ImageMovers
ImageMovers (IM) (formerly known as South Side Amusement Company), is an American production company which produces CGI animation, motion-capture, live-action films and television shows. The company is known for producing such films as Cast Away (2000), What Lies Beneath (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), and Beowulf (2007). From 2007 to 2011, The Walt Disney Company and ImageMovers founded a joint venture animation facility known as ImageMovers Digital which produced two motion-captured CGI-animated films: A Christmas Carol (2009) and Mars Needs Moms (2011) for Walt Disney Pictures, neither of which were financially successful.
Formerly
South Side Amusement Company (1984–1997) ImageMovers Digital (2007–2011)
March 1, 1984 (original)
1997 (as ImageMovers)
Robert Zemeckis, Doug Chiang, Steve Starkey, Jack Rapke
Motion pictures
450 (2011)
2007
2011
Robert Zemeckis
ImageMovers
Walt Disney Studios
450
History[edit]
South Side Amusement Company (1984–1997)[edit]
On March 1, 1984, Robert Zemeckis incorporated and founded the company as South Side Amusement Company. The company was in-name only from the beginning.
In the early 1990s, Zemeckis signed a production deal with Universal Pictures, to release films under the South Side Amusement Company banner.[1] There, it is one of the producers of Death Becomes Her, Trespass, The Public Eye, The Frighteners and Contact.
Early years as ImageMovers (1997–2007)[edit]
In 1997, it was announced that South Side Amusement Company was rebranded as ImageMovers, and hired Creative Artists Agency employee Jack Rapke and producer Steve Starkey (who was a producer on Zemeckis' films he's directing since his stint as associate producer on 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit) came on board to join the company. It was also announced that ImageMovers signed a non-exclusive feature film deal with DreamWorks Pictures.[2]
In 2001, the studio tried to sign a deal with Warner Bros., but they ultimately failed.[3] After the Warner deal collapsed, the studio is reupping a first-look deal with DreamWorks to produce more films from that time.[4][5]
ImageMovers' first eight films under the name were What Lies Beneath (with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer), Cast Away (with Tom Hanks), Matchstick Men (with Nicolas Cage), The Polar Express (also with Tom Hanks), The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (with Julianne Moore), Last Holiday (with Queen Latifah), Monster House (with Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke, and Steve Buscemi), and Beowulf (with Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, and Angelina Jolie).