 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Sullivan Bluth Studios (through distribution ofAn American Tail: Fievel Goes West byUniversal Pictures) |
| Founded | May 1989; 36 years ago (1989-05)[1] |
| Founder | Steven Spielberg |
| Defunct | 1997; 28 years ago (1997)[2] |
| Fate | Folded intoDreamWorks Animation |
| Successor | Studio: DreamWorks Animation Library: Universal Animation Studios (through distribution of theAn American Tail sequels and theBalto sequels, both byUniversal Pictures) |
| Headquarters | Park House, 207–211 The Vale, Acton, London, England ,United Kingdom[3] |
Key people | Kate Mallory (studio manager) Simon Wells (director) Cynthia Woodbyrne (production manager) |
| Products | Animated films |
| Parent | Amblin Entertainment |
Amblimation was the Britishanimation production subsidiary ofAmblin Entertainment.[4][5] It was formed bySteven Spielberg in May 1989, following the success ofWho Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and after he parted ways withDon Bluth due to creative differences.[1] It only produced threefeature films:An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991),We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), andBalto (1995), all three of which feature music composed byJames Horner and were distributed byUniversal Pictures. The company'smascot,Fievel Mousekewitz, appears in itsproduction logo. It was based in the formerEaton Yale and Towne UK factory inActon, London, and had 250 crew members from 15 different nations.[6]
The studio closed in 1997 after only eight years of operation after the box office failures ofWe're Back! A Dinosaur's Story andBalto. All 250 of Amblimation's crew members went on to joinDreamWorks Animation,[7] which was later acquired in 2016 by Universal's parent companiesComcast andNBCUniversal for $3.8 billion.[8]
Film director and producerSteven Spielberg first began working in animation when he served as executive producer onAn American Tail andThe Land Before Time, both directed byDon Bluth, as well asRobert Zemeckis'sWho Framed Roger Rabbit. Following the successes of all three films, Spielberg planned to collaborate with Bluth again to produce a sequel toAn American Tail; however, owing to creative differences, both men parted ways. In light of Bluth's departure, Spielberg chose formerDisney animatorPhil Nibbelink and formerRichard Williams storyboard artistSimon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction authorH. G. Wells, both of whom had previously worked with him as supervising animators onWho Framed Roger Rabbit, to direct the sequel,Fievel Goes West.[1] In order to produce the film, Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration betweenUniversal Pictures andAmblin Entertainment, which was based out of the formerEaton Yale and Towne factory inActon, London, and had an international crew of 250 members from 15 different nations.[6][9]Fievel Goes West was officially put into production when the studio first opened in May 1989, and at the time, the studio was also developingWe're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and an animated adaptation ofAndrew Lloyd Webber'sCats.[1]
As production onFievel Goes West was wrapping up, Nibbelink and Wells began storyboarding onWe're Back!. Once the animatic forWe're Back! was completed in 1991, Spielberg brought in brothers Dick andRalph Zondag to continue directing it, and assigned Nibbelink and Wells to directCats, which was intended to be Amblimation's third film afterWe're Back!. However, production onCats was delayed continuously, due to Webber's dissatisfaction with the story direction.[10] Eventually,Cats was scrapped, and Nibbelink and Wells returned to finishWe're Back!. However, shortly afterwards, Wells left the project again to directBalto, leaving Nibbelink to finishWe're Back! alone. Ultimately,We're Back! was abox-office bomb, grossing just over $9 million and failing to reach the massive success ofJurassic Park, which Spielberg had released the previous summer.[11]
The commercial failure ofWe're Back! led to budgetary constraints onBalto, and would lead to it being Amblimation's final film.[12] In October 1994, Spielberg co-foundedDreamWorks Pictures with formerDisney chairmanJeffrey Katzenberg and music executiveDavid Geffen, and relocated 120 of Amblimation's crew members toLos Angeles asBalto neared completion, to formDreamWorks Animation.[13][14] 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.[15] AfterBalto failed at the box office, Amblimation was officially closed, and most of the remaining crew members joined DreamWorks to begin working onThe Prince of Egypt, while some moved on to join other studios.[16]
| Title | Release date | Director(s) | Story by | Screenplay by | Producer(s) | Budget | Box office gross |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| An American Tail: Fievel Goes West | 22 November 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[17] | $40,766,041[18] |
| Charles Swenson | |||||||
| We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story | 24 November 1993 | Phil Nibbelink Simon Wells Ralph Zondag Dick Zondag | Based on the book by: Hudson Talbott | John Patrick Shanley | Steve Hickner | $20 million[19] | $9,317,021 (US)[20] |
| Balto | 22 December 1995 | Simon Wells | Based on: The true story ofBalto | Cliff Ruby Elana Lesser David Steven Cohen Roger S.H. Schulman | $31 million[21] | $11,348,324[21] | |
| Cliff Ruby Elana Lesser |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
