What You Missed: ToonBox Establishes LA Office + ‘Pecking Order’ and ‘The Nut Job’ TV Show in Development

Welcome to another installment in the What You Missed series.

To recap, this is a series of news stories that fell off our radar during the 2014 year in animation. So consider this a way of catching up with the stories you may have missed out on.

ToonBox US Offices + Future Projects

We reported yesterday about Spark, a new film from ToonBox Entertainment (unfortunately best known for The Nut Job), one of the newer animation companies to hop into the ring. Despite operating primarily in Canada, The Nut Job‘s box office success seems to have given ToonBox the confidence to further their reach into the feature animation field in an attempt to compete with the ‘big three’.

Animation Magazine reported last summer that ToonBox Entertainment will expand its overseas operations to include a new office in downtown Los Angeles.

The studio has also set up a division in the same building as its development and production partner Gulfstream Pictures in Burbank (we’ll touch on this later).

We also got details concerning upcoming projects in their pipeline.

We already know that The Nut Job 2 will be happening (January 15, 2016), but apparently ToonBox has bigger aspirations for its property beyond the big screen, as Animation Magazine notes that we may even get a TV spinoff. No further details have been revealed at the moment, but I don’t think very many people asked for a Nut Job TV show (nor did people ask for a Nut Job 2 either).

Another project they have in the pipeline is a film titled Pecking Order. The film will mark ToonBox’s first collaboration with Warner Bros. along with Gulfstream Pictures. This will also mark the first project under its new division with Gulfstream (doesn’t take much to see the connection). It’s also significant in that it makes ToonBox the second studio to join Warner Bros.’ revitalized animation department.

Not much else has been revealed about the film other than that it’s currently in development.

Asides from anything involving The Nut Job, I would be more excited about their future projects if they can right the course with Spark. That said, Pecking Order has my curiosity simply out of it being a Warner Bros. animated film that’s being developed outside of its Warner Animation Group division.

We’ll keep you updated as more information about ToonBox’s upcoming projects reaches the surface.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to any of ToonBox’s projects?

Edited by: Kelly Conley