Updated at 1:09 p.m., Wednesday, January 30, 2002

'Final Fantasy' studio to close

By Katherine Nichols
Advertiser Staff Writer

Square USA Inc., a Honolulu animated-film studio, said yesterday it will cease operations March 29 and lay off 117 employees after its one movie, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," had a disappointing showing at the box office.

The company, a subsidiary of Japanese video-game maker Square Co., said it will close the studio "if an investor cannot be found" by the end of March.

Public relations manager Yumi Ozaki said there is no such investor "at this moment."

The "Final Fantasy" film cost $135 million to produce and recouped only about a third of that when audiences proved to be cool to the humanlike, computer-generated characters.

The Tokyo-based company suffered financial losses exceeding $100 million because of the movie and said in December that the studio was up for sale.

The Honolulu studio opened in May 1997 and employed about 125 programmers, artists and technicians year-round. Those numbers jumped to more than 220 during peak production periods.

For the past nine months, the company has been working on a project contracted from Warner Bros. That project is scheduled for completion in March.

"The decision to cease operations of the Honolulu studio, if there is no interested investor, was made by the parent company," Square USA said in a statement.

The Tokyo-based parent company had been looking for a buyer for at least two months. Square's former president, Hisashi Suzuki, resigned Dec. 1 to take responsibility for the company's failed foray into motion pictures. Yoichi Wada took over as president.

The company's share price fell about 50 percent in the months after the movie's July release.