“How do you like me now?”
He’s made such beloved classics as the Pepsi filled Back to The Future Trilogy, but in recent years he’s turned exclusively to CGI animated projects. These have included Beowulf, The polar Express and A Christmas Carol. Now, Zemeckis’ ImageMovers Digital studio is being forced closed by its parent company. Guess which overpowered corporation that is. Here’s a hint… its run by a talking rat mouse.
Yes, ironically Disney is calling it quits to his animated nonsense (now all we need is for someone to shut Disney down before they can ruin anymore of their animated classics with direct to video crap-fests).
So while many of you might find this news sad, I’m pretty satisfied with the studio going the way of the dodo. Let’s face it, when they opened their doors in 1997 they were cutting edge. But today, how can you compare what they do with other films like Avatar.
While even the crappiest live-action films eventually become nostalgic centerpieces, lame 3D is just plain unwatchable after a couple of years.
While I’m not in favor of the massive job loss and feel bad for the artists, I am comforted by the fact that this may signal the end of a decade devoid of a fantastic director producing Live-Action films, a product that he is clearly better at.
But what caused this turn of events? Well despite ‘A Christmas Carol’ being a mild success for Disney with $137 million made at the box office, the studio is doing this as a cost-saving measure. I guess phasing out 450 skilled trade jobs over the next year will save the house of mouse a pretty penny.
It is expected that the company will close shop in January 2011, once they finish work on the film ‘Mars Needs Moms!’. As we can all imagine, those 450 employees can’t be happy working when they know its their last production at the studio.
Disney President Alan Scrooge Bergman said the following on the decision:
“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.”
However, Disney is still “hoping to create a long-term production deal with Zemeckis”, since they don’t want to destroy their relationship with Zemeckis.
I’m curious how this will affect as his future Yellow Submarine remake. Has that ship taken on water?
Here’s WatchMojo.com’s bio on the director. Go ahead, learn something and be entertained:
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