Collider Visits the Set of JOHN CARTER
Taylor Kitsch JOHN CARTER Set Visit Interview
Director and Co-Writer Andrew Stanton JOHN CARTER Set Visit Interview
Set Photos from M. Night Shyamalan’s AFTER EARTH Starring Will Smith
First Trailer and Poster for THE BOURNE LEGACY Starring Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, and Edward NortonImagi Animation Studios Shut Down; Is the Adaptation of GATCHAMAN Dead?
by Matt Goldberg Posted:February 9th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
|
|
 |
|
It’s not easy being the outsider among giants, and now, according to Twitch, the independent Imagi Animation Studios is closing down after being forced to lay off 300 of its employees due to financial woes. The studio launched in 2000 and after doing animation work for TV and in a supporting capacity with DreamWorks Animation’s Father of the Pride (2004), the studio had a moderate success in 2007 with TMNT. Unfortunately, their next film, last year’s Astro Boy opened to disappointing numbers, raking in only $23 million worldwide, which was less than a third of its budget.
Unfortunately, Imagi was in the middle of working on an adaptation of the 1970s anime TV series Gatchaman. The series [as related by Wikipedia] centered on five teenage superhero ninjas who opposed a group of technologically advanced villains from taking control of the Earth’s natural resources. While their adaptation, set for 2011, is most likely dead, it’s also likely that someone will pick it up in the future and shoot it back to the big screen. You just can’t keep a group of teenage superhero ninjas who dress like birds down. But if you want to feel wistful and long for things that will not be, click here to see a teaser poster, a clip, and images from the film and click here to see a teaser trailer.
Please Like Collider on Facebook
|
|
|
|
Well, it's not all bad news for Astro Boy. Over the weekend, the film placed third at the UK box office: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6182H52010…
It's an excellent little film. Summit Entertainment did a lousy job promoting and scheduling it. I hope Summit goes under next.
This studio doesn't make very good movies so I don't feel much remorse, none of the movies from what I can tell are actually very good. TMNT was terrible, and I was a huge fan of the cartoon as a child. I never bothered to see Astro-boy, I guess that says something.
Agreed, unforunately Astro Boy really wasn't very good. Their Tetsujin 28 adaptation wasn't looking much better, either.
I disagree, I thought Astro Boy was very good. It had a lot of heart, and there were clever nods to the source material that I enjoyed spotting. Character design and animation was very good too. I'm sorry to hear about Imagi. Sounds like it was operating at a loss all along, and one setback did it in. I agree about Summit, though. From what I hear its a pretty inept company.
I'm sad about this. I think that the studio, while they didn't make amazing Pixar-quality films, had this reverence for whatever source material they worked on- you can't say that for 90% of the TV-to-movie adaptations out there.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that someone picks up that Gatchaman film, because it was looking mighty good when I last saw it.
Sci-fi animated movies almost never do well, box office wise. Wall-E is the only success, midst failures like Final Fantasy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Delgo.
Also, Summit won't go under for years; they can solely survive for the next decade on the money that Twilight films will make for them.
Yeah, and I really hope that Summit doesn't go under. They distribute and/or make quite a few good movies (even if they did make the crap Twilight film) ex: The Hurt Locker, The Brothers Bloom, Memento, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. They've also made a few other decent movies like Push, Nim's Island and Sex Drive to name a few. Whereas this animation studio hasn't made anything I am a fan of Summit has 5 movies (listed) that I consider myself to be a fan of. It may not be no Miramax but they do put out some quality films. It's just a shame none of them have hit big yet, I thought The Brothers Bloom should have made bank (and The Hurt Locker will probably rake in the dough in dvd sales thanks to the Oscars.)
Hmm. Apparently the parent company called the layoffs temporary until they find new investors. Could Imagi be rebirthed or is it really the end?
Imagi is NOT shut down at this time. It is their animation production that is shut down, not the entire company. Imagi still plans on making movies by outsourcing to other animation houses. Gatchaman may have some life left in it!
http://astroboyworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/whats…
Sayonara.
you nit; Clone wars was a success and Avatar???????? stopit oh man!!! you make my head hurt!
Goodbye and good riddance. The whole presentation of Gatchaman's characters was awful. They were blocky. They looked like smoothed out Fisher Price action figures with oversized calves. I am glad this is dead. Imagi didn't deserve to do Gatchaman. Let some REAL director and REAL studio come and make this happen. This was dragging on way too long to be successful.
Goodbye and good riddance. The whole presentation of Gatchaman's characters was awful. They were blocky. They looked like smoothed out Fisher Price action figures with oversized calves. I am glad this is dead. Imagi didn't deserve to do Gatchaman. Let some REAL director and REAL studio come and make this happen. This was dragging on way too long to be successful.
My brother suggested I might like this web site. He used to be totally right. This post truly made my day. You can not consider simply how so much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!