It has been revealed that Blue Sky Studios, the production studio behind computer animation hits such as Ice Age, Rio, and Robots, will be closed by Disney this April. The closure will sadly result in 450 job losses, but according to Deadline, Disney will be looking to find some of these employment within their other internal studios.
The closure was apparently due to the financial struggles that Disney encountered due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A spokesperson told Deadline: "Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios."
This is a sad announcement indeed considering that the studio has been around since 1987 and has produced some timeless family-friendly movies within the last two decades. Blue Sky's final film was 2019's Spies in Disguise. The film starred big names such as Will Smith and Tom Holland and it achieved a box office total of $171.6 million.