Once Upon an Animation is an upcoming 2024 American live-action/animated American short film produced by Sony Pictures Animation in celebration of Columbia Pictures' 100th anniversary. Written and directed by Miguel Jorin, it released by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing on November 29, 2024 released with the U.S. release of 10 Lives. The short features Boog and Elliot assembling a gallery of legendary Sony Pictures characters for a centennial group photo.
Plot[]
Taking place on November 8, 2024 in Culver City, California, when Columbia Pictures turned 100 years old, its employees are leaving the Sony Pictures Animation Building as their usual work day is done and Pam Marsden imagines about the walls of the studio coming alive after an intern, talks with him about the great history it made throughout the century.
Inside the studio, after the doors close, all is quiet when suddenly, Boog and Elliot, are seen in a production cel picture for Open Season, comes to life, and calls Giselle and McSquizzy. Elliot questions if all of the employees have left, in which Giselle replies yes with a nod. Excited, Boog, along with Elliot, jump out of the picture, and Elliot gathers many characters from the studio's filmography with McSquizzy gives a horn signal and Elliot also gives a year 100 cowbell signal, whether traditionally, stop-motion or computer-animated. Flint Lockwood, Dennis, Gene, Hi-5, Jailbreak, and Tinkles are the first to respond to the signal. Elliot calls to Bo, Ruth, and Dave while the latter calls to Cody Maverick. Boog, alongside Chicken Joe, Lani Aliikai, and Reggie Belafonte, enlists Harold to gather everyone from upstairs and he complies and flies off with Moose and Porcupine.
During that, several gags of the characters interacting with one another happen all over the studio;
- The Three Wise Camels runs happily down the hall, followed by Smurfette riding on his dragonfly, The Mitchells runs into the hall while reminding Arthur and Bryony to meet in the lobby, and the former says he'll see them there while sliding down the railing with them ending up with the glow bunnies, Lem Korplog and Captain Charles T. Baker ride on the car, Mighty Eagle takes Winnie on a fun ride, Clumsy and Brainy Smurf slide down on their ropes, and they drop Mavis into the hall along with Barry, who needed a bucket.
- Mavis searches for a bucket for Barry. She approaches Mark Bowman (who was at the coffee area, Ranger Beth, Mrs. Song, Wayne, Wanda, Griffin the Invisible Man, Eunice, and Murray, who tells the others that they have no time for coffee), and with his help, he saying, "Here you go! A nice bucket of food!" to summon food in the bucket for Barry to put in, much to the former's pleasure, who then tells a passing Mr. Ghouligan with a plate of food that "There's a food in my bucket."
- After seeing an angry Quasimodo Wilson trying to get a snack from the studio's vending machine, Miles freezes Hunter (from The Star) in his frame after Gwen asks her if she thinks that all of the villains will be showing up (most likely because she would be worried about seeing Hunter again after he tried to kill them in their film).
- Garfield steps into an elevator with King Herod, Eric, Deborahbot 5000, and Rosa Hernandez, when Vic, Garfield's father calls from across the hall to hold the elevator as takes his time walking to them, much to Garfield's annoyance.
- Vivo draws on an animator's office desk humming "¡Presente!" while using a book copy of The Art of Vivo to boost his height while Mr. Fly, Jim Posey, and Hailey Posey pass by, with the former telling him to shake a leg (in which Vivo replies that the leg won't make a difference because it's all in the wrist) when Marta bursts out of the drawing, sending Vivo and he uses his hand to put him back together.
- While Jinx, Nolan, Roland, Dracula, Count Vlad, Crystal, Shaw and Ericka Van Helsing, who sings about himself while doing so, are freshening up in the men's room for the picture, Smiler pops out in front of his ear laughing. Then Elliot opens the door while covering his eyes and tells them to move it.
- While Red, Bomb, and Chuck try to free Leonard from his picture, Gabi speaks with Blobby Baby, Puppy Blobby, Snappybug, Toots, Steve, and Odie about meeting in the lobby while stopping Azrael from eating Frank and Brenda before getting spooked by an angry barking Tinkles.
