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Amblimation

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Amblimation
Company typeSubsidiary
PredecessorSullivan Bluth Studios (through distribution of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West by Universal Pictures)
FoundedMay 1989; 35 years ago (1989-05)[1]
FounderSteven Spielberg
Defunct1997; 28 years ago (1997)
FateClosed
SuccessorUniversal Animation Studios
DreamWorks Animation
HeadquartersPark House, 207-211 The Vale,
Acton, London, England
,
United Kingdom[2]
Key people
Kate Mallory (studio manager)
Simon Wells (director)
Cynthia Woodbyrne (production manager)
ProductsAnimated films
ParentAmblin Entertainment

Amblimation was the British animation production subsidiary of Amblin Entertainment.[3][4] It was formed by Steven Spielberg in May 1989, following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and after he parted ways with Don Bluth due to creative differences.[1] It only produced three feature films: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), and Balto (1995), all three of which feature music composed by James Horner and were distributed by Universal Pictures. The company's mascot, Fievel Mousekewitz, appears in its production logo. It was based in the former Eaton Yale and Towne UK factory in Acton, London, and had 250 crew members from 15 different nations.[5]

The studio closed in 1997 after only eight years of operation. All 250 of Amblimation's crew members went on to join DreamWorks Animation,[6] which was later acquired in 2016 by Universal's parent company NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion.[7]

History

Film director and producer Steven Spielberg first began working in animation when he served as executive producer on An American Tail and The Land Before Time, both directed by Don Bluth, as well as Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Following the successes of all three films, Spielberg planned to collaborate with Bluth again to produce a sequel to An American Tail; however, owing to creative differences, the two men parted ways. In light of Bluth's departure, Spielberg chose former Disney animator Phil Nibbelink and former Richard Williams storyboard artist Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, both of whom had previously worked with him as supervising animators on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, to direct the sequel, Fievel Goes West.[1] In order to produce the film, Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration between Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, which was based out of the former Eaton Yale and Towne factory in Acton, London, and had an international crew of 250 members from 15 different nations.[5][8] Fievel Goes West was officially put into production when the studio first opened in May 1989, and at the time, the studio was also developing We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and an animated adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.[1]

As production on Fievel Goes West was wrapping up, Nibbelink and Wells began storyboarding on We're Back!. Once the animatic for We're Back! was completed in 1991, Spielberg brought in brothers Dick and Ralph Zondag to continue directing it, and assigned Nibbelink and Wells to direct Cats, which was intended to be Amblimation's third film after We're Back!. However, production on Cats was delayed continuously, due to Webber's dissatisfaction with the story direction.[9] Eventually, Cats was scrapped, and Nibbelink and Wells returned to finish We're Back!. However, shortly afterwards, Wells left the project again to direct Balto, leaving Nibbelink to finish We're Back! alone. Ultimately, We're Back! was a box-office bomb, grossing just over $9 million and failing to reach the massive success of Jurassic Park, which Spielberg had released the previous summer.[10]

The commercial failure of We're Back! led to budgetary constraints on Balto, and would lead to it being Amblimation's final film.[11] In October 1994, Spielberg co-founded DreamWorks Pictures with former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and music executive David Geffen, and relocated 120 of Amblimation's crew members to Los Angeles as Balto neared completion, to form DreamWorks Animation.[12][13] In early June 1995, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., then-head of Universal's parent company at the time, Seagram, agreed to discontinue Amblimation as part of a distribution deal with Geffen, despite the objections of his colleague, Michael Ovitz.[14] After Balto failed at the box office, Amblimation was officially closed, and most of the remaining crew members joined DreamWorks to begin working on The Prince of Egypt, while some moved on to join other studios.[15]

Filmography

Theatrical feature films

Title Release date Director(s) Story by Screenplay by Producer(s) Budget Box office gross
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West November 22, 1991 Phil Nibbelink
Simon Wells 		Based on the characters by:
David Kirschner
Judy Freudberg
Tony Geiss 		Flint Dille Steven Spielberg
Robert Watts 		$16.5 million[16] $40,766,041[17]
Charles Swenson
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story November 24, 1993 Phil Nibbelink
Simon Wells
Ralph Zondag
Dick Zondag 		Based on the book by:
Hudson Talbott 		John Patrick Shanley Steve Hickner $20 million[18] $9,317,021 (US)[19]
Balto December 22, 1995 Simon Wells Cliff Ruby
Elana Lesser 		Cliff Ruby
Elana Lesser
David Steven Cohen
Roger S.H. Schulman 		$31 million[20] $11,348,324[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Beck, Jerry (28 October 2005). The Animated Movie Guide. Google Books: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated. p. 18. ISBN 9781569762226. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  2. ^ "Chain letter". The Harald Siepermann Archive. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  3. ^ Hofmeister, Sallie (17 October 1994). "Hollywood Falls Hard for Animation". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  4. ^ "A look inside Hollywood and the movies" - Los Angeles Times
  5. ^ a b "Animation Really Keeps Steven Spielberg Moving". The Morning Call. 17 November 1991. Retrieved 30 May 2020 – via Mcall.com.
  6. ^ "Film: The Man Who Would Be Walt". archive.nytimes.com.
  7. ^ James, Meg (28 April 2016). "Comcast's NBCUniversal buys DreamWorks Animation in $3.8-billion deal". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  8. ^ Power User, Engineer in Charge and Work Manager. Google Books: Power & works engineering. 1967. p. 64. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  9. ^ Better, Adam C. (28 July 2021). "An Interview With Phil Nibbelink, Roger Rabbit Animator". SSP Daily. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  10. ^ Weiss, Josh. "ROLL BACK THE ROCK: AN ORAL HISTORY OF WE'RE BACK! A DINOSAUR'S STORY FOR ITS 30TH ANNIVERSARY". Syfy Wire. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  11. ^ "Exclusive interview with Balto director Simon Wells". animationsource.org. Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  12. ^ "Tape 68 - The Making of Prince of Egypt Part1". YouTube. M Gyll. 21 December 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  13. ^ LaPorte, Nicole (4 May 2010). The Men Who Would Be King. Google Books: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 54–55. ISBN 9780547487168. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  14. ^ King, Thomas R. (12 June 2001). The Operator. Google Books: Crown Publishing Group. pp. 548–549. ISBN 9780767907576. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  15. ^ Robey, Tim (5 November 2024). Box Office Poison. Google Books: Hanover Square Press. ISBN 9780369760845. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  16. ^ Rohter, Larry (16 May 1991). "The Feature-Length Cartoon Returns". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 25 May 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  17. ^ "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  18. ^ O'Brien, Jon (24 November 2023). "Jurassic Park Was Such a Massive Hit Even Steven Spielberg Tried Cashing In". Inverse. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  19. ^ "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  20. ^ a b "Balto". PowerGrid. The Wrap. Archived from the original on 23 March 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
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