St. Louis Gets New Animation Studio As ‘Hair Love’ Producer Carl Reed Launches Composition Media

Hair Love producer and Lion Forge co-founder Carl Reed has launched Composition Media, a new animation studio with plans to produce content that highlights minority and underrepresented communities.

Here’s what we know about the studio:

• The studio is based in St. Louis and launches with two animated features and an animated kids’ tv series in its pipeline. The films are Bad Grandmas, co-produced with Steve Harvey’s East 112, and Sky & Luna, co-produced with PoC Studios and Man of Action Entertainment.
• Bad Grandmas is a 2d animated adult comedy that follows a closely-knit group of unfiltered older ladies as they attempt to stay relevant as they age. According to the synopsis, “they party, get Brazilian Butt Lifts, go to nightclubs, and show that 65 is the new 25.” Composition describes the film as a cross between The Boondocks and The Golden Girls. Bad Grandmas is created by Brandon Lee Anderson and executive produced by Carl Reed, Steve Harvey, and Brandon R. Williams.
• Sky & Luna is the first in an eight-picture slate with Labid Aziz’s PoC Studios. In Sky & Luna, lonely 11-year-old Sky has finally found a new best friend in Luna, a shapeshifting alien sent to Earth to explore the planet. Once here, Luna is hunted by a top-secret government organization tasked with eradicating extraterrestrial threats. Unfortunately for the new friends, the organization is run by Sky’s mother. Sky & Luna will be directed by Duncan Rouleau (writer on Big Hero 6 and Sonic Prime) and written by Patricia Villetto (Sonic Prime, Ben 10) based on a story by Creation Station and Man of Action. Carl Reed is producing with Man of Action, Creation Station, and PoC Studios chief creative officer Andy Cosby.
• The studio’s first tv production will be an adaptation of the popular board game Catapult Feud. The series will feature two feuding families, the Cunningfields and the Chauforts, who use catapults and conspiracies to wage battle against one another in a bid to rule their kingdom. While the adults of the two clans see each other as mortal enemies, the kids get along just fine and hatch a plan to bring peace to the land.
• Composition Media’s launch is further evidence of a burgeoning animation scene in St. Louis. It was recently revealed that St. Louis-based Hair Love production company Lion Forge, co-founded by Reed with David Steward II, is looking to raise $50 million through private equity to expand staff, grow its media library, and increase the number of acquisitions it makes going forward.