“Croods” To Become a Netflix TV Series

DreamWorks, which we already know has big plans for Internet television, is currently in production on a Netflix series based on The Croods, according to a report in Variety.

The piece about DreamWorks’ TV plans says that, “DWA has yet to disclose which other characters will get their own series, though Croods is already known to be in production.” The previous news that had appeared online about a Croods series suggested that a show was in development, so Variety seems to be confirming that it’s happening now.

There are some other interesting takeaways from the article:

• Turbo, which grossed only $82 million in the U.S. and was one of DreamWorks’ lowest-grossing computer animated features to date, is still profitable for the studio after home video and merchandising sales are factored into the equation.
• Turbo: F.A.S.T., the first series in the monster 300-hour DreamWorks/Netflix deal, will be released online in chunks of episodes. The first five episodes will debut on December 24, and per Variety, instead of TV’s usual two 11-minute episodes per half hour, each episode will contain three 11-minute episodes.
• The benefit of working with Netflix is that DreamWorks bypasses the traditional network standards and practices, which means creative teams exerise greater control over the final product. Turbo: F.A.S.T. exec producer (and Titmouse co-owner) Chris Prynoski says, “We’ve had to police ourselves on what we felt was good for kids. Sometimes we even ask if we’re being harder on ourselves than standards and practices (would be).”

For some big-picture analysis on DreamWorks’ TV plans, read this post by Steve Hulett on the Animation Guild blog.