First Look At Skydance Animation’s Swank New Digs In Santa Monica (Updated)

UPDATE: Cartoon Brew removed the header images with imagery of the new studio, per the request of Skydance Media, who told the site that the “imagery is not approved for distribution.” The original Linkedin story with video footage of the new studio was also deleted by the original author of the post. Skydance told us that, “The user who posted the video did not have permission to do so, and he has taken the post down from LinkedIn.”

Further, the name of the individual has been removed from the article, per the request of the individual who posted the video.

Los Angeles hasn’t seen a major feature animation producer open a new studio space in quite a few years, but that’s about to change with the new Skydance Animation studio.

The studio, which is set on a 5.8 acre campus in Santa Monica, held a preview of the space for workers last week and some of the common spaces can be seen for the first time in a video shared on Linkedin by a worker [name removed at the request of individual]:

[update: the original Linkedin post was deleted by the author]

The studio, headed by former Pixar and Disney chief creative officer John Lasseter, was originally expected to open in November 2023, but construction at this scale rarely finishes on schedule. Artists are now expected to begin moving into the new studio space next month.

Skydance has released two features to date — Luck and Spellbound — as well as two seasons of the Apple TV+ series WondLa, but the studio is still ramping up with big plans ahead. In 2023, the David Ellison-run company signed a huge distribution deal with Netflix, which will release its films for many years to come. Upcoming releases include Nathan Greno’s Pookoo and Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn, with numerous other titles behind those.

It’s still unknown how the pending Skydance/Paramount merger might impact Skydance Animation’s distribution deal with Netflix, but Skydance Animation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Its parent company, Skydance Media, remains one of the most well-funded companies in Hollywood, thanks to the backing of Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison, who is the fourth-richest person on the planet with a net worth of around $200 billion.