Jellyfish Pictures Suspends Operations

British company faces the trroubles just weeks after the UK division of Technicolor filed for administration and shuts oown VFX & Animation Studios Worldwide.

Founded in 2001, the London-based company, Jellyfish Pictures, the BAFTA, Emmy, VES, Annie and RTS Award-winning studiowhich has credits on such projects as DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man, Kung Fu Panda 4, The Bad Guys, Trolls World Tour and How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the upcoming series of Black Mirror, has announced it has suspended all operations and is currently “exploring all options for sale and investment.”

The move by Jellyfish Pictures comes shortly after huge visual effects brands MPC and The Mill shut down, after experiencing financial difficulties “for some time”, which were recently exacerbated by rising labour costs and the long tail of effects from the US writers’ strike.

In the state from Jellyfish, it said: Like so many other companies operating across the VFX, animation and wider creative industries, we’ve been battling hard in the face of strong headwinds over the past twelve months. The long-tail impact of Covid, coupled with rising costs and the fall-out from the writer and actor strikes, have had a profound effect on our business.

Over recent months, we’ve been working closely with our key stakeholders to find a path forward, including exploring all options for sale and investment, with the aim of putting in place a strong financial platform upon which we can build. While we continue to engage in these discussions and explore our options, we have today taken legal steps to protect the position of the business while we strive to find a way forward.

We have so much to be proud of. We’ve worked on fantastic, ground-breaking projects with brilliant partners. And we want to thank our amazingly talented award-winning teams who day in, day out, strive to push creative boundaries with their innovative thinking and skill.