March 14, 2010
Disney Makes Plans to Shutter Zemeckis’ FX Shop
ImageMovers Digital, Robert Zemeckis’s Marin County animation shop that made last year’s “A Christmas Carol” is to be shuttered in a matter of months, Walt Disney Studios prexy Alan Bergman announced Friday. Disney’s announcement said the studio hopes to strike a new long-term deal with Zemeckis and his producing partners, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, to include the “Yellow Submarine” remake that is currently testing at IMD. IMD employs about 450 people. It will complete its current project, “Mars Needs Moms,” before closing down, probably by the beginning of 2011. Move is also a blow to the Bay Area’s filmmaking community, which has seen vfx shops The Orphanage and Giant Killer Robots close in recent years as vfx work flows to locales with tax incentives and lower labor costs.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118016417.html?categoryId=13&cs=1
Posted in: A Christmas Carol, Alan Bergman, Disney Studios, Giant Killer Robots, ImageMovers Digital, IMD, Jack Rapke, Mars Needs moms, Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey, The Oprhanage, Yellow Submarine