Sale Would Include Tradition Studios and Its Tembo Film, Plus Stereo 3D Patents
Digital Domain Media Group this week asked a bankruptcy court judge to approve a December 4 sale of the company's remaining assets.
The assets yet to be sold include the 115,000-square-foot Tradition Studios in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and the company's joint venture with Florida State University, the Digital Domain Institute, as well as potentially valuable intellectual property — the Legend of Tembo film project and the six stereo-3D conversion patents that the company had been threatening to enforce across the industry earlier this year.
The company also included in its listing of assets still up for sale its joint-venture agreement with Reliance MediaWorks that would train Indian VFX workers to staff a new Abu Dhabi studio.
Digital Domain's filing indicated the timing for the sale of the remaining assets is partly dictated by the December 11 expiration of its debtor-in-possession financing facility, and said it doesn't have any stalking-horse bids for the assets. It said Tradition Studios has a book value of $45 million, though it's subject to a finance-lease arrangement with the city of Port St. Lucie.
Tembo co-producer and co-director Chuck Williams reaffirmed his commitment to get Tembo made, but told TCPalm.com that resurrecting the project gets harder as more time passes. "Our fear is it's taking so long that the crew will take other jobs and move away," he said.
Digital Domain's viaual-effects studios in California and Canada were jointly purchased last month by Beijing Galloping Horse and Reliance MediaWorks.
Want to dig deeper? The whole story of the company's life post-bankruptcy filing is available in the form of court documents that are available at the website of Kurtzman Carson Consultants.
