Warner Bros has reportedly handed Fixed, an animated comedy from the director of Hotel Transylvania, back to Sony Pictures Animation.
In the wake of Warner Bros Discovery announcing its startling $10bn quarterly loss, a report has emerged that the company has decided not to release Fixed, an adult animated comedy from Hotel Transylvania filmmaker Genndy Tartakovsky.
Under its original deal, Warner Bros Pictures was distributor for Fixed, with the film itself being a joint venture between production companies New Line Cinema and Sony Pictures Animation. Work on Fixed was completed in September 2023 and it was even submitted to the MPAA (which gave it an R rating) but little had been heard from the production in the months since.
Co-written and directed by Tartakovsky, Fixed follows the exploits of Bull, a bloodhound who, on discovering he has a matter of hours before he’s dragged off to the vet to be neutered, embarks on an adventure with his canine friends. Among the voice cast is Adam DeVine as the bloodhound protagonist, and Idris Elba, Kathryn Hahn and Fred Armisen playing other assorted mutts.
A hand-drawn animated feature with adult humour, Fixed always sounded like a slightly risky proposition. If Puck's reporting is accurate (which comes to us via Dark Horizons), it sounds as though Warner Bros has gotten cold feet over the film over the past few months.
We can at least be grateful that Warner Bros is only its distributor, given the studio’s track record of deleting the films it makes itself. The past year has seen the films Batgirl, Scoob! 2 and Coyote Vs Acme – all of which were either finished or in post-production – essentially scrapped as tax write-offs. There was hope for a while that Coyote Vs Acme could be rescued from oblivion and sold to another studio, but to date, no such deal has emerged.
There’s similarly good news for another animated film connected to Warner Bros: Looney Tunes movie The Day The Earth Blew Up. Briefly considered as another candidate for deletion during Warner Bros Discovery’s restructuring period in 2022, it’s now getting a US cinema release courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment.
Warner Bros Discovery’s latest cashflow problems, which partly arose because it realised its portfolio of TV networks was overvalued by some $9.1bn, has sent its stock prices tumbling by some 11 percent. More grim financial decisions are likely to emerge in the coming months as a result, with CEO David Zaslav telling investors that he has to “consider all options”.
Here’s hoping Fixed gets a release soon. We’ll bring you more as we get it.
