The global diminution of the Disney brand continued Tuesday as it announced Lucasfilm’s visual effects and animation studio in Singapore is closing.
The studio in the city/state was set up in the 2000s by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which was founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas and is a division of Lucasfilm. In recent years Disney has been the parent company, the Straits Times reports.
“Over the next several months, ILM will be consolidating its global footprint and winding down its Singapore studio due to economic factors affecting the industry,” Disney said in a statement seen by the outlet.
File/Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, fourth left, and billionaire George Lucas, filmmaker and founder of Lucasfilm Ltd., second left, are greeted by actors dressed as Star Wars characters during the opening ceremony of the company’s Sandcrawler building, home to Lucasfilm’s Singapore unit, in Singapore, on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. (Nicky Loh/Bloomberg via Getty)
It did not say how many employees will be affected in Singapore.
Disney said in March it was cutting 7,000 jobs worldwide — part of a reorganisation as its traditional television business erodes and in the face of stiff competition and eroding subscriber numbers for its streaming service, Disney+, as Breitbart News reported.
“Lucasfilm’s decision to wind down its Singapore operations is in response to changes in the industry and business conditions,” Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Economic Development Board (EDB) confirmed in a joint statement.
In 2006, ILM expanded its operations beyond its San Francisco headquarters and opened its first international studio in Singapore.
It still has studios in Vancouver, London, Sydney and Mumbai – for now.