Disney Shuts Down Zemeckis' ImageMovers Digital, Lays Off 450 By Ed Liu 03-16-2010, 4:56 PM The Walt Disney Company will be shutting down Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers Digital facility, which produced the motion-capture CGI animated movies The Polar Express, Beowulf, and last year's A Christmas Carol, and is currently working on the animated film Mars Needs Moms. The closing comes in the wake of the disappointing box office performance of A Christmas Carol, which reportedly cost $175-200 million to make but only made $137.85 million domestically and $323.56 million globally.
The closing will result in layoffs of 450 employees, more than 5% of Disney's movie studio division. As part of the announcement of the closing, Disney stated that it hopes to create a new, long-term production deal with Zemeckis to continue development of the planned remake of Yellow Submarine.