- While The Undertaker, J.C., Hunter (from Surf's Up 2: WaveMania), Paige, Mr. McMahon, Spider-Man Noir, and Jon Arbuckle walk by, Jon warns some smurfs, who are watching "Monster House" on a TV, that they'll have nightmares when Monster House pops out of the TV, scaring the Smurfs and they run away and, in the process, run over Chester V, who had just came out from her picture, causing him to drop his money bags, which Barb grab.
- At this point, Vic finally makes it into the elevator, much to the exasperation of the others, especially Garfield who he thanked for holding the elevator. Frankenstein then squeezes into the elevator after he makes it, resulting in an increase of Garfield's frustration enough to be thrown into a screamig fit when the fully-occupied elevator closes its doors.
- While Zeta is being followed and annoyed by a lovestruck Blobby, Alex and Addie follow down the stairs, where Alex is the one to drop his phone PAL, much to their humor. Monchi picks up PAL and runs off with it. Alex calls for Katie while Addie cheers for Monchi.
- Elliot was amused by this when he sees Pockets leading Din with his hypnosis. He desperately tells him to stop, but Li Na Wang says she has it covered, hitting Pockets with her purse offscreen to save her.
While all of this is happening, Elliot looks up at a portrait of the late company founders, Harry Cohn, Joe Brandt and Jack Cohn and to pay respects and fondly remember his legacy. Boog and Giselle reminds Elliot that everyone is in the lobby as Elliot speaks to the portrait saying that he has to go and thanks him declaring, "On with the show.", foreshadowing Columbia Pictures' bright future ahead.
Elliot flies down the lobby stairs amongst some of the other characters to the entrance on Long while Tim Lockwood, Gargamel, and Monty avoid them. After Sam Sparks tells Elliot that the coast is clear, everyone goes outside to take the group photo. During the outside gathering, Brent McHale bumps in front of the door, but is okay, while Bela comes out feeling annoyed by those he refers to as "idiots" around him while Silver and Courtney flies around the area on Dancarino and Valentina. Meanwhile, Jonathan Loughran ducks from a ladder being held by Mr. Weenie. After Becky, Eva and Sarah walk by, the witch turns the building blue while the second witch quickly changes it back to white. Garry, is the last to arrive for the photo as he positions himself next to Wesley and Eunice, in which Elliot allows Garry to do so. Garry tips his hair to say thank you to Elliot, but Eunice warns him to keep a distance.
Everything is all set as Beth hands Mr. Weenie an old fashioned camera. However, things backfire as Mr. Weenie tries to find the timer button for the camera, he accidentally falls off the ladder, breaking it, shortly after Chuck timed it with a three second countdown. Wilma chews on a part of the camera, but Dennis drags him away. Abraham Van Helsing expresses a sarcastic comment saying "Well, that was fun." and Mary Meh states that they might try again next century. Rio Morales, Jeff Morales, Peter B. Parker, Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham along with Spider-Woman, Spider-Man India, Spider-Punk, Spider-Man 2099, and Mayday, among many of the others, leave in disappointment, believing the group photo is cancelled and ruined. Mickey tries to assure everyone that everything will be fine, but soon loses hope.
Just then, as everyone begins heading back inside, Andrés plays "Tomorrow" from Annie on his guitar, joined in by Zuri on his saxophone, Rick Mitchell on his harmonica, and Abby Posey using his trumpet as everyone, including Dracula and Mr. Wang, returns to listen. Then the singing starts with Mavis and Johnny's duet as Stephen Love, Gigi Young, Russell Young, and Angela Young listen, much to Pockets' annoyance. Garfield, Jon Arbuckle, Rosa Hernandez, Jinx, Joseph, and Mary also join in singing along. As the background chorus sings, the other characters help undo Mr. Weenie's mistake with the Smurfs' giving up his camera in a pile, Harold fixing it with his crayon, Frankenstein putting the ladder back in position with his super strength, and Long using her magic to lift Mr. Weenie up over the ladder while he places the camera on top of it, and sets the timer. As the trio of Katie Mitchell, Din, and Gabi, Vic, Vivo, and the rest of the cast sing the last verse of the song and smile for the photo, the Torch Lady then uses her torch to cut from the scene to where the group photo on the wall is taken (most likely in the studio's lobby), and the film ends with the tagline, "To the family, friends and team of Columbia Pictures who worked on 10 years on movies, TV shows and short films, Thank You."
Cast[]
Live-action[]
TBA
Animated[]
TBA