Whats up Sunshine (Little Fires In all places), the manufacturing firm devoted to placing “girls on the middle of each story” based by Reese Witherspoon, is closing down its youngsters’ and animated content material division because of proprietor Candle Media’s plans to consolidate these companies underneath its household leisure outfit Moonbug (CoComelon). In accordance with Deadline, the transfer will lead to “a couple of people” departing Whats up Sunshine within the subsequent few weeks, whereas the corporate will collaborate with Moonbug on future initiatives.
Candle Media is backed by funding firm Blackstone; it acquired Whats up Sunshine in August 2021 for $900 million and simply months later in November 2021 added Moonbug to its portfolio for $3 billion.
Whats up Sunshine established its youngsters’ and animation division in 2019, led by former Nickelodeon government and Sesame Workshop producer Claire Curley. The studio’s mission was to “[shine] a lightweight on the place ladies are proper now and [help] them chart their path ahead” via content material aimed on the 3-5 and 6-9 age brackets.
After the Candle Media acquisition, Whats up Sunshine introduced a partnership with Construct-A-Bear for a function movie venture based mostly on the basic fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In February final 12 months, Disney Branded Tv slated a co-production with Whats up Sunshine, Tiny Trailblazers — a collection aimed toward kids 2-7 themed on environmental conservation and wildlife preservation.
Since its personal acquisition by Candle Media, Moonbug has seen its hit preschool property CoComelon attain much more success. The present was one of many high three packages streaming on Netflix in 2022, with 37.8 billion minutes watched in keeping with Nielsen. On YouTube, CoComelon has greater than doubled its base since Nov. 2021, changing into the platform’s most-subscribed channel with 143 million subscribers. The property’s first spin-off channel, It’s Cody Time, launched in Could of 2022. Moonbug acquired the unique CoComelon channel in July2020.
[Source: Deadline]
