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Vanguard Films & Animation
Company type	Private
Industry	Computer animation; VFX; Motion capture; Animated
Founded	2002; 23 years ago
Founders	John H. Williams; Neil Braun
Headquarters	West Hollywood, California, United States
Number of locations	3
Key people	John H. Williams (CEO); Gary Chapman (Head of Prod.)
Owner	Starz Distribution (Minority)
Number of employees	10
Subsidiaries	Rabbit Ears Entertainment, LLC
Website	vanguardanimation.com

Vanguard Films & Animation, often named only as Vanguard Animation, is an American production studio founded in 2002 by producer John H. Williams and Neil Braun.^[1] The studio has offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Ealing Studios in London, England, United Kingdom. Starz Distribution owns a minority stake in the studio.

History

The studio was founded in 2002 by John H. Williams.^[1] For its launch, it signed with Ealing Studios a four-picture deal to produce sub-$40 million computer-animated films.^[2]^[3] The following year, Vanguard sold a minority stake to IDT Corporation and partnered with its animation unit, Digital Production Solutions, to co-produce and co-own all Vanguard's properties,^[1]^[4] including Valiant (2005) produced for Disney.^[2]

The company was part of the then-new "pipeline-free" trend (reported by Variety in 2006^[5]) in animation production, where the companies did not keep the talent on payroll and instead were "establishing a team from scratch to execute each new feature", allowing them to secure tax breaks from the governments. For example, the feature "Valiant" was produced in the UK in order to collect the tax incentives there. With UK incentives ending, the production (for "Space Chimps") moved to Canada (Vancouver).^[6]

Filmography

Feature films

#	Title	Release date	Gross	Rotten Tomatoes	Metacritic
1	Valiant	August 19, 2005 (US)	$61,746,888	32%	45%
2	Happily N'Ever After	January 5, 2007 (US)	$38,085,778	4%	28%
3	Space Chimps	July 18, 2008	$64,834,964	33%	36%
4	Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back (DTV)	May 28, 2010	$4,124,518	0%	—
5	Get Squirrely	November 4, 2016	$1,224,520^[7]	34%	—
6	Gnome Alone	November 2, 2017	$10,800,715^[8]	44%	—
7	Charming	April 20, 2018	$8,751,856^[9]	24%	—
8	Trouble	August 8, 2019	$11,942,158^[10]	36%	—
9	Fearless	August 14, 2020	—	49%	—
10	Rally Road Racers	May 12, 2023	$2,790,163	73%	—

Short films

Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance^[11]

Unproduced projects

Citizen Siege - A science fiction thriller CGI-animated film that was to be co-produced by Vanguard and video game developer Oddworld Inhabitants.^[12] The plot involves an expatriate who returns home to find that he has been repossessed, in a shady underhive-like world where a corporate government rules the continent.^[13] The film was originally scheduled to release in 2009, but the date was pushed back to an unknown date. As of 2019, there have been no recent developments regarding the film's production.
Alien Rock Band^[14]
Rotten Island^[14]
Buzby^[14]
City of Dragons^[14]
Atomic Circus^[14]
Oz Wars^[15]
Ribbit^[16]
The Twits
Galaxy High^[17]
The Gnome King^[17]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "IDT Media's Digital Production Solutions -DPS- Signs Joint Venture and Partnership Agreement with Vanguard Animation; DPS Also Gets First Look Rights on all Vanguard Animation Work". Business Wire. July 22, 2003. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
^ ^a ^b "The Walt Disney Studios and 'Shrek' producer John Williams partner for new CG animated film output". PR Newswire. 5 September 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
^ "The Walt Disney Studios and 'Shrek' Producer John Williams Partner For New CG Animated Film Output". The Free Library. 5 September 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
^ Bloom, David (July 22, 2003). "Vanguard sells stake, inks IDT co-prod'n deal". Variety. Retrieved May 4, 2013.
^ Debruge, Peter (June 2, 2008). "Cutting Corners: Indie-Style Producers Do without Pipelines". Variety.
^ Bernardi & Hoxter 2017, p. 160.
^ "Get Squirrely". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 29, 2018.
^ "Gnome Alone (2017)". Retrieved August 29, 2019.
^ "Charming (2018)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
^ "Trouble (2019)". Retrieved October 29, 2019.
^ "Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance (2001)". IMDb. Retrieved November 12, 2016.
^ "Citizen Siege - the Oddworld Encyclopædia".
^ "Video Game News & Reviews".
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Panda's Stevenson Joins Vanguard's Alien Rock Band" (Press release). Animation World Network. 2010-11-08. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
^ "Mike Johnson to Helm Animated Oz Wars" (Press release). ComingSoon.net. 2010-12-15. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
^ "Ribbit ~ Gary Chapman ~ Vanguard Animation".
^ ^a ^b Mike Fleming (May 10, 2011). "Vanguard Makes Three-Picture Deal With Author/Scribe Ross Venokur". Deadline. Retrieved February 7, 2022.

Sources

Bernardi, D.; Hoxter, J. (2017). "New Markets and Microbudgets: "Independent" Storytellers". Off the Page: Screenwriting in the Era of Media Convergence. University of California Press. pp. 139–181. ISBN 978-0-520-96104-3. Retrieved 2024-12-14.