“We won’t ever be able to produce animated films that match up to the big Disney or Pixar projects, and that’s not our goal.

“In Germany, we’ve learned to work with budgets of between €8 million-€12 million ($9.5 million-$14 million) to produce quality animated films that can be marketed and sold theatrically worldwide,” says Thorsten Wegener, director of business operations at Studio 100 and a producer on the Maya the Bee films. German producers have found a sweet spot in the independent market for animated features that are small enough, budget-wise, to be affordable but stand out from the lower-end, mass-produced films from India, Russia, and South Korea intended solely for the home-entertainment market. The third entry in the Maya franchise, Maya the Bee: The Golden Orb, is being sold by Studio 100 to buyers at this year’s virtual American Film Market. The first two of Studio 100’s Maya the Bee features - 2014’s Maya the Bee and 2018’s Maya the Bee: The Honey Games - together earned close to $50 million in theaters worldwide. The first Two By Two feature, also known as Ooops: Noah is Gone and produced by Hamburg-based Ulysses Filmproduktion, grossed some $27 million at the international box office. For the past few years, German animated films have been steadily gaining ground in the independent marketplace worldwide. Independent productions of all sorts are benefiting from the lack of big studio competition during COVID times, but the success of German animation stands out. Discovery Gets Wall Street Upgrade as Analysts Weigh Streaming Profit Vs.

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