As reported by Deadline, DHX Media has just bought the rights from Sony Pictures Animation to turn the popular Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs movies into a TV show. For anyone who doesn’t keep up with news about Canadian broadcasting companies, DHX Media is a massive children’s programming producer that—through a series of big acquisitions—has managed to find itself in control of a bunch of popular kid-targeted shows, including Yo Gabba Gabba!, Teletubbies, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and even Degrassi—which we’re going to declare “the most popular program in Canadian history” even though we don’t have any facts to back that up. DHX is also known for recording a number of major rap hits in the late-’90s and early-2000s, including “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” and “Where The Hood At.”
DHX will “develop and produce” the series, while Sony will cover U.S. distribution. We don’t know the specifics of the deal, but it sounds like Sony is letting this company do all of the heavy-lifting while it just sits back and collects that hot meatball money, which sounds like a pretty sweet—and delicious—move on Sony’s part. Also, Deadline’s article doesn’t make any reference to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who directed the first Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, so it’s a safe bet that they won’t be involved in the TV show at all. That’s probably for the best, though. They don’t have a very good track record when it comes to cartoons.