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Monday, March 15, 2010

Disney to Close Zemeckis Digital Studio

With Robert Zemeckis' biggest Disney ally gone, former Chairman Dick Cook, and amid drastic cost-cutting by the new management team -- and being overshadowed by AVATAR -- Walt Disney Studios is closing the producer-director's ImageMovers Digital studio in San Rafael, by Jan. 2011.

ImageMovers Digital, which opened in 2007, employs around 450 in two converted aircraft hangers on 120,000 square feet on the former Air Force base.

Zemeckis' initial performance capture/3-D feature for Disney, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, underperformed last holiday season, and ImageMovers will phase out operations after completing MARS NEEDS MOMS, directed by Simon Wells, which is planned for a March 2011 release.

By Bill Desowitz

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