Vanguard Animation

Last updated
Vanguard Films & Animation
Company type Private
Industry Computer animation
VFX
Motion capture
Animated
Founded2002;22 years ago (2002)
Founders John H. Williams
Neil Braun
Headquarters,
United States
Number of locations
3
Key people
John H. Williams (CEO)
Gary Chapman (Head of Prod.)
Owner Starz Distribution (Minority)
Number of employees
10
Subsidiaries Rabbit Ears Entertainment, LLC
Website vanguardanimation.com

Vanguard Films & Animation, often named only as Vanguard Animation, is an American production studio founded in 2002 by producer John H. Williams and Neil Braun. [1] The studio has offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Ealing Studios in London, England, United Kingdom. Starz Distribution owns a minority stake in the studio.

Contents

History

The studio was founded in 2002 by John H. Williams. [1] For its launch, it signed with Ealing Studios a four-picture deal to produce sub-$40 million computer-animated films. [2] [3] The following year, Vanguard sold a minority stake to IDT Corporation and partnered with its animation unit, Digital Production Solutions, to co-produce and co-own all Vanguard's properties, [1] [4] including Valiant (2005) produced for Disney. [2]

The company was part of the then-new "pipeline-free" trend (reported by Variety in 2006 [5] ) in animation production, where the companies did not keep the talent on payroll and instead were "establishing a team from scratch to execute each new feature", allowing them to secure tax breaks from the governments. For example, the feature "Valiant" was produced in the UK in order to collect the tax incentives there. With UK incentives ending, the production (for "Space Chimps") moved to Canada (Vancouver). [6]

Filmography

Feature films

#TitleRelease dateGross Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic
1 Valiant August 19, 2005 (US)$61,746,88832%45%
2 Happily N'Ever After January 5, 2007 (US)$38,085,7784%28%
3 Space Chimps July 18, 2008$64,834,96433%36%
4 Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back (DTV)May 28, 2010$4,124,5180%
5 Get Squirrely November 4, 2016$1,224,520 [7] 34%
6 Gnome Alone November 2, 2017$10,800,715 [8] 44%
7 Charming April 20, 2018$8,751,856 [9] 24%
8 Trouble August 8, 2019$11,942,158 [10] 36%
9 Fearless August 14, 202049%
10 Rally Road Racers May 12, 2023$2,790,16373%

Short films

Unproduced projects

See also

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References

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  2. 1 2 "The Walt Disney Studios and 'Shrek' producer John Williams partner for new CG animated film output". PR Newswire. 5 September 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  3. "The Walt Disney Studios and 'Shrek' Producer John Williams Partner For New CG Animated Film Output". The Free Library. 5 September 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  4. Bloom, David (July 22, 2003). "Vanguard sells stake, inks IDT co-prod'n deal". Variety. Retrieved May 4, 2013.
  5. Debruge, Peter (June 2, 2008). "Cutting Corners: Indie-Style Producers Do without Pipelines". Variety .
  6. Bernardi & Hoxter 2017, p. 160.
  7. "Get Squirrely". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved May 29, 2018.
  8. "Gnome Alone (2017)" . Retrieved August 29, 2019.
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  14. 1 2 3 4 5 "Panda's Stevenson Joins Vanguard's Alien Rock Band" (Press release). Animation World Network. 2010-11-08. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
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Sources