Paramount Opens the Door for a "Legend of Korra" Animated Movie

 

Entertainment industry trade magazine Variety recently profiled Paramount Pictures' efforts to ramp up their animation division. In addition to new projects from producers Mary Parent and J.J. Abrams, the studio is looking to fill up their pipeline with IPs from sister division Nickelodeon. While Paramount didn't name names, Variety identifies the list as potentially including Dora the Explorer, Monkey Quest, and... wait for it.... The Legend of Korra. 

Though Paramount's animation slate is currently a bit empty, with 2014's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 2 dominating the focus, new attention is being paid to filling in features for summer 2013 and beyond.

Viacom president-CEO Philippe Dauman has backed the effort to produce more animated features, with the guide of keeping budgets around $100 million or less, along the lines of Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me ($69 million), and the fourth Ice Age ($90 million). Headcount will be 30-40 people. Paramount Pictures considers their previous big budget effort, Rango, to be only a modest success since it took in $245 million worldwide on a hefty 135 million budget.