Sony is already one of the largest companies in the world, with multiple branches specializing in movies, video games, finance, and more. Beyond developing game-changing devices, including the PlayStation and the Walkman, Sony has produced countless cinematic phenomena, including the Men in Black, Karate Kid, and Spider-Man franchises. In the past 16 years, one branch of Sony has been changing the game: Sony Pictures Animation. The animation company has been releasing hit after hit since their 2009 film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The children’s film was praised by critics and was a box office success, earning $243 million worldwide, thus prompting a sequel, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, which also earned over $200 million worldwide.
It all began in 2001, when Sony Pictures Animation—then Sony Pictures Imageworks—was nearly shut down. However, after seeing the success of animated movies like DreamWorks’ Shrek and Pixar’s Monsters Inc., the VFX studio was reconfigured to be an animation studio. It was officially reestablished under its current name on May 9, 2002.
The studio continued to release familiar animated pictures such as The Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania throughout the 2010s, all of which saw huge box office success and received critical praise. With a continuous strand of quality movies, Sony Pictures Animation was on track to be one of the biggest animation companies in the world. It was in 2018, however, that the company truly earned its place next to famous animation companies, such as Pixar and DreamWorks, with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
I still remember going to watch it with my dad in December, at the Picture Show Theatres, in the now-nonexistent Paradise Valley Mall. We sat down with low expectations, simply excited to watch a Spider-Man movie. However, it soon became much more than that. It was the first time in my life that I realized I was watching an unforgettable movie, an instant classic—something I’d be showing my kids, like Cinderella or The Jungle Book. The bright colors combined with comic-like action sequences blended to create a masterpiece, and I wasn’t the only one to think so. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97%, it was a box office smash hit, earning $393.6 million worldwide. It is arguably one of the best, if not the best, animated superhero movies to ever be made. Because of its success, development began soon after on a sequel, titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Released in 2023, it earned an insane $690.9 million worldwide and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95%. The movie ended with a cliffhanger, leaving a third movie to continue the story, set to release in 2027. With these two movies together earning over a billion dollars, they have easily become the highest-grossing animated superhero movies of all time, with the sequel reaching the Top 35 of the most profitable films of all time.
If this trend of quality movies continues, Sony Pictures stands to become the leading animation studio globally. Disney and Pixar are both at an animation low, with every movie since 2020, besides Inside Out 2, being a box office flop and rapidly losing money. It is extremely clear that, since the COVID-19 Pandemic, most entertainment is watched through streaming services, a circumstance Sony leaned into, releasing both of the animated Spider-Man films on Netflix and, later, Disney+.
On June 22, 2025, Sony Pictures released K-Pop Demon Hunters through Netflix, after selling the rights for $20 million — a major mistake. K-Pop Demon Hunters has skyrocketed past movies and series like Red Notice and Squid Game to become the most-watched Netflix title of all time, with 266 million views. The soundtrack has continued to stay number 1 on the Billboard, Apple Music, and Spotify charts, and has broken record after record. Fake K-pop bands from the movie, HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys, have even become the highest-charting K-pop groups of all time, beating BTS and BLACKPINK. After its insane success, a sing-along version was released in theaters for a single weekend. During that single weekend, it was number 1 at the box office, selling out over 1,000 theaters and earning $18 million.
In February of 2026, Goat will be released, a new movie about a goat who joins a basketball league to become the greatest of all time. NBA Star Stephen Curry will be a voice actor and producer of the film, where he will star alongside Caleb McLaughlin, Jelly Roll, and Jennifer Hudson. If this movie is received well, it would continue the upward trend towards a dominant Sony Pictures Animation studio. Disney has been around for over a century, and DreamWorks is nearing 32 years. It is time for a new major player in animation, and Sony is not slowing down.
