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100 Out of 400 Laid Off at CG Astro Boy's Imagi Studio

posted on by Egan Loo
Newspaper reports that animators were most affected

IMAGI, the company that produced the computer-animated film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (Mighty Atom) manga from its offices in Hong Kong and Los Angeles, laid off a significant number of its employees on Friday. According to the newspaper Oriental Daily News, about 100 out of IMAGI's 400 employees were laid off. The affected employees — most of whom were animators — will be compensated in accordance to employment laws in Hong Kong.

The Sing Tao Daily newspaper reports that IMAGI invested almost HK$500 million (about US$60 million) into its Astro Boy film. The film has so far earned about HK$3 million (about US$400,000) in Hong Kong theaters and an estimated US$19.073 million in the United States. In October, it earned earned US$328,457 in its first weekend in Japan and debuted at #10 in the weekend box office rankings.

Felix Ip, the creative director at IMAGI, confirmed the layoffs in his blog. IMAGI produced the 2007 computer-animated film adaptation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book franchise. IMAGI has since announced that it is working a planned film adaptation of Tatsunoko Production's Gatchaman anime series.

Sources: Oriental Daily News (link 2)

Thanks to dormcat for the news translation.


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