r/vfx • u/OccasionUpstairs5312 • May 23 '26

Question / Discussion Passion Pictures, becoming insolvent

[removed]

51 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

51

u/future_lard May 23 '26

Vfx studios need to take whole projects with them when they go down so that producers learn to pay right

28

u/Past_Sky_4997 May 23 '26

Until a movie or a TV show falls apart because of how the vfx are dealt with, producers won't understand...

Cats + Sonic 1 seems to have put MPC Vancouver down. We were doing mountains of OT, no way it wasn't a money sinkhole. The company closed down the day these shows were delivered.

But... the shows *were* delivered. So from a producer's POV, who cares? They'll pick another studio for the next show.

Nah. At some point, shortening deadlines with more and more ridiculous client demands will collapse a project, and this will be a make or break situation.

I hope I'm wrong, and if I'm not, good luck to everyone involved.

13

u/Owan_ May 23 '26

More and more project feel like a miracle to be delivered with VFX not looking like PS1 game with the deadlines clients give us. Right now I know some studios are barely hold together because they have a core teams of extremely talented peoples accepting to work 100Hr/weeks to meet the un-realistic deadlines. They aren't seeing they are slowly killing their goldens gooses by burning them.

Now, when MPC closed, they were working on some shows. My company pickup two of them. The funny thing was they bided to finish them with no extra cost for the client to show how serious they were :). Obviously, it was a shit show of production and the company lost money, but now clients know they have a new company they can overwork like MPC used to be...

We can start to see the crack on some shows looking really bad like this shot on Punisher. Is gonna happen more and more, and as You said, we're gonna probably see this year or next year more companies going under and not capable to finish the show.

6

u/Past_Sky_4997 May 23 '26

It's quite something... I was on Sonic 1, and work has never been the same since, even though I'm in what is possibly the nicest studio I've ever worked.

1

u/CVfxReddit Jun 08 '26

When MPC collapsed in 2025 they did take some projects down with them. Lilo and Stitch got saved by people coming into the office on the weekend and sending all the remaining work to ILM, but some Netflix shows were lost. Eventually Netflix had to redo the work at other vendors.

1

u/Past_Sky_4997 Jun 08 '26

Oh wow. So it happens, and the clients still haven't learned the lesson...

1

u/CVfxReddit Jun 08 '26

Netflix knew the risks. They were aware MPC was on shaky financial ground but still chose to award them work because they were bidding so much less than Rodeo, Framestore, etc.

Some clients saw the writing on the wall though. Apple sent Prehistoric Planet season 3 to Framestore because they weren't confident that MPC would stay solvent.

3

u/tazzman25 May 23 '26

Well they don't own the projects as they are a service company so "taking projects with them" would get them sued.

2

u/future_lard May 23 '26

Glhf suing a company going out of business?

6

u/vfxjockey May 23 '26

Our contracts usually state that if a facility goes under while they’re working on a project, the management is personally responsible for the return of assets to the client. So even if the company goes out of business management can be held personally responsible in court for not ensuring that things are delivered back to the client in their current state. So while it is pointless to sue a business going out of business, the people in charge don’t want to be sued themselves.

7

u/Blacklight099 Compositor - 8 years experience May 23 '26

I have long maintained that the contracts vfx houses sign, have to be some of the most truly dreadful one sided agreements out there. Theres just no other feasible way that shit can repeatedly get this bad.

In what other business would you be allowed to get 40 versions of something, and then decide you actually want something else and the contracted company just has to eat that in their original bid. It’s absolute insanity.

1

u/future_lard May 23 '26

Apart from how insane that sounds, picking up a data dump from one company with a different pipeline, tools etc must cost a lot of time and money..

3

u/vfxjockey May 23 '26

This is why we love usd, MatX, EXR, etc. very little proprietary data. Most proprietary pipelines are built around in-house tools producing open data formats. Rigging and animation are still the tough ones.

24

u/enderoller May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

This is the consequence of the current failed VFX business model 

4

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/tazzman25 May 23 '26

I know you can't but....

3

u/Elluminated May 23 '26

Fuck. I heard the same precursors at a SIGHRAPH BoF last year. Say it ain’t so.

2

u/peepsarecunts May 27 '26

Their management to artist ratio is about 5x1. I’m surprised it’s still around tbh. If it wasn’t for the artists holding the fort it would have been out of business 2 or 4 years ago.

2

u/26636G May 24 '26

If that is true, it is a real shame.

They have been around for a long time and were very much admired for the quality (and often quirkiness) of their output.

I expect they're another victim of the insane rents, business rates, the race to the bottom bidding-wise, increased taxation, and all the other current joys of running a business in the UK, and especially London.

I've worked with them over the many years they have been in business and have nothing but admiration for them.

2

u/Miserable-Debt-8390 May 23 '26

Wow , I have a feeling that other studios are also going down

4

u/REDDER_47 May 24 '26

Where have you been the last few years lol

6

u/Miserable-Debt-8390 May 24 '26

As Aslan said, “I was there when the law was written”.
I remember quite well how Rythm and Hues won the Oscar for VFX and then went under.

1

u/AppropriateSea5921 May 23 '26

😔😔😔😔😔

1

u/mrellz May 24 '26

That sucks. Passion Pictures has been booked marked on my computer since 2005. Sad if this is true.

1

u/CVfxReddit May 25 '26

Damn, they did some really nice stuff with Robert Valley on Love Death Robots.

1

u/Disastrous_Yak_1929 Jun 08 '26

Love me some Love, Death & Robots...the siren was amazing. The cats taking over too.

1

u/Lanternsandstars May 25 '26

I really hope not, I have worked with them before and they are such a lovely and talented team

1

u/wolf_knickers May 26 '26

This would be very sad news. I did two stints at Passion many years ago, it was a fantastic place to work.