IMAGI CANCELS CG GATCHAMAN MOVIE

News of interest to Robotech fans comes from Crunchyroll

2009's Astro Boy earned less than $40 million on versus a $65 million budget, and, in its wake, on February 7, 2010, Imagi Animation Studios closed down.  Yet, Imagi Holdings was still in business, and there was the suggestion Gatchaman, produced with outsourced animation, could still be a viable project. 

[snip]

With their 2011 financial results, Imagi announced that they're closing the financial books on Astro Boy and Gatchaman.

-- Excluding the accounting losses due to the redemption of prints and advertising loan, a bridge loan and convertible loan notes, the loss for the year was significantly narrowed down by 89.9% to HK$122.2 million, of which HK$81.2 million was attributable to the provision for impairment loss relating to Astro Boy and Gatchaman

-- The Restructuring commenced in May 2010 (including the above-mentioned provision) wiped the Group's past slate clean. Astro Boy and Gatchaman will no longer have any adverse financial effect on the Group beyond last financial year

 TRANSLATION: The project has died.

I do find it fascinating that the people who "know this business" and wanted to "stir the pot" have been and still are very quiet about these recent events.



Why is that?

UPDATE: Several fans have pointed out this passage from the robotech.com forums on 3-8-2011.

   

Gatchaman/G-Force has a CGI movie due later this year

[snip]

One of the greatest differences with al these is that when they are announced, they make it clear to fans that there is something going on and they do that by showing us things. Take Superhero Hype for example. They have shown images from all the series mentioned above including the ones above as well as snippets of inormation and interviews with the creators.

                   Since the new [ROBOTECH ]11' project has been announced I haven't seen anything but a stance exactly against this. You say that conventions are the only way to see things yet when you look around, the majority of us can not

cons for whatever reason be it work, school, location, money...etc etc etc. You have an opportunity to encourage the franchise again by ditching this cloak and dagger approach to everything. The "less is more" approach only serves to alienate your fans more so than not. Why not show the clip online or some production still. Give people something to discuss for once instead of reasons to argue.

At a certain point, don;t you want people to view your product/franchise with a measure of hope and enthusiasm instead of pessimism and indifference?