Sony Pictures Television
On September 16, 2002, Sony Pictures Entertainment retired the name "Columbia TriStar" from television and renamed the American studio as Sony Pictures Television and its international division as Sony Pictures Television International. Some shows continued using the CTDT name, although many stopped using it in November 2002, while "Hollywood Squares" continued using it until early 2003.
Sony Pictures Animation
In 2001, Sony Pictures considered selling off its visual effects facility Sony Pictures Imageworks. After failing to find a suitable buyer, having been impressed with the CGI sequences created for "Stuart Little 2", and seeing the box office success of DreamWorks Animation's "Shrek" and Disney/Pixar's "Monsters, Inc.", SPI was reconfigured to become an animation studio. "Astro Boy", which had been in development at Sony since 1997 as a live-action film, was set to be SPI's first all-CGI film. On May 9, 2002, Sony Pictures Animation was established to develop characters, stories and movies, with SPI taking over the digital production while maintaining its visual effects production. Meanwhile, SPI produced two short films, the Academy Award-winning "The ChubbChubbs!" and "Early Bloomer", as a result of testing its strengths and weaknesses in producing all-CG animation.