Sony Pictures Entertainment is winding down its VFX studio Pixomondo, which has worked on children’s series and films, Kidscreen has confirmed.

Following the departure of its CEO, Jonny Slow, last month, the studio will close once it completes any outstanding projects and contracts. Sony Pictures Entertainment will then streamline its internal capabilities to focus on its VFX and animation studio Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Sony Group’s R&D operations will absorb Pixomondo’s R&D/innovation component. Plans are still in development and subject to legal and regulatory processes, a Sony spokesperson said.

The studio provided visual effects, virtual production (through a division called Clara) and post-production services. The company has multiple VFX studios and LED Volume screens in multiple countries, including in the US, the UK, Canada and Germany.

Sony acquired the studio in October 2022 after it had worked on VFX-heavy series for adults, like Sony Pictures Television’s The Boys and HBO’s Game of Thrones. After the acquisition, it worked on Sony’s live-action kids series Avatar: The Last Airbender (pictured) for Netflix. Some of its other credits include Marvel’s film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Sony Pictures Television’s series Goosebumps: The Vanishing for Disney+/Hulu and Netflix’s Matilda the Musical. 

Current and former staffers have been sharing their reactions to the news on LinkedIn. “The studio had its rough edges but we consistently punched above our weight and blew past clients’ expectation bar,” said Matthieu Paugam, a lighting supervisor for North America. “The reason? Collaboration. …Often it felt like we were pulling off high-end pixels with nothing but rocks and duct tape. That was pure, raw collaboration at work.”

There’s been a steady stream of animation and VFX studio closures following the pandemic, with rising costs and fewer projects going around. Technicolor Group, a century-old animation and VFX company, collapsed last year. Disney shut down its Singapore-based VFX and animation studio in 2023, and Jellyfish Pictures, which provided VFX services, ceased its operations in March 2025.

The closure of VFX studios has been quietly sending ripples across the industry. There isn’t much data capturing just how hard the VFX industry has been hit, but one marker we do have is in Canada: The Quebec Film and Television Council reported in 2024 that the province’s animation/VFX industry was in a state of collapse, with more than half of all related jobs having disappeared since January 1, 2023.