Ellipsanime Productions (formerly known as Le Studio Ellipse and Ellipse Programme) is a French animation studio that produces television programs. It was founded in 1987. In February 2000 it merged with Expand SA; Expand sold the company to Dargaud in 2003, and it became Ellipsanime in 2004. In 2014, Ellipsanime bought the assets of Moonscoop SA.[1]
Ellipse has worked with many other animation companies, with the most reputable being Nelvana and Nickelodeon. Ellipse was best known in North America for co-producing seasons 2-4 of Nickelodeon's Doug; it did not return to the series after The Walt Disney Company bought the Doug intellectual property and Jumbo Pictures.
In 1987, the company was founded by Philippe Gildas and Robert Réa under the name Ellipse Programme with Canal+ as their first owner. Three years later in 1990, Ellipse Programme entered the animation production genre by launching their own animation division.
In February 2000, Canal+ announced that they've merged their subsidiary Ellipse Programme with French television production outfit Expand Images into one group under the Expand name with Ellipse Programme becoming Expand Group's own division alongside Canal+ helding a 35% stake in the Expand Group.[3][4]
In January 2003, Ellipsanime had announced that they've shutting down their exeuctive production facility Ellipse Studio and had absorb most of their studio's production activity including their storyboarding and 3-D rendering work under the main animation production company. A month later in February of that same year, Ellipsanime's then parent company Canal+ Group and it's film production and distribution company StudioCanal under their subsidiary StudioExpand announced that they're planning to sell it's animation studio Ellipsanime along with other 19 production companies that made up StudioExpand with Ellipsanime cutting down their annual series output.[5]
On July 22, 2003, Ellipsanime announced that their previous parent company StudioCanal under their division StudioExpand had sold their animation production subsidiary Ellipsanime to French media entertainment conglomerate Média-Participations and their French-Belgian publishing company Dargaud, thrus marking Dargaud assuming ownership all of Ellipsanime's production activities and gave Dargaud another animation production studio with Ellipsanime's animated production portfolio joining Dargaud's own animation production portfolio as Dargaud's other animation and production unit Dargaud Marina became the largest animation production studio in France.[6][7]
In January 2014, Ellipsanime announced that under the Paris bankruptcy court they've acquired the assets of French animation and production group MoonScoop which went into bankruptcy administration back in July 2013 with Ellipsanime retaining two of MoonScoop's then-remaining employees and taken over MoonScoop's production library under Dargaud's international distribution division Mediatoon Distribution except their American division which was spliten.[8]
In October 2017, Ellipsanime announced that they had partnered with independent game publishing and digital entertainment company Ankama to launch a joint venture 2D animation production studio based in Roubaix, Hauts-de-France named MadLab Animations to handle the two animation studios' own production services.[9]
In January 2024, Ellipse Animation announced that they have acquired a majority stake in Milan-based Italian production company Studio Campedelli.[10] A week later in that same month, Ellipse Animation announced that they've expanded their operations into webtoons by launching a production division dedicated to animated series based on digital comics and will sit under Ellipse Animation's own animation production studio Ellipse Studio Angoulême.[11]
