Warner Bros. Gets Out Of Dog, Gives 'Fixed' Back To Sony
Has the leashed of our worries been created?
Doggone it. You might have heard about Warner Bros. Discovery’s $9 billion second quarter writedown earlier this week, reportedly mostly about the TV side of things, the slow death of cable, losing their stake in NBA media rights most directly to NBC (reportedly the package is most directly headed there) and failing to match Amazon, but surely this specific movie-related action has been accounted for somewhere in this quarter: They will not be releasing Fixed, the 2D-animated R-rated New Line Cinema co-production with Sony Pictures Animation directed by legendary animation creator Genndy Tartakovsky.
According to Puck, Sony will be shopping Fixed to another distributor, whether a streamer or another studio. Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Primal, and Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, has called it a “sweet, charming, sincere story of friendship and romance” as well as a tribute to 2D hand-drawn animation. Of course, he’s previously worked with Sony as director of the first three Hotel Transylvania movies and a screenwriter on the fourth.
Fixed stars Bull, voiced by Adam Devine, is a typical dog who learns he’s about to be neutered the next morning. Realizing what this means for his life, Bull realizes he needs one last adventure with his friend group in the final 24 hours with his balls. Idris Elba voices Bull’s best friend Rocco. The cast features three Saturday Night Live alums, Bobby Moynihan as Lucky, Fred Armisen as Fetch, and Beck Bennett as Sterling, with Kathryn Hahn as Bull’s love interest Honey, River Gallo as Frankie, and Michelle Buteau as Molasses.
Of the films Warner Bros. Discovery has scrapped with any percentage completed, there are the infamous trio of shelved writeoffs, Batgirl, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, and Coyote vs. Acme, while Merry Little Batman was picked up by Prime Video, Urkel Saves Santa! received an unfortunately quiet home video release, The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie is being redeveloped for plot reasons, and The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie just found Ketchup Entertainment as its North American distributor just a week after release in Germany and Switzerland.
If anything, at least the studio has pre-existing relationships with two of the biggest streamers, having released three of their 2021 films, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Wish Dragon, and Vivo, while Hotel Transylvania: Transformania was bumped from an October theatrical release and sold to Prime Video for a January 2022 release.
Source: Puck News (via Dark Horizons)