Digital Domain

History

The company was founded by film director James Cameron, Stan Winston and Scott Ross. It began producing visual effects in 1993, its first three films being True Lies, Interview with the Vampire, and Color of Night in 1994.

Digital Domain produced effects for more than 100 films, including Titanic, Apollo 13, What Dreams May Come, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, Star Trek: Nemesis and The Day After Tomorrow. Other films include Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, 2012, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, TRON: Legacy, Thor, X-Men: First Class, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Real Steel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Oblivion, Iron Man 3, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Into the Storm, Maleficent, Furious 7, Pixels and most recently Deadpool, The Huntsman: Winter's War and X-Men: Apocalypse.

In 2000, Digital Domain designed the digital character that represented Motorola's intelligent assistant, Mya. In October 2002, Digital Domain launched a wholly owned subsidiary, D2 Software, Inc., to market and distribute its Academy Award-winning compositing software, Nuke.

In 2002-2003, Digital Domain co-produced its first feature film, Secondhand Lions, written and directed by Tim McCanlies and starring Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Haley Joel Osment, and Kyra Sedgwick.

Principally due to conflicts over the film Titanic, the founders of Digital Domain were known to feud which almost destroyed the company. Founder Scott Ross announced plans to raise $100 million in financing and become more active as a production company. This plan never materialized and the corporate owners forced management to seek a buyer of the company.

In May 2006, Digital Domain was purchased by an affiliate of Wyndcrest Holdings, LLC, a private holding company whose principals then included Wyndcrest founder John Textor, director Michael Bay, former Microsoft executive Carl Stork and former NFL player and sports television commentator Dan Marino.

Wyndcrest acquired The Foundry in 2007, which then also took over the development of Nuke. This business was then subject to a management buy-out in 2009.

In 2009, Digital Domain parent company DDMG launched Tradition Studios in Florida to develop and produce original, family-oriented CG animated features. The studio moved on January 3, 2012, to the new 115,000-square-foot (10,700 m²) facility in Port St. Lucie, built with the city's incentives. The studio attracted a number of talented creators, including Aaron Blaise, the director of Brother Bear, and Brad Lewis, co-director of Cars 2, who together were developing an animated feature film The Legend of Tembo for a planned 2014 release, with Aaron Blaise and Chuck Williams directing.

In 2011, Digital Domain Media Group entered into the film production business with a major investment into the feature film Ender's Game, which was a co-production with OddLot Entertainment and Summit Entertainment. The film was released November 1, 2013.

In November 2011, parent company DDMG took the company public through an initial public offering (IPO), and the company was listed on the NYSE under the symbol DDMG, achieving a market valuation of more than $400 million. That IPO has since triggered a number of investor lawsuits, which allege misconduct by John Textor, the entire Board of Directors, the auditors and others involved in the offering. Palm Beach Capital, the largest investor in DDMG, identified hedge funds, Tenor Capital et al., as the primary cause of the company's difficulties, citing unlawful finance penalties and possible illegal short selling strategies designed to damage the company's public stock price.

In 2012, DDMG announced initiatives to open VFX studios in Beijing China and Abu Dhabi.

Also in 2012, subsidiary Digital Domain created a virtual likeness of the late rap star Tupac Shakur for Dr. Dre's and Snoop Dogg's show at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that gained worldwide recognition. Digital Domain also announced that the company would create virtual Elvis Presley in partnership with CORE Media Group.

In 2015, the UFC hired Digital Domain to create a commercial series for their UFC 189 event.

In 2016, the Pokémon Company hired Digital Domain to create the visual effects for their "Train On" Super Bowl ad, released to celebrate the Pokémon series' 20th anniversary.

Bankruptcy

DDMG's financial troubles had been ongoing since the acquisition by Wyndcrest Holdings, losing millions of dollars per year. John Textor continued his expansion plans by securing financing from the State of Florida as well as private investors. Unfortunately, none of Textor's plans ever turned a profit and the efforts continued to drain cash from the Company. Textor's claims that DDMG's real troubles began when a New York hedge fund that was affiliated with Florida Power & Light acquired DDMG's debt in a private transaction. The hedge fund pushed for early payback. The company contemplated filing felony usury charges against the hedge fund, ultimately deciding to refinance the debt with new debt from another hedge fund, Tenor Capital. The company closed on the Tenor financing in early May 2012, appearing to have solved its problem with Florida Power & Light, with its stock price trading at an all-time high. The company continued to need cash to support its Venice operations and its Florida studio growth. Documents and emails provided to the press show that Digital Domain believed it had options to put cash into the company but were thwarted by Tenor Capital, which had significant weight as a chief lender and according to Palm Beach Capital and the Tenor strategy may have been shorting DDMG stock to profit from its failure. When a deal to fund the company was thwarted on July 31, Tenor Capital demanded $51 million on August 20 as repayment for its $35 million loan made four months earlier. The lenders appointed Mike Katzenstein as interim chief operating officer of the company who acted without conferring with DDMG senior management, deciding to close the Florida studio, causing Chairman John Textor to submit a letter of resignation "in profound disagreement" with this decision.

It was announced on September 7, 2012, that all of DDMG's Port St. Lucie's operations, including Tradition Studios, were to be shut down, laying off nearly 300 employees, including 100 working on Tembo.

On September 11, 2012, Digital Domain Media Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after defaulting on a $35 million loan, and reached a deal to sell its operating businesses – Digital Domain and Mothership—to stalking horse Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P., a private investment firm, for $15 million. At the public auction on September 21, 2012, Digital Domain's visual effects business in California and Vancouver, Canada, and production company Mothership were acquired by a joint venture led by Beijing Galloping Horse America, LLC in partnership with Reliance MediaWorks (USA), severing all ties between the new company, Digital Domain 3.0 and subsidiary Mothership, and former owner DDMG. Galloping Horse holds a 70% stake and Reliance MediaWorks a 30% stake. The sale was approved on September 24, 2012.

New ownership

In July 2013 majority ownership in Digital Domain was acquired by Hong Kong listed public company Sun Innovation with Reliance MediaWorks continuing to own the minority stake, and a new CEO, Daniel Seah, was appointed.

Awards

Digital Domain artists and technologists have been recognized with seven Academy Awards: three for Best Visual Effects (Titanic, What Dreams May Come, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button); and four for Scientific and Technical Achievement for its proprietary technology—i.e., for Track (proprietary tracking software), for Nuke (proprietary compositing software), for Storm (proprietary volumetric renderer), and for its proprietary fluid simulation system.

The company's work has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects (Apollo 13, True Lies, I, Robot, Real Steel and Transformers: Dark of the Moon). In addition, its excellence in digital imagery and animation has earned Digital Domain multiple British Academy (BAFTA) Awards.

Digital Domain's Advertising division provides digital imagery and animation for television commercials, working with top commercial directors. To date, it has been awarded 37 Clio Awards, 22 AICP awards, 9 Cannes Lion Awards and numerous other advertising honors. The Advertising division has also produced multiple music videos working with artists that include The Rolling Stones, Faith Hill, Creed, Janet Jackson, Busta Rhymes, Björk, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson and Nine Inch Nails, and has earned Grammy and MTV "Music Video of the Year" Awards.