VFX studio Rhythm & Hues will start developing feature projects as well as open a new studio in Asia for work on an all-CG feature, per VARIETY.
The Culver City-based company has hired Vanguard's Venecia Duran as director of development and has accelerated plans for a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia facility. The development department is now taking script submissions and hopes to make an announcement on a feature co-production in a few months.
"We're looking ideally for four-quadrant family films, though we have a few projects in development that are a little more adult," Duran said. The slate includes "blended cinema" projects that combine CG and live-action and fully CG animated projects.
President of the film division, Lee Berger, told VARIETY the company is ready to make and co-own a CG feature. "We have a very robust pipeline. We are doing eight films here, and we can do more than that down the road. We're trying to expand not willy-nilly but shrewdly and methodically."
The Culver City headquarters' space is maxed out at 735 employees and the company owns two Indian facilities with 280 employees between them. As it did in India, R&H will build the Malaysia facility from scratch, not taking over an existing operation. Artists will receive training in India and California managers will move amongst the studios.
Each foreign facility will eventually employ 200 people and will work on the same projects as the California studio. Berger said they hope to get the Kuala Lumpur facility up and running before the end of 2009.
Berger also said the company could possibly expand to China in the future. "Down the road we're looking at China for a venue. Should we train Chinese technical directors in Malaysia, that would facilitate moving into China," he said.
R&H's current projects include LAND OF THE LOST, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN, THEY CAME FROM UPSTAIRS, CIRQUE DU FREAK, FAST & FURIOUS and THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. They are in negotiations to work on ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKUEL, after doing work on the first.
