Paramount announces new animation division

Paramount Studios announced Wednesday they plan to create an in-house division for animated films, the first of which will debut in 2014.

The Viacom subsidiary is ready to spend up to $100 million per film, they added in a press release.

"The marketplace has never offered as many opportunities to create wonderfully imaginative pictures at very appealing budget levels, so we feel this is a perfect moment to launch this effort," said Paramount Chairman & CEO Brad Grey.

"We are now eager to expand in animation with appropriate and prudent overhead and production budgets in a way that will allow us to be nimble, creative and innovative," he added.

Paramount Animation will count among its roster the catalog of characters developed for children's entertainment channel Nickelodeon, also owned by Viacom. The studio predicts it will produce one animated film each year.

Paramount has already produced animated films, the most recent "Rango" earned $241 million worldwide, but they have never backed a completely integrated animation division.

The studio is currently enjoying a boom as "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," out last weekend, was number one at the box office last weekend following a series of successes with "Super 8," "Thor," "Paranormal Activity 2," "Kung-Fu Panda 2," "True Grit," and "Jackass 3D."