Nickelodeon Movies
Nickelodeon Movies is an American production company, animation studio, and the film production arm of American children's network Nickelodeon and the family film distribution label of Paramount Pictures, launched on February 25, 1995. The division has earned numerous accolades including 2 Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, over 13 Saturn Awards nominations, and 4 in-house honors via the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. Since its launch, over 40 feature films have been produced for theatrical release and starting in 2021, the studio has been producing films for Paramount+ and Netflix. History Nickelodeon/20th Century Fox deal (1993–95) In 1993, Nickelodeon agreed to a two-year contract with 20th Century Fox to make feature films. The joint venture would mostly produce new material, though a Nickelodeon executive did not rule out the possibility of making films based on The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rugrats and Doug. None of the movies were produced due to the 1994 acquisition of Paramount Pictures by Nickelodeon's parent company, Viacom, and they would distribute the movies instead. With the creative differences with John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren & Stimpy and an inability to market that property in a family-friendly manner instead of a "cynical and gross humor" scuttled the film. However, Paramount and Viacom would go forward and start development on The Rugrats Movie a year after the acquisition. The Nickelodeon version of the Doug film was not made due to the acquisition of the show's production studio, Jumbo Pictures, by The Walt Disney Company in 1996. With this, the show moved to Disney's ABC network and new seasons aired as a part of its programming block Disney's One Saturday Morning as Disney's Doug. In 1999, Walt Disney Pictures released a film finale to the series, Doug's 1st Movie. Nickelodeon Movies (1995–98) Nickelodeon Movies was then founded on February 25, 1995. On July 10, 1996, the studio released its first film, Harriet the Spy, a spy-comedy film based on the 1964 novel of the same name. On July 25, 1997, the studio then released its second film, Good Burger, a comedy film, starring Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Abe Vigoda, Dan Schneider, Shar Jackson, Josh Server, Lori Beth Denberg, Jan Schweiterman, Linda Cardellini and Sinbad. It was based on the Good Burger sketch on Nickelodeon's popular sketch comedy series All That. On November 20, 1998, the studio released The Rugrats Movie, which is Nickelodeon Movies' first animated film and the first Nicktoon to be shown in theaters. It received mixed critical reception, but despite this, the movie became a box office success, earning $100,494,675 in the domestic box office and $140,894,675 worldwide. It also became the first non-Disney animated film to gross over $100 million domestically. The success of the film led to two sequels. 2000s On February 11, 2000, the studio released Snow Day, a comedy film starring Chevy Chase, Chris Elliott, Zena Grey, Josh Peck, Mark Webber, Schuyler Fisk, Jade Yorker and Emmanuelle Chriqui. This film met negative reviews, yet it grossed $62,464,731 worldwide. Nine months later,