Disney to close Robert Zemeckis's digital studio

Walt Disney Studios is pulling the plug on Robert Zemeckis's Image Movers Digital studio near San Francisco by next January in a bid to cut costs.

The studio's activities will gradually wind down as it completes production for Mars Needs Moms and its 450 employees will be fired, Disney said last Friday.

The move comes after Zemeckis's big-budget A Christmas Carol failed to gather enough steam at the box office. Zemeckis's motion-capture technology was also eclipsed by more advanced blockbusters like James Cameron's Avatar, which has grossed more than 2.5 billion dollars worldwide.

"Given today's economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model," Disney Studios president Alan Bergman said in a statement.

Disney and the Oscar-winning director of Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Polar Express announced the creation of IMD in 2007.

Despite closing the animation house, Disney said it was "hoping to create a long-term production deal" with Zemeckis and his IMD partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey for projects like developing a 3-D remake of the psychedelic animation film Yellow Submarine.

The feature was first released in 1968 and based on music by The Beatles.