Hello Sunshine closes the Kids & Animation section

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has learned that Hello Sunshine is closing its children’s and animation business as part of a strategic decision to concentrate Candle Media’s children’s and animation efforts under Moonbug, the family-owned production studio the company acquired in November 2021 for a nearly $3 billion devouring is.

Hello Sunshine will collaborate with Moonbug on future children and animation projects.

As a result, some people will be leaving Hello Sunshine in the coming weeks.

Blackstone-backed Candle Media, also co-owned and co-founded by Tom Staggs, acquired Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine for $900 million in August 2021.

On MIP TV last April, Kevin Mayer, co-founder of Candle Media, talked about synergies between Hello Sunshine and Moonbug. The latter is the production company behind popular children’s shows such as CoComelon. CoComelon was behind in 2022 with 37.8 billion minutes watched on Netflix per Nielsen among the top 3 streaming programs strange things (52B) on Netflix and NCIS (38.1B) for various services.

Ever since Candle Moonbug took over, CoComelon more than doubled its YouTube subscriber base to 153 million, making it the most subscribed channel on YouTube, while Netflix spin-offs were profitable.

By putting women at the center of every story, Hello Sunshine has built a diversified business over the years that has spawned a variety of industries, including scripted and unscripted television, feature films, podcasts, audio stories, digital series and Reese’s Book Club and a direct-to-consumer division, including lifestyle brand and home organization company The Home Edit.

Some of the award winning television projects include The morning program (AppleTV+), Small fires everywhere (Hulu), To be honest (AppleTV+), Completely new (Netflix) and upcoming shows Daisy Jones and the Sixwith Riley Keough and Sam Claflin (Amazon) and the limited series adaptation of the upcoming New York Times Best Seller and Reese’s Book Club Pick Last thing he said to mewith Jennifer Garner (Apple TV+) and the original thriller series surface (Apple TV+) introduces Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

On the unscripted side, Hello Sunshine produced the flagship series Make the cut (Prime Video) with Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn and the hugely popular series Get organized with Home Edit (Netflix) and the upcoming league series my kind of country for Apple TV+, the first of its kind for the platform, and the unscripted film For the love of Paris (Roku).

On the film side, Hello Sunshine produced the film adaptation of one of Reese’s Book Club’s most popular titles, the smash hit New York Times Bestselling novel Where the crayfish sing It was a notable summer sleeper for 3000 pictures/Sony earned more than $140 million, Something from Tiffany’s (Amazon) and Aline Brosh McKenna’s upcoming feature debut, With you or with me (Netflix).