Universal Pictures has launched a new children’s entertainment division, which will be overseen by former Nickelodeon executive Teri Weiss.
Dubbed Universal Kids Productions, the division will focus on generating content from existing IP as well as develop original properties.
Among the studios’ kid-friendly properties the division could tap into: Despicable Me, the Fast and the Furious movie series, Jurassic World and legacy properties like The Land Before Time, Curious George and Woody Woodpecker.
Weiss worked at Nick for 16 years, most notably as an executive VP of production and development for its preschool division.
The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic World aren’t exactly anything like the other properties, which are definitely kid-friendly. They got their PG-13 ratings for plenty good reasons.
Unless they are going to make a Fast and the Furious: The Animated Series with a Wacky Racers meets Jackie Chan Adventures feel and a animated Jurassic Park spin-off film with Davis Doi directing it.
The team behind the Woody Woodpecker needs a producer to help them make this movie a hit both critically and commercially so that way Universal’s answer to the Looney Tunes comes back full swing and is known more than just a theme-park character. That producer? Steven Spielberg. He helped revive animation in the late 80’s/early 90’s with An American Tail and so on, and he can do so again if he signs on to the Woody Woodpecker reboot.