Asylum VFX, a rather successful VFX house that we’ve discussed with the work on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Porsche, Halo3, and much more, has just suddenly announced that they are closing their doors. Sunk by signing deals on razor-thin margins, a studio at the top of their game with recent work on Unstoppable, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Call of Duty :Black Ops has vanished from the field.
There’s a lot of frustration about the apparent willingness of VFX facilities to undercut themselves on pricing in order to secure more work. But it has to be even more agonizing to be in the position of negotiating those deals, knowing that you’re gambling on sustaining your business on razor-thin margins in order to win jobs from producers who treat VFX work as purely a commodity business. Add in the fact that more and more VFX work is being done away from Hollywood and outside the U.S. (Canada, London, India, etc.), and it just gets harder for the traditional, Los Angeles-based companies to make the numbers work like they used to.
