Rythm & Hues, the company which made the VFX of ‘Life of Pi’, recently filed bankruptcy after laying off over 250 employees last month. Today, the company has been sold to Prana Studios for over $30 million in an auction.
Rythm & Hues won an Oscars for ‘Life of Pi’ recently, and looks like that was the only good news they had in their plates. After the Oscars, the company filed a bankruptcy protection in the US, leading it to an auction today, which was closed by Prana Studios. Prana Studios is a US based animation company, which also has its subsidiary in India, and also has some of the prominent investors from India, like Anand Mahindra.
The reason for the bankruptcy is said to be a huge falloff with R&H’s major clients recently. Interestingly, there were several other bidders from India, like the Prime Studios. But Prana Studios won the auction today.
Talking about the new acquisition, Anand Mahindra says:
“This bold move will make them the animation/VFX leaders with global delivery capability and will substantially increase the scale and complexity of their work.”
Prana Studios is now all set to restructure the organization with the new acquisition. And R&H takes this as a positive outcome to a difficult situation.