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BURBANK, Calif. – March 12, 2010 – The Walt Disney Studios and ImageMovers Digital (IMD) today announced that they will close operations at IMD’s Marin County facility after production is completed on Mars Needs Moms. The IMD facility is expected to be closed by January, 2011.
“Bob and the entire IMD team successfully built a state of the art studio and produced an amazing film, A Christmas Carol, at a time when the dynamics of the industry are rapidly changing,” said Alan Bergman, President of The Walt Disney Studios. “But, given today’s economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model.”
“I’m incredibly proud of the talented team that we assembled at IMD and the fantastic work they have accomplished,” said Robert Zemeckis, one of the co-founders of ImageMovers Digital. “Their pride and dedication to making quality movies is evident in everything we have produced.”
The Studio is hoping to create a new long-term production deal with Zemeckis and his IMD partners, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, which will include the continued development of the Yellow Submarine project.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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A Yellow Submarine remake/reboot/upgrade holds no interest for me. Have you seen the original? I may be in the minority but man that was hard to sit through.
Gee, you’d think Disney had a problem with movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and starred characters that looked like animated corpses.
What a shame. Zemeckis and his team are the true people who have have changed the industry.
Another very unfortunate sign of the shrinking times. Disney is certainly on the way to being more of a distribution company (Dreamworks, Pixar and Marvel) and less of a production entity.They are planning only 6 or so films of their own each year (Disney branded stuff a-la Disney Channel-thank you Rich Ross). Sad, sad.
“…an amazing film, A Christmas Carol”….Alan Bergman, President of The Walt Disney Studios.
Gee, do ya think that the virtual (get the pun) failure at the box office along with Polar Express and Beowulf may have some influence on IMD’s folding?
You cannot fault the artistry and the technology developed for these films…so, I guess that leaves only Bob Zemekis to ask, “What were you thinking?”
How many of these ventures did it take you to learn it is about story and character like Forrest Gump where the process aids the story…but it isn’t the story.
I hope the talented artists from IMD are quickly hired by folks who remember it is about story and character and you, Bob might remember that, too.
In other words, Jimbo Cameron ate Robby the Z’s wax-museum lunch.
Oh, God – this totally sucks! I have a friend who works there. My God, WHEN is this depression going to bottom out?
Image Mover’s motion crapture pipeline farts dust and is long overdue to be put out of it’s misery. All the more apparent in the age of Avatar, where it was done right. I think they had become a creative embarrassment, especially to Lassiter.
Pixar saw the talent at IMD and did not want the competition… for animated films.
sad. but the talents live on…
sort of sux for the very talented 450 who built that company from scratch..
and Bob’s films always made money in the long run.. but the guy who green lit the company, lost his job.. and his projects lost their footing..
Am I the only one who smells Disney closing on YELLOW SUBMARINE after this announcement? Zemeckis uses money like it’s going out of style and his last several films have all underperformed & proved disappointments. I think Bob will have to beging looking for new $$ sources to continue his fetish for CGI motion capture movies. And it’s outright unbelievable that CEO Iger would actually make a movie called “Mars Needs Moms” in this day & age. Can ANYONE see the 15-28 crowd going for something with a title like that?
450 jobs lost and not one comment? Tough crowd.
So all of these people will be left out in the street with a “good job” pat on their head?