How To Make A Toon For A Less Dough

Outsourced to Canada with a budget of just $38 million, DreamWorks Animation’s Captain Underpants is a radical experiment in low-cost studio animation. Is it the future?

- Carolyn Giardina

Of the top 50 biggest films  from the last 15 years, 12 have been animated — nearly a quarter — including billion-dollar blockbusters Frozen, Minions and Toy Story 3. But despite the lack of such hefty budget items as actor profit participation deals and far-flung physical production, CGI cartoon features come with their own steep production price tags.

Even at Illumination Entertainment, the Comcast/ NBCUniversal studio behind the Minions movies, boss Chris Meledandri is known for keeping animation costs in check. The studio’s latest release, Sing, cost $75 million to produce at the company’s Paris-based facility, Illumination Mac Guff. Still, that total is a lot less than for recent pictures produced by DreamWorks Animation (acquired by Comcast/ NBCUniversal in 2016): Hit films Trolls and The Boss Baby each had reported budgets of $125 million, while Kung Fu Panda 3 and How to Train Your Dragon 2 each cost $145 million. Films from rival Pixar Animation Studios can cost up to $200 million.

But when the latest film from DreamWorks Animation, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, bows June 2, it will be a bold experiment in a new studio model. THR has learned that the movie, which is based on the children’s book series by Dav Pilkey and follows two fourth graders (voiced by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch) who accidentally turn their mean school principal (Ed Helms) into a bumbling superhero, was made for just $38 million.