Tangent Animation, a studio in Toronto and Winnipeg, announced that they were closing down. The shocking news came at a time when the staff was already working on multiple feature film projects for Netflix.
As reported by Cartoon Brew, while the total number of workers affected is unclear, some say upto to 400 people worked between Tangent’s two locations.
Tangent had previously produced Netflix’s Next Gen and the Spanish/Canadian co-production Ozzy. The studio had built an robust production pipeline using open-source Blender software rather than the standard Autodesk Maya pipeline.
The studio’s upcoming project was Netflix’s long-awaited limited series Maya and the Three which will be about a Mesoamerican-inspired warrior princess who embarks on a quest to fulfill an ancient prophecy and save humanity from the vengeful gods of the underworld.
Tangent was also working on Netflix’s Monkey King and High in the Clouds which had celebrity producers – Stephen Chow and Paul McCartney, respectively. According to Cartoon Brew, Netflix was dissatisfied with the work being done on these projects.
It can be said that Netflix and Tangent, were to some degree responsible for the collapse of the productions. The crews who are now unemployed are in a lurch and are still processing how this happened so suddenly.
As the company is yet to issue an official statement, it is unclear whether the studio will calibrate the existing strategies and bounce back in the future.
