Aaron Blabey: Last News

EXCLUSIVE: Bestselling author Aaron Blabey has signed an eight-figure deal with Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for two new series.

Katcy Stephan Franchise-focused production & brand management company Foundation Media Partners has formed Foundation Books and launched a groundbreaking new partnership with publishing company Macmillan Publishers. Foundation has accelerated its expansion into the book space by forming a multi-year publishing deal with Macmillan. Spearheaded by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group President and Publisher Jen Besser and Foundation Media Partners Founder and CEO Patrick Hughes, the venture will focus on titles that have strong cinematic roots.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor The bad guys are back. In a new trailer for “The Bad Guys 2,” the former criminal outlaws who have been trying to find their place as Good Guys find themselves pulled out of retirement for “one last job” led by an all-female squad. Speaking with Variety about the sequel, director Pierre Perifel said the first film really left an opportunity for more to be explored: “We leave the bad guys as they’re trying to be good.

Katcy Stephan Entertainment-focused brand management company Foundation Media Partners has set a first look deal with Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing to develop and produce film and television projects mined from the giant’s expansive library spanning a century. Foundation will focus on developing and adapting a multi-title slate from Simon & Schuster’s Little Simon Chapter Books & Graphic Novels as animated and/or live action properties for film and television.

Carlos Aguilar Closer in tone to the sharp adult series “BoJack Horseman” than to Illumination’s bland “Sing” franchise, Netflix’s “Thelma the Unicorn” avoids being rendered completely unoriginal by its overly familiar premise thanks to consistent splashes of acid humor and a plethora of wacky supporting characters. Reimagined from the popular 2015 children’s book by Aaron Blabey, this bright-colored fable concerns a female pony chasing musical stardom disguised as a horned magical creature. But by changing her identity to chase those ambitions, Thelma betrays herself and those who truly know her.

Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation are readying a sequel to their $250M-grossing 2022 hit, The Bad Guys, which will release on Aug. 1, 2025.

With The Bad Guys, director Pierre Perifel found the perfect opportunity to blend together all of his childhood inspirations for a family-friendly animated heist film. Based on a children’s graphic novel series, the film follows a group of animal criminals, Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson) and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos). After getting caught, Mr. Wolf makes a play to escape prison time by claiming that the group wants a chance to reform themselves into good guys. Though it starts as a ruse, Mr. Wolf soon finds himself excited by the opportunity to become a good guy. While the book series begins with the group having already decided to be good guys, Perifel wanted the film to be an origin story of how they came to that choice.

DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys topped the box office this weekend with an impressive $24M from 4,009 theaters in its domestic debut for a global total of $87.1M.Pierre Perifel's $69M-budget feature directorial debut amassed the mother demographic, with 56% of the audience being female and 62% of them surveyed as mothers - according to Deadline.The kids' caper about criminal animals 'reforming' themselves currently holds a 'certified fresh' 85% critic approval rating (out of 123 reviews) and a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Kids caper!DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys topped the box office this weekend with an impressive $24M from 4,009 theaters in its domestic debut for a global total of $87.1MThe Bad Guys - based on Aaron Blabey's graphic novel series (2015-2022) - features the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh, and Alex Borstein.Following close behind was Paramount Pictures' live-action/animated sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which earned $15.2M domestically from 3,809 theaters in its third week for a global total of $287.8M.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorLos Angeles’ ubiquitous smog, freeways, beaches and palm trees — as well as its place in moviedom — were all influential elements as filmmaker Pierre Perifel and production designer Luc Desmarchelier huddled over where to set DreamWorks’ latest animation, “The Bad Guys,” in theaters April 22.Based on the children’s book series by Aaron Blabey about a group of animals — a wolf, a snake, a shark, a tarantula and a piranha — that are always portrayed as criminal types but are trying hard to reform here, Desmarchelier says the script didn’t define where the action would be taking place. So when conceiving ideas, he looked at Chicago and New York as potential settings for the gang’s last heist.But the production designer says he and Perifel ultimately landed on a reimagined version of the City of Angels because inspirations from cop and heist movies and TV shows had a gravitational pull.