this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
117 points (94.7% liked)

Today I Learned

29972 readers
601 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Basically, the only modern studio consistently putting out stop motion animation movies, is Laika Studios. And yet, Laika has only had one financially successful movie, Coraline from 2009, while all their other movies have under performed.

However, Laika is currently led and owned by Travis Knight, son of Phil Knight, the owner of Nike. This has enabled Knight to continually bank roll Laika whenever they under perform, essentially making the entire stop motion animation film industry a nepo baby's pet project.

That being said, this is actually a positive story, and reminiscent of how artists previously would be financially supported by wealthy benefactors.

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

i heard about this on a podcast. it is great news for stop-motion, and considering how many shitty rich people there are, it's nice to know there's a couple good ones promoting art.

Also their movies are good and all but one of their movies made tens of millions of dollars.

for stop-motion, a very niche art-form, making 10-130 million dollars profit per film is laudable.

went too big with missing link though, which i haven't seen yet.

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know if motion animation is the same as other types of films, but for most of the industry you need box office sales to be double of the film budget for it to be considered profitable. Mainly due to marketing budgets and the huge percentage of profit that theaters get for the first few weeks of a film's release.

[–] imeansurewhynot@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

It's pretty different from live action according to creators and producers, it's such a small market and stop motion is so difficult to explain and get off the ground and promote that financial expectations are much more realistic.

You're right that if a live-action movie costs $100 million to make grosses $180 million, the producers are upset, but that's a greedy, ego-driven convention of the modern studio system, they are still making tens of millions of dollars before everything on the back end is added in.

The stop-motion world has a more realistic perspective on production and the artists love every single piece of art they create, so also making $40 million as evidence that their art style can succeed in mainstream culture is the cherry on top of any project that even gets to be fully produced.

[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 2 points 42 minutes ago

It’s more that if a movie costs $100 million to make, it’s usually $100 million in marketing. So it would need to make $200 million to break even. Making $180 million means someone lost $20 million dollars, so I wouldn’t really call it greedy. If the movies are not making the money then they’d need to just start reducing scope or just hope someone will keep bank rolling them.

[–] MrEff@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

For the other movies, while they dont meet Hollywood standards of success, they still succeeded. If you spend $60 mil employing people for 2 or 3 years, and are doing what you love, and it pays you back $60 mil to do it again, that's success. Even with the flip in there, the others covered it. As long as they break even, it bankrolls the next movie.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 4 points 49 minutes ago

Knox Claymation and Wallace & Grommet beg to differ!

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Isn't Aardman (shaun the sheep, wallace & gromit) still consistently put out stopmotion? Or are they just cheating the visual style with 3d animation?

[–] CumbrianCucumber@lemmy.world 1 points 16 minutes ago* (last edited 16 minutes ago)

Yeah, Aardman are very much still stop motion (with a few tiny cheats, the stadium audience in Early Man and the sea in Pirates on an Adventure with Scientists).

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 16 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Wes Anderson put out a wildly successful stop motion picture in 2009.

Consistently, sure, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s dead.

[–] LetchLemon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Or here me out.... we tax him and his dad. Then use the money to pay stop animation artists so they arent beholden as some rich kids pet project. could even start a few studios instead of one. Early 00's there were a few independant stop motion artists. Only reason they still arent around is due to art grant funding.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

This sounds nice but I expect it will not work as good in reality plus there may be more artists than money if we limit it to only those two.

Tax everyone properly and provide basic income sounds like a way to go anyway

[–] LetchLemon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 47 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

Thats what what i meant. Artists should have better access to funding and foundational wage streams such as a basic income that Ireland is currently doing with musicians.

[–] NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social 15 points 2 hours ago

'Propping up the stop motion film industry' is quite the statement. Aardman Animaton has been releasing feature length stop motion movies since 2000 and all have done very well. Also Laika only worked on Corpse Bride of Tim Burton's multiple very successful stop motion movies.

[–] stsquad@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 hours ago (2 children)
[–] stenAanden@feddit.dk 2 points 2 hours ago

they were mentioned in the video

[–] tunetardis@piefed.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

There are certainly worse ways to spend your obscene wealth.

[–] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 4 points 2 hours ago

Got some sources to share? The quick search I did doesn't support your argument.

Also, Aardman is a rocking studio with quite a history. (Yes, I know they went digital for a bit after the fire)

[–] GorGor@startrek.website 3 points 2 hours ago

I talked to some folks who worked at Laika a while back at a party. They loved working there. This was some years ago, and my memory is a bit beer soaked, but they seemed happy and proud of what they did.

[–] Janx@piefed.social 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Respectfully, can you clarify, please? "Under-perform" is a term you used repeatedly. These movies were successful, yes? They made more money than they cost to make them...? I don't give half a shit how much money rich assholes expect a project to make. We know how creative Hollywood Accounting can be, so I have a hard time seeing how you can say they weren't "financially successful"...

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Advertising isn't included in the budget numbers.

[–] Janx@piefed.social 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Okay...? Just like production, promotion is a gamble. How much money they can and should spend to (potentially) make more money. How does that change anything?

[–] Steve@communick.news 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Typically, the promotional budget for a movie is roughly equal to its production budget. Add also the portion the theaters get. A $60M budget needs to take in at least $120M. Better $160M+. Any less and they loose money on the movie.

Calling a $60M movie a success for grosing $100M, is wrong. The studio lost money on that movie. It might be a "success" for other reasons. But then it's budget doesn't matter to those reasons.

[–] neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

And let’s not forget how Laika was once Will Vinton Studios (California Raisins, The Noid ads for Dominos Pizza, The PJs, various holiday specials, etc) before a hostile takeover by the Knight family and eventually rebrand.

All that said, I got to see the trailer for Wildwood on a big screen the other day and it looks legitimately stunning. I’m definitely going to catch it in a theater.

[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Guillotine!

[–] Cypher@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

Bad news, Nike isn’t doing so well financially.

They ditched retail stores, cut R&D and focused on the niche street fashion market and nostalgia.

It turns out none of those moves are good long term.