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John Aoshima, who helped bring Netflix’s much-hyped Ultraman: Rising animated feature to screens as co-director, has signed an exclusive, multi-year, overall development deal with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. Under the pact, Aoshima will develop both original projects and studio picks as director for the feature film division.
Aoshima will also be returning to Netflix Animation as a guest director for Season 2 of the critically acclaimed, Emmy and Annie Award-winning animated drama Blue Eye Samurai. Created by Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, the series is set in Edo period Japan and follows the mix-race heroine on her quest for revenge by the blade. S1 was launched in 2023 and swiftly reordered, after being hailed as one of the best new series of the year.
Born in Japan and raised in Southern California, Aoshima is a BFA graduate of top-rated animation school CalArts. He began his career in television animation, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination for his work on DuckTales and an Annie Award nomination for directing on Gravity Falls. His earlier credits also include Futurama, The Simpsons and Avatar: The Last Airbender (character layout); American Dad! and Pickle and Peanut (directing); and Star vs. the Forces of Evil (storyboard supervisor).
After shifting his focus to feature films, Aoshima served as head of story on LAIKA’s Oscar-nominated Kubo and the Two Strings. He joined Netflix Animation in 2018, and served as sequence director for the Annie- and Emmy-winning limited series Maya and the Three before helming last year’s Ultraman: Rising with Shannon Tindle.
Aoshima’s first project with WBPA has not been revealed, but the studio’s current announced development slate includes George R.R. Martin’s The Ice Dragon, Dr. Seuss’s Thing One and Thing Two, DC’s Metal Man, The Lunar Chronicles (with Locksmith Animation), Emily the Strange (with Bad Robot) and new projects for legacy toons like Meet the Flintstones, Tom and Jerry and hush-hush new Looney Tunes projects, following Coyote vs. Acme and The Day the Earth Blew Up — both picked up by Ketchup Entertainment after being dropped by Warner.
Aoshima is represented by attorney Rob Szymanski.
[Source: Deadline]
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