In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote his upcoming book, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings surprisingly stated that family animation was the area that he would like to see the streaming giant increase its footprint. That statement came on the heels of Hastings touching on the fact that the hallmark of a great studio is its ability to create longstanding franchises, specifically namedropping Harry Potter and Star Wars.
Speaking to THR, Hastings stated, "We want to beat Disney in family animation. That’s going to take a while. I mean, they are really good at it. We’re both very focused on building out our animation group and, you know, it’s a friendly competition. We both want to do incredible stories for consumers and we want to be able to raise the bar in that area. We know that they will be a challenger and a competitor for the next 50 years."
Rising to the heights of Disney Animation is definitely a tall order. After acquiring Pixar in 2007, the animation side of Mickey Mouse's empire hasn't really had any serious challengers. Still, Klaus, a Netflix original animated feature was nominated for an Oscar last year so the streaming giant is definitely trending in the right direction.
Those comments above come after Hastings previously stated earlier this year that Netflix would be heavily investing in animated films. Recent Netflix animated films include Klaus and The Willoughbys with more exciting animated features on the horizon such as Over the Moon, Guillermo del Toro's stop-motion Pinocchio and Fearless.