office on Tuesday, director Genndy Tartakovsy has signed up with Sony Pictures Animation to direct two more feature films.

Fear not, it's not Drac Pack 4 and 5. One of the films, titled Fixed, is an R-rated comedy, while the other, Black Knight, is an adventure film.

Even without any details, it can be said that both of these sound boldly different. “I'm very excited to start this next adventure with my Sony family,” Tartakovsky told Deadline Hollywood, which first reported the news. “With their trust and support we are going to do something unique and different, and push animation to the next level.”

“Genndy is one of the most singular voices in animation today and we are overjoyed to have him develop his next original features at Sony Pictures Animation, where he began his theatrical career nearly a decade ago,” said Kristine Belson, president of Sony Pictures Animation. “His imagination and talent have no boundaries, which will be made abundantly clear by the two wildly different movies he'll be directing next.”

The move into R-rated animation and action-adventure films for Sony is a smart way for the studio to distinguish itself from the rest of the U.S. animation industry. The market for family-friendly cg fare is plenty competitive, but just about every other kind of storytelling in animation is missing. Massive audiences have patiently been waiting for years to hand over their money to a studio that can produce something fresh and original which isn't targeted to the kiddie crowd.

Neither of these two areas – R-rated animation and adventure animation – are new territory for Sony either. Sony is the only contemporary studio that has done a wide release of an R-rated animated film – the hit Sausage Party in 2016 – though that film was made without the participation of Sony Pictures Animation or its animation arm, Sony Pictures Imageworks. On the action side too, Sony is active; its upcoming Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse looks to offer a new tone and texture for superhero storytelling in animation.

The only possible hitch in all of this is whether Sony will follow through. The studio in the past has struggled to show faith in its creators and to bring interesting projects to completion. Tartakovsky himself has previously developed two projects at Sony – the original concept Can You Imagine- and an adaptation of the classic comic character Popeye – neither of which made it into full production. If and when Sony can overcome its own fears about trusting creators, they could become an unstoppable force in U.S. animation.

Tartakovsky is repped by WME.