Locksmith Animation

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox company Locksmith Animation (also known as Locksmith) is a British-American independent computer animation feature film studio owned by Sister Group. Headquartered in London, England with an office in Los Angeles, California, Locksmith is best known for producing and developing independent computer-animated feature films.

Locksmith Animation's first film, Ron's Gone Wrong, was released on 22 October 2021, distributed by 20th Century Studios (which had recently been acquired by Disney two years prior) with positive reviews. That Christmas, a holiday film based on the children's Christmas book trilogy That Christmas and Other Stories by British filmmaker Richard Curtis, was released by Netflix on 4 December 2024. The studio's next films are, Bad Fairies, a subversive original musical-comedy film set in contemporary London, to be released by Warner Bros. Pictures on 23 July 2027, and The Lunar Chronicles, an animated feature film adaptation project based on the author Marissa Meyer's four young adult science fiction fantasy novels by the same name.

History

Locksmith Animation was founded in 2014 by media executive businesswoman Elisabeth Murdoch and two Aardman Animations collaborators Sarah Smith and Julie Lockhart. Locksmith was named after Lockhart and Smith's surnames. In April 2014, visual effects studio Double Negative (now known as DNEG) formed a deal with Locksmith to provide the computer animation for Locksmith's films, this led DNEG to found their own animation department, DNEG Feature Animation (now known as DNEG Animation).

In May 2016, Locksmith formed a production deal with Paramount Pictures, with Paramount acting as the distributor for Locksmith's films to be produced under the Paramount Animation label. The following year, however, Paramount abandoned its deal with Locksmith when Paramount chairman and CEO Brad Grey was replaced by Jim Gianopulos.

In September 2017, Locksmith formed a multi-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, which would distribute Locksmith's films; 20th Century Fox Animation was brought in to oversee the deal, as Locksmith was aiming to release a film every 12–18 months. The first film to be produced by Locksmith Animation was Ron's Gone Wrong which was released on 22 October 2021 by 20th Century Studios. In February 2018, it was announced that Locksmith was developing Wed Wabbit, a live-action/animated hybrid film based on Lissa Evans' children's book, serving as the first live-action/animated hybrid film from Locksmith. In October 2019, after Disney took over 20th Century Animation, Locksmith formed a new multi-year production deal with Warner Bros. Pictures, which will distribute three Locksmith films under the Warner Animation Group label after the release of Ron's Gone Wrong, which was now the only theatrical Locksmith film to be distributed by 20th Century Studios.

File:Locksmith Animation (2021).svg

The original logo of Locksmith Animation (used from 2014 to 2023) with the Sister Pictures byline (used from 2021 to 2023)

Sister Pictures was announced as Locksmith Animation's parent company following the release of Ron's Gone Wrong in October 2021.

In June 2021, it was announced that Natalie Fischer, the former COO of Illumination Entertainment, DreamWorks Animation and Pixar would step in as CEO. Locksmith co-founder Sarah Smith exited the company to pursue her own creative endeavours. It was also announced that Locksmith is currently in production on That Christmas, a holiday film based on the children's Christmas book trilogy That Christmas and Other Stories by British filmmaker Richard Curtis, and they are working on an original musical-comedy film. That Christmas was unveiled in June 2022 as part of Netflix's slate of animated films.

In January 2022, Locksmith had optioned to adapt Marissa Meyer's fantasy novel series The Lunar Chronicles.

In April 2023, Locksmith updated its logo and branding.

In June 2023, as part of the rebranding of WAG (now called Warner Bros. Pictures Animation), it was announced that the studio had signed a first-look deal with Locksmith to develop and produce three animated feature films (Bad Fairies, The Lunar Chronicles and Wed Wabbit) for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Filmography

Feature films

Released

Title	Release date	Director(s)	Distributor	Co-production with	Animation service(s)	Budget	Gross	Rotten Tomatoes	Metacritic	CinemaScore
Ron's Gone Wrong	Template:Date table sorting	Sarah Smith Jean-Philippe Vine Co-director: Octavio E. Rodriguez	20th Century StudiosTemplate:Efn	20th Century Animation TSG Entertainment	DNEG Animation	N/A	$60.6 million	82% (103 reviews)	65 (23 reviews)	A
That Christmas	Template:Date table sorting	Simon Otto	Netflix	Netflix Animation			N/A	57% (30 reviews)	60 (13 reviews)	N/A

Upcoming

Title	Release date	Director(s)	Distributor	Co-production with	Animation service(s)	Production status	Template:Ref heading
Bad Fairies	Template:Date table sorting	Megan Nicole Dong	Warner Bros. Pictures	Warner Bros. Pictures Animation	DNEG Animation	In development
The Lunar Chronicles	scope="row" style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2" Template:TBA	Noëlle Raffaele			scope="row" style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2" Template:TBA
Wed WabbitTemplate:Efn	scope="row" style="text-align:center;" Template:TBA

Accolades

Annie Awards

Year	Film	Category	Recipient(s)	Result
2021	Ron's Gone Wrong	Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in a Feature Production	Julien Bizat	rowspan="2" Template:Nom
		Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production	Aurélien Predal, Till Nowak and Nathan Crowley

British Animation Awards

Year	Film	Category	Recipient(s)	Result
2022	Ron's Gone Wrong	Best Long Form	Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio E. Rodriguez	rowspan="2"Template:Won
		Best Design
		Writers Award	Sarah Smith and Peter Baynham	Template:Nominated

External links

• Template:Official website