and seeing the box office successes of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek and Disney/Pixar's Monsters, Inc., SPI was reconfigured to become an animation studio. Astro Boy, which had been in development at Sony since 1997 as a live-action film, was set to be SPI's first all-CGI film

According to Kristine Belson, president of SPA, the studio produces films on a 1:1 development-to-production ratio meaning that the studio puts films into development as much as it places films in production, unlike other animation studios.

Pixar Animation Studios is an American CGI film production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. Pixar has produced 26 feature films which were all released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Walt Disney Pictures banner

The film was originally produced by Sony pictures Studios and Sony pictures animation before bring move to dreamworks During production for unknown reasons

Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is a Canadian visual effects and computer animation studio headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia SPI has provided visual effects for many films, and Since the foundation of its sister company Sony Pictures Animation in 2002, SPI would go on to animate nearly all of SPA's films

In 2001, Fell, development executive Mike Cooper, and producer Peter Lord then developed the concept into a story before pitching it to DreamWorks The film was first announced in July 2002, and in what was then a surprise move

In 2007, ImageMovers and Disney announced a joint-venture to produce motion-capture animated features named ImageMovers Digital. They only released two films (A Christmas Carol and Mars Needs Moms), neither of which were successful at the box office (especially the latter), until Disney announced the studio's closure

The idea for a film about rats that fall in love in sewers was proposed by animator Sam Fell during the production of Aardman Animation's Chicken Run (2000) At the time, Aardman encouraged everyone at the company to come up with ideas for features for the DreamWorks partnership

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, formerly known as Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. until 2007, is an American film distribution studio within the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution division of the Walt Disney Company.

Randall "Randy" Boggs is the central antagonist of Pixar's fourth full-length animated feature film Monsters Inc. and a major antagonist in its prequel film Monsters University.

20th Television Animation (formerly Fox Television Animation) is an American animation studio that creates, develops and produces adult animated television series and specials. It is a unit of Disney Television Studios, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Television, which is part of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Company.

Pathé agreed to finance the film in 1996, putting their finances into script development and model design. DreamWorks officially came on board in 1997 They beat out studios like Disney, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros. and largely won due to the perseverance of DreamWorks co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg

with SPI taking over the digital production while maintaining its visual effects production. Meanwhile, SPI produced two short films, the Academy Award-winning The ChubbChubbs! and Early Bloomer, as a result of testing its strengths and weaknesses in producing all-CG animation.

Planes is based on a concept created by John Lasseter Although Pixar did not produce the film, Lasseter, then-chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios

SPA's parent company Sony Pictures had partnered in 2007 with Aardman Animations to finance, co-produce and distribute feature films Together, they produced two films: Arthur Christmas (2011), and The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! (2012), the latter which was SPA's first stop-motion film

The Smurfs (2011) was the studio's first CGI/live-action hybrid and is currently its most successful release SPA's parent company Sony Pictures had partnered in 2007 with Aardman Animations to finance