Looks like the saga of John Textor continues. When Digital Domain went down and took Florida taxpayers for a $100 million bath I speculated that it would become an election issue. Well current Governor Rick Scott will be taking on the previous Governor Charlie Crist who presided over the Digital Domain deal. It seems the Scott administration would like to utilize an investigation on the Digital Domain bankruptcy to potentially target Crist:
The script had the makings of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster: greed, corruption, special effects, and a star-struck audience willing to suspend belief. In the real world, there was no Hollywood happy ending. The hero did not save the day. The villain was not defeated. Instead, the story ended with Florida taxpayers being cheated out of over $80 million dollars.
John Textor has since moved on to help start a new VFX company called Pulse (which shouldn’t be confused with the UK firm Pulse VFX of course). There was a bit of controversy in social media circles as Pulse seemed to take credit for work the company did not do like Avatar, X-Men, Tron, and others but who cares these days right?
Well now John Textor has a blog to set the record straight:
John Textor and his team were able to rebuild the reputation of the studio and expand its profits. The ultimately revitalized Digital Domain received the industry’s highest honor, the “Best Visual Effects” Oscar for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2009. It was during this period that the idea of expanding beyond just being a “gun for hire studio” and moving into the “Pixar” model of being the creative team/studio behind the films emerged.
As I pointed out on my blog years ago, John Textor privately warned of a “train wreck” pertaining to the Florida deal.
“At this point, I am fairly certain that a train wreck is coming,” Textor wrote in an email to Stork on Feb. 9, 2010. “I have no choice but to deal with it because of the promises I have made to the state of Florida. I HAVE to deliver jobs.”
But who cares! Forget about those pesky facts. Remember it’s all about the love for the VFX industry!
Soldier On.
