Friday, January 29, 2010

Imagi Closed LA Office

I've just come back from vacation and heard about the bad news about imagi... Imagi LA Office closed down last Saturday on 23 Jan, more information can be found on Anime News Network.
I feel very sad and sorry about that, and I hope HK office can still going well, I have lots of friends are still working there, if imagi closed down, they are not only going to lose the job, but also the "career". I don't really want that happen. I don't want to say anything bad more about that.... I better shut up and let this illustration express what my feeling...

Good luck...

8 comments:

Matthew said...

What does the cat symbolize? I see it on the timescale twice.

It's a shame it had to come to this. I blame Summit's poor marketing for Astro Boy's performance.

felix ip said...

Hi Methew, I agree with you too. That is a movie project called Cat Tale before TMNT. you can find this on IMDB, of course all the information there are not correct anymore. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455379/

Anonymous said...

如果Cat Tale係2006年上影, 今日意馬未必會咁?!

Alan said...

從來沒聽過意馬有製作過Cat Tale,究竟實情是如何的?為何計劃最後取消了?

(另外本人非常同意Matthew的講法,如果當初Summit肯落力宣傳的話,就不會有如此地步。)

Al said...

The blame should rest entirely on the shoulders of Summit for its horrible marketing campaign. The trailers were bad, the posters were bad and the release date was poorly planned. Were they intentionally trying to sabotage the movie? They are the ones who should get fired.

If Imagi had stuck with Warner Bros instead of Summit, I wonder if any of these problems would ever happened. Then again, I wasn't too please with Warner's marketing campaign for TMNT either and I get the sense they were tempering with the editing.

Its really unfortunate since Astro Boy was truly a moving heartfelt movie and while there were some issues I had with it, the good out-weight the bad so to see it get mistreated makes it all the sadder. Imagi did a wonderful job and should be proud of themselves and I'm sincerely feel sorry for them to get layoff. So what happens to Gatchaman now? I see alot of potential in it and it would be a damn shame if this project doesn't get off the ground. With the cutbacks and layoffs, I'm really worry about the future of Imagi. May they get back off the ground and keep moving forward.

Ninjatron said...

I feel bad about this, and I wish the best to everyone who lost their job. However, maybe this will end up being for the best.

Perhaps Imagi should just focus on making the best movies they can for the Asian market and stop trying to appeal to everyone. Get a company like Funimation to distribute Gatchaman in North America with some limited theatrical screenings before the DVD and Blu-Ray release, like they do with their anime movies.

Clearly, something has to change. It's not Imagi that is totally at fault, it is the mass audience that isn't ready for movies like this. So I say just make the coolest movies they can at a lower budget and sell them to the fans and people who are already predisposed to watching.

But of course, if you were not happy then I'm glad you got out of there. I'm sure you'll be doing well no matter what.

Sayonara.

felix ip said...

I agree with Mathew and AL that Submit did a bad job on marketing. When we see the poster and trailer, they put EVERYTHING there and try to please everyone... They don't really know how to sell AstroBoy, even worse, imagi need pay P&A by our own, not submit. That put imagi in a worse financial situation.
Agree with Ninjatron, I don't think imagi should make such high budget movie for such wide audience. If they can make even lower buget than TMNT for Gatchaman and T28, concentrate the action-hero anime style for Asia market, then they don't need too much comprise on the westernization, it should work better.
From the survey on T28 website, more than 80% people want to see the movie. I really love t28 and Gatchaman project, I hope it can be made.

felix ip said...

Alan: Cat Tale是imagi第一個原創的電影項目,由於當時公司太新,CG技術也是起步階段,市場上亦有很多cute animals類形的片種.很難找發行商之餘也難以脫穎而出. 因此選擇比較不同的方向-superhero action CG animated movie, 所以有TMNT.

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