Penney Finkelman Cox holds one of the strongest animation and live-action producing resumes in the Hollywood entertainment community. A veteran studio executive and film producer, Cox has most recently served as Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Animation, a feature animation studio she was recruited to build from the ground up by parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. With longtime producing partner Sandra Rabins, Cox brought in top-quality talent and oversaw the development and production of a slate of widely hailed animated features from 2002 to 2008, including the hit comedy Open Season (along with its sequel), the highly acclaimed and Academy Award-nominated Surf’s Up, the recent hit Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and the upcoming animated feature Hotel Transylvania. Cox also developed television projects for the Sony Animation family, and notably recruited talented cartoonist Aaron McGruder to create the animated television series The Boondocks for Sony Pictures Television and Cartoon Network.
Prior to being recruited by Sony, Cox served at DreamWorks SKG, where she was both a producer and a senior production executive. With Rabins, Cox joined DreamWorks in February of 1994 to build the Animation Division into what is today an award-winning giant and a world-wide leader in its field. Starting with the widely lauded animated feature The Prince of Egypt, Cox spearheaded the development of half a dozen animated films at DreamWorks, and was instrumental in bringing commercial visual effects house PDI into a successful partnership with the studio that lasts today. Under her supervision as Executive Producer, DreamWorks released Shrek, to date the studio’s most profitable franchise, and the first animated feature in history to win the Academy Award. Among other titles developed by Cox are also the studio’s first computer-generated movie, Antz, and its first collaboration with Aardman Animation, the stop-motion animated feature, Chicken Run.
Penney Finkelman Cox enriched her animation development skills with an earlier extensive background in live-action features as an independent producer. Her producing credits include Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Welcome Home, Roxie Carmichael and Till There Was You. She served as executive producer for James L. Brooks on I’ll Do Anythingand co-produced two other films for Brooks: Broadcast News and the OscarÒwinning Terms of Endearment. Cox currently runs an independent production company with her producing partner, Sandra Rabins, called Patchwork Productions. There she has developed a slate of feature films that includes an animated family feature for Participant Films, among other projects. With Patchwork, she executive produced the 2007 release Snakes on a Plane.
Born in Havertown, Pennsylvania, Cox graduated from Barnard College, with a major in psychology. She made her entrance into the performing arts as a press assistant for the Joffrey Ballet, and served in a training internship with the National Endowment for the Arts. Cox was an arts administrator for Performing ArtServices, Inc., where she managed non-profit dance, theatre and music companies. She segued into film production with her acceptance into the Directors Guild of America Producer Training Program in New York.
She resides in Santa Monica with her husband Jim Cox, founder and COO of Ringtales, Inc, and their two children. Cox is a member of the AMPAS, the PGA and ASIFA. She is on the board of Ringtales, Inc. and is a member of the board of directors of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Cox also teaches creative producing classes at the American Film Institute.