Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Computer animation Motion pictures |
Predecessors | MAGI Fox Animation Studios |
Founded | February 22, 1987 |
Founders |
|
Defunct | April 10, 2021 |
Fate | Closed[1] |
Successor | 20th Century Animation |
Headquarters | Greenwich American Center , Greenwich, Connecticut U.S. |
Key people | |
Products | Animation production Animated films |
Number of employees | 450[6] (2021) |
Parent | 20th Century Animation |
Website | blueskystudios.com at the Wayback Machine (archived June 9, 2021) (now redirects to disney |
Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American visual effects and computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded on February 22, 1987, by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their employer, MAGI, one of the visual effects studios behind Tron, shut down. Using its in-house rendering software, the studio created visual effects for commercials and films before dedicating itself to animated film production. It produced 13 feature films, the first being Ice Age, released in 2002 by 20th Century Fox, and the final one being Spies in Disguise, released in 2019.[7][8]
Blue Sky Studios was a subsidiary of 20th Century Animation until its acquisition by Disney, as part of their acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets in 2019. Blue Sky was closed down in April 2021 by Disney due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business operations.[6][9]
Ice Age and Rio were the studio's most commercially successful franchises, while Robots (2005), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Peanuts Movie (2015), and the aforementioned Spies in Disguise were among its most critically praised films.[10] Scrat, a character from the Ice Age franchise, was the studio's mascot.
The move resulted from the losses the media group has posted amid the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
LATMillstein
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).VarietyBlueSky2019
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).DeadlineStudioClose
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Hollywood Reporter closure
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).