Gotham Group and Toonstar Will Produce Up to 12 Kids' Animated Series

The Gotham Group and Toonstar will produce up to 12 new original animated series for kids, the two companies announced. The slate will launch on direct-to-audience platforms, bypassing traditional broadcast gatekeepers entirely.

That number — 12 series — is the headline. It signals a bet that animation for children can now be developed at volume outside the major studio system, and sold straight to viewers.

Who are the two partners?

The Gotham Group is a talent management and production company led by founder and CEO Ellen Goldsmith-Vein. Toonstar is a Los Angeles-based, tech-powered animation studio that builds entertainment franchises through digital-first, creator-led series. Its co-founders, John Attanasio and Luisa Huang, are Disney, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks veterans.

Toonstar's investor roster includes Founders Fund, Greycroft, Snap and GFR. The studio is repped by WME and the law firm Hansen Jacobson.

What do the executives say?

The deal's logic comes through in the quotes. Goldsmith-Vein framed the partnership around creative instinct and digital distribution.

"When I first started talking with John and Luisa, we connected immediately," she said. "They're creatives first. They love animation, they have great creative instincts and they understand how to produce for a digital-first audience. That's where the opportunity is right now, and it's why creators need new ways to reach audiences."

Attanasio, Toonstar's co-founder and CEO, pointed to Gotham's 30-year track record in the field. "Ellen and Gotham have spent three decades finding and championing incredible animation talent and IP," he said. "Together, we can help those artists and storytellers create the next generation of beloved kids' franchises directly with audiences."

Matt Shichtman, head of Emerging Technologies at The Gotham Group, addressed the production side. "Animation creators can now produce at a pace and scale once limited to the largest studios, with distribution support and analytics that help them understand and respond quickly to audience preferences," he said in a statement.

What does this change for animation creators?

In practice, the deal removes two longstanding bottlenecks. Production capacity, once the preserve of the largest studios, is now accessible at speed — Shichtman's point about pace and scale. And distribution no longer requires a network deal, because the series go direct to audiences on digital platforms, with analytics feeding creative decisions in near real time.

For talent repped by Gotham, that means a faster path from concept to screen. For Toonstar, it means a deeper bench of vetted IP and creators.

How the deal was put together

WME represented both The Gotham Group and Toonstar in the negotiation. Hansen Jacobson served as legal counsel to Toonstar.

The partnership also extends an existing web of development deals for Toonstar. The studio's network of development partners already includes Fox Entertainment, HarperCollins and Penguin Random House — a mix of a broadcast network and two of publishing's biggest houses.

That lineup matters. It shows Toonstar positioning itself as a hub where talent, publishers and networks converge, with the Gotham deal adding a management-side pipeline of animation creators into the mix. Whether the 12-series slate produces a franchise with real staying power is the open question the two companies will now have to answer.