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EXCLUSIVE: Disney is closing Blue Sky Studios, the former animation division of 20th Century Fox which, during its run, produced 13 features, including Ice Age franchise.
Arguably, writing has always been on the wall for Blue Sky, especially after Disney acquired 20th Century Studios and its assets in March 2019. However, the past year has been difficult for Disney on many fronts, of course due to the pandemic, not just on the studio side, but also theme park closures and cruise line moorings. Supporting a third feature film animation studio was no longer viable for Disney given the current economic realities caused by Covid. The last day for Blue Sky will be in April. The number of Blue Sky employees affected is 450. Disney will work with employees at the animation house in Greenwich, CT to explore vacancies in other internal studios.
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A studio spokesperson told Deadline: “Given the current economic realities, after careful consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to shut down filming operations at Blue Sky Studios.”
Blue Sky’s library and intellectual property will always be part of Disney, and I haven’t heard of any plans for another big studio to absorb Blue Sky’s employees and operations. A series based on Blue Sky’s Ice Age characters is already in the works for Disney +. Through five films, the Ice Age The series grossed $ 3.2 billion at the global box office.
Production on the film directed by Patrick Osborne Nimona, which is dated Jan. 14, 2022, is being discontinued and the film will no longer be released, Deadline has learned. Nimona still had 10 months of production to complete. Nimona followed by a young shapeshifter who teams up with a mad scientist named Lord Ballister Blackheart to expose the ruler of the kingdom. Following Disney’s acquisition of Fox, it was announced in August 2019 that Walt Disney Animation Studios chairman Andrew Millstein had been appointed co-chairman of Blue Sky Studios, alongside co-chairman Rob Baird. Millstein and Baird are both slated to exit following Blue Sky’s shutdown.
The latest version of Blue Sky, Spies in disguise, was released by Disney in December 2019, however, it didn’t do so well to gross $ 66 million domestically and $ 171 million globally. The hope was that Will Smith-Tom Holland voiced an animated photo to boost a franchise.
Blue Sky Studios
Blue Sky Studios was founded in February 1987 by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their employer, tech company MAGI (who coincidentally worked on the visual effects of the Disney classic from 1982. Tron), to close. Blue Sky’s first clients included Bell Atlantic, Rayovac, Gillette, and Braun, and the house created the animated bugs for the 1996 MTV movie. Joe’s apartment. In August 1997, 20th Century Fox’s VFX company VIFX took a controlling stake in Blue Sky and the animation studio began working on characters for Alien Resurrection, A Simple Wish, Mouse Hunt, Fight Club and Star Trek: Insurrection. However, it was the animated short film made by Wedge in 1998. rabbit which would catapult Blue Sky into feature-length animated productions after its Oscar win for Best Animated Short. Blue Sky 2017 feature Ferdinand, directed by Carlos Saldanha, received a nomination for best animated feature.
Blue Sky’s top-grossing animation features at the global box office were Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (’09, 886 million dollars), The Ice Age: Continental Drift (’12, 877 million dollars), Ice Age: fusion (’06, 660 M $), Rio 2 (’14, 500 million dollars), Rio (’11, 484 million dollars), Ice Age: Collusion Course (’16, 408 million dollars), Ice Age (02, 383 million dollars), Dr. Seuss’ Horton hears a Who! (’08, $ 297 million), Ferdinand (’17, 296 million dollars), Epic (’13, 268 million dollars), Robots (’05, 260 M $), and Peanuts movie (’15, 246 M $) and Spies in disguise (’19, $ 171 million).
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