WildBrain keeps creative lead and production oversight in Canada and takes CG execution capacity from EightyEight's Mumbai and Bangalore studios

WildBrain and EightyEight Pictures announced a long-term partnership on 4 November to produce premium CG animation across WildBrain's content slate ^[2].

The release sets out which side does what: WildBrain's internal teams and House of Cool retain creative leadership, filmmaking and production oversight, while EightyEight provides additional CG execution capacity within a shared, integrated pipeline ^[2]. House of Cool is a Toronto preproduction studio ^[4]. WildBrain also keeps preproduction through postproduction capabilities in-house for both CG and 2D projects ^[3]. Stephanie Betts, WildBrain's chief content officer, said her teams "will continue to lead the creative vision, filmmaking and production oversight of our projects" ^[3].

EightyEight Pictures, which the announcement also names as 88 Pictures, runs production studios in Mumbai and Bangalore and offices in Toronto and London ^[2]. Its own site says the company was founded in 2016, is headquartered in Mumbai with offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Toronto, and has grown to several hundred artists across Toronto, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad ^[8]. Its founder and chief executive, Milind Shinde, helped establish DreamWorks Animation's production operation in India and later Oriental DreamWorks in Shanghai, the announcement says ^[2]. Credits cited for the studio are Trollhunters, Gremlins, Kung Fu Panda and Star Wars: Visions, and its current feature slate includes High in the Clouds and Bahubali: The Eternal War ^[3].

Why WildBrain buys capacity rather than carries it is written into its own filings: the 2026 Annual Information Form, dated 23 September 2026, states that "there are several independent animation studios across Canada and abroad that may be engaged on a work for hire basis to manage production capacity while minimizing fixed overhead costs" ^[4].

That form puts the company's full-time workforce at 484 at 30 June 2026, of whom 45 were in Vancouver, where its animation studio sits, and 153 in Toronto ^[5]. It also records 329 temporary workers retained during fiscal 2026, 297 of them at the Vancouver studio ^[5]. On those two counts the temporary crew at Vancouver outnumbered the city's permanent staff by more than six to one, which is this desk's arithmetic on the form's figures rather than a ratio the form states ^[5].

The business that sells that production contracted: Content segment revenue fell to C$114.7 million in the year to 30 June 2026 from C$156.5 million the year before ^[6]. Total revenue for the year was C$245.7 million against C$274.0 million in fiscal 2025 ^[6]. Fourth-quarter Content revenue was C$29.2 million, down 40 per cent, which the company attributed to lower live-action production activity and lower distribution revenue ^[7].

Its Vancouver operation is to move into a 47,000-square-foot space in Mount Pleasant in January 2027 ^[3]. For fiscal 2027 the company has set out roughly C$30 million of planned investment in franchise marketing, content, technology, infrastructure and capital expenditures ^[7].

Indian animation and VFX revenue was ₹105 billion gross of taxes in 2025, against ₹103 billion in 2024, on the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2026's segment table ^[9].

The announcement does not state how many artists the work will occupy, which titles it covers, or how long the partnership runs ^[2]. WildBrain's franchises appear in the announcement's boilerplate without any being tied to the deal ^[2].