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The animation industry plays an important role in today’s life. The ideas and nature of animation and what it captures today, driving more and more companies to produce quality animated videos. Our list of the Best animation production companies captures the key aspects that these animatronic dinosaurs have brought into the field of animation, which has truly made them the top animation companies in the world.
Is Pixar Animation Studios one of the Best animation production companies?
Pixar is very agile in its technical capabilities among other animation production companies. They use their own award-winning rendering technology, which helps them create great visuals for VFX and feature film animation. But it was not always so.
Back in the day, Pixar was part of Lucasfilm, operating as a computer graphics division. Who would have thought that one of the most innovative leading animation studios in the world had to quit pre-production on a movie called Monkey in 1985 due to their technical limitations? Not everyone knows that the creators of the most recognizable Pixar wallpapers started out making commercials.
Mentalfloss claims Tropicana, Life Savers, Listerine, Pillsbury, Trident, Volkswagen, and the California Lottery were clients of Pixar’s advertising campaigns in the mid-90s. Pixar wasn’t the only one of the production companies. Other cartoon producers act as a contractor for a while.
Toy Story
Pixar’s first animated film was Toy Story released in 1995. There were three more sequels, marking the studio’s biggest financial success with a total of more than $1 billion from Toy Story 3. As a Disney subsidiary, 2005 is marked on the calendar as the first major collaboration with another animation giant, Warner Bros.
Among other animation companies, Pixar has always been at the forefront of exciting collaborations. Such as supporting Hayao Miyazaki’s films from Studio Ghibli for localization in English.
DreamWorks Animation 
4 Best Animation Production CompaniesAfter NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion in 2016, the young special effects studio became the biggest competitor to the animation giants. Founded in 1997, DreamWorks Animation established itself as a major player in Hollywood around 2004 thanks to the massive success of Shrek.
2-D animation
While Pixar was busy becoming famous for its animated films, DreamWorks dived into outsourcing computer-generated animation for CGI games. DreamWorks acquired a 40% stake in the famous special effects company Pacific Data Images.
To get a sense of the scale, they are known for creating special effects for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, and Batman Forever. DreamWorks became stronger and more technically skilled. They showed their new color when making 1998’s Antz, the movie that is considered to be the blockbuster of Pixar’s Bugs Life.
In 2000, the two companies completely merged to create a computer-based animation giant. 2-D animation is no longer a trend.
DreamWorks wants to move forward to be better than the rest of the animation production companies. The last animated film was Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. The Prince of Egypt studio’s first hand-drawn painting has skyrocketed to more than $200 million worldwide. To this day DreamWorks is one of Disney’s strongest competitors. Among its most iconic films are Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda.
How about Illumination?
The studio was founded in 2007 as a division of NBCUniversal, an American film and animation studio. The animation company has produced 10 feature films and 27 short films in less than 15 years. The company’s stars are the franchise The Secret Life of Pets, an adaptation of the world-famous Dr. Seuss book rhymes; as well as The Lorax – an orange guy famous for his mustache, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Illumination has become one of the most popular animation production companies thanks to the success of its highest-grossing films: Minions – $1.159 billion worldwide, Despicable Me 3 – $1.034 billion, and Despicable Me 2 – 970.8 million USD. The Minions became the studio’s mascots, as their fame literally invaded the entire planet.
Warner Bros
The path of animation began in the 1930s when the company debuted as the producer of the popular animated short series Looney Tunes. Among the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world are the endlessly fighting Tom and Jerry, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird. But, the first star of the original Looney word was Porky Pig. Bugs Bunny didn’t appear until the 1940s.
Warner Bros. ceased production of cartoons in 1962, continued to produce animated shorts Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, they eventually ceased operations as a cartoon production company in 1969.
Looney tunes
Warner Bros. Animation began working on additional advertisements and materials to accompany the older cartoons. During the 1990s, the animation department focused on Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs. After acquiring DC Comics, Warner Bros. decided that they would never make Batman in black and white, and created Batman: The Animated Series in full color, along with Justice League.
The company even had an experiment with combining the cinematic and animated universes in Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action by offering a movie set in classic Looney Tunes characters.
Animation in films
The world went wild when Warner Bros released the Harry Potter series, which owned the rights to everything from the film itself to toys like Harry Potter magic capsules. The studio worked on the Batman series, the Superman series and other DC Extended Universe films. Warner Bros. even hosted the production of the beloved TV show Friends which is quite interesting that the cast found the iconic orange couch in the basement of Warner Bros Studios. They decided to use it for the Central Perk cafe scene.
Warner Bros. has made nearly 7,000 movies and about 5,000 TV shows and also released 3D animated movies, such as “Storks”, “Lego: The Movie” and “Happy Feet”. However, it remains famous for its classic smearing technique in hand-drawn cartoons, which was originally a time-saving approach that has become key to the company’s recognition.
Conclusion
The animation industry is a constantly changing field with loads of potential and a growth curve that is constantly evolving. These Best animation production companies follow paths but seek similar goals. Telling the right story can be one of the hardest things to do. However, the success of each of these companies started with a dream. All of these companies are dedicated to hard work, consistency, trust and invest a lot of effort in developing their vision.
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