Whatever Happened to That Animated Funko Pop! Movie?

The Big Picture

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• The Funko Pop! movie was a proposed blockbuster from Warner Animation Group, but it never gained much progress and eventually morphed into a TV show instead.
• Warner Animation Group focused heavily on spin-offs and sequels, as well as adaptations of pre-existing intellectual property, in an attempt to become a major player in the world of animated cinema.
• The Funko Pop! movie, with its focus on shilling for various pop culture franchises, was likely doomed from the start and would have been a lengthy commercial rather than an original and compelling film.

While promoting Killers of the Flower Moon, writer/director Martin Scorsese expressed astonishment at how, even at his age, cinema could still surprise him in such profound ways. “The visual image could be done by anything by anybody anytime anywhere. The possibilities are infinite on all levels. And that’s exciting,” he explained in awe over a medium he’d dedicated his life to. Meanwhile, in the final interview she ever participated in, legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda recalled that the very act of making cinema and the everyday lives she connects to through that medium are what “convinces me that it’s worth being alive.” Let’s also not forget how, in a 2020 interview, Daughters of the Dust director Julie Dash recalled how just seeing photographs of the works of director Sara Gómez inspired her to pursue a career in the world of cinema. Films can truly accomplish anything, including bringing people closer and opening up corners of our own psyche that we may not have known existed. So, of course, to tap into the endless potential of this medium, Warner Bros. announced in 2019 the imminent arrival of a Funko Pop! movie.

First officially announced in September 2019 after previously being rumored at the start of the year, the Funko Pop! film was set to be a big blockbuster from Warner Animation Group and follow in the footsteps of the division’s previous hit film The LEGO Movie. This obvious demonstration of late-stage capitalism in progress never made much progress and the last word on the motion picture was that it would be turned into a TV show instead. But what was going on with this Funko movie? What was the plot? Who was tasked with bringing it to life? Would Agnes Varda have approved of it? The answer to (most of) those questions can be unboxed straight ahead.

The Funko Pop! Movie Would’ve Played into The Warner Animation Group Strategy

Let’s backtrack a minute and provide some important context for the creation of the Funko Pop! movie. Warner Bros. has, over the years, had various animation divisions that often didn’t last long, like the Warner Bros. Feature Animation label responsible for Quest for Camelot and The Iron Giant. In the years that followed the demise of that company, Warner Bros. only sporadically engaged in animated films (such as Happy Feet), which were just made under the Warner Bros. Pictures label. In January 2013, though, Warner Animation Group was created in anticipation of the release of The LEGO Movie. The hope was for Warner Bros. to catch up to its competitors and finally become a serious player in the world of animated cinema.

The slate for Warner Animation Group was immediately heavy on spin-offs and sequels to The LEGO Movie as well as other franchise fare rooted in WB IP, with the only original movies that ended up getting released by the label (Storks and Smallfoot) being a pair of movies that were announced simultaneously with the very existence of Warner Animation Group. Warner Animation Group became focused on new adaptations of Tom & Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Dr. Seuss books, Adventure Time, and even a new project based around The Beatles. This obsession with pre-existing IP was a byproduct of many factors, including Hollywood writ large being fixated on recognizable brands in the 2010s, Warner Animation Group wanting to replicate the success of The LEGO Movie, and the newer division needing more stability against its older competitors. Within this emphasis on branded animated movies, a potential Funko Pop! movie emerged.

This wouldn’t just be a movie that was based on a family brand but, like The LEGO Movie or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, could offer audiences the sight of many different conflicting fictional characters from competing companies rubbing shoulders with each other. Despite a project seemingly designed just for studio executives, this proposed movie did have two strong artists shepherding its existence: Day & Night director Teddy Newton was writing the script while The Emperor’s New Groove filmmaker Mark Dindal was directing. The official announcement of this proposed Funko Pop! movie kept a lid on the film’s cast. However, earlier rumors about the feature suggested its main cast would include everyone from Harley Quinn to Deadpool to the Care Bears.

Why Didn’t the Funko Pop! Movie Happen?

The rumored rogue’s gallery of main players for the Funko Pop! movie serves as a microcosm for why this project was probably doomed from the start. While classics like The LEGO Movie, Wreck-It Ralph, or Roger Rabbit also focused on clashing famous pop culture figures, they primarily focused on original characters. LEGO Batman, Q-BERT, or dueling pianists Daffy Duck and Donald Duck were just fun window dressing — they functioned well as spices in a larger original dish. An entire movie focused on shilling for DC superheroes and My Little Pony would’ve just been torturous. Plus, many of the proposed characters wouldn’t have benefited much from being in a satirical family comedy. Harley Quinn and Deadpool already make jokes lampooning the worlds they inhabit; they wouldn’t get fun new dimensions in wacky toy form like brooding Batman getting turned into a self-serious LEGO minifigure.

These concerns never had a chance to flourish into more severe problems, though, since there were never any further updates on the Funko Pop! movie after this initial announcement. Just six months after the news broke that Warner Animation Group was moving ahead with the project, COVID-19 turned the entertainment world upside down. Everything was up in the air, even seemingly surefire franchise material like a Funko Pop! adaptation. As development slowed to a crawl, Warner Bros. also began to undergo some financial and corporation challenges, including in its animation division. Warner Animation Group had already been plagued by box office duds like The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part before the pandemic, but critically derided titles like Space Jam: A New Legacy were making its initial exploits in the 2020s a nightmare. This studio was providing neither acclaim nor lots of money for Warner Bros. The IP-centric strategy of the studio wasn’t working as consistently as hoped.

The only other time the project came up was in a July 2022 interview with then newly promoted CEO Andrew Perlmutter, who noted that the Funko company would love to see its properties translated into either a movie or TV show. The CEO noted that initially, the outfit would’ve been happy only with a movie adaptation of whatever constitutes Funko lore but was now deeply open to the idea of a TV show adaptation. Given the challenges and sales slumps that have plagued Funko figurines in 2023, this brand may not be as viable to Hollywood as it once was. Meanwhile, Warner Animation Group, in the wake of its parent company getting bought up by Discovery, has been transformed into Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. The new management in charge of this label has its own distinct ambitions for this division of Warner Bros. and so far those plans have not included a Funko Pop! movie.

With those developments, this project appears to be dead. A potential spiritual successor to The Emoji Movie will almost certainly never grace movie theaters, especially since initial director Mark Dindal has moved on to helming that new Garfield movie anchored by Chris Pratt. While it’s normally a bad idea to write off a movie at just the conceptual stage, it feels much more reasonable to be dubious about any artistic credibility within a prospective Funko Pop! movie. This project almost certainly would’ve ended up being a lengthy commercial for big studio IP while Funko’s haven’t been around nearly long enough to tap into the kind of multi-generational appeal of toys that The LEGO Movie was able to hinge its pathos around. It was just a terrible idea all around that, unsurprisingly, quietly faded away from the broader plans of Warner Bros. As icons like Martin Scorsese, Agnes Varda, and Julie Dash can attest, cinema can do so much. Thankfully, one thing it won’t be doing anytime soon is housing a movie centered around Funko Pop! figurines.

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