Forgotten Irish movies.

New Home wrote: »

Don Bluth had his studios in Conyngham Road, in the building that was then taken over by Ryanair for their ground operations before they moved to the airport. I was pretty sure Don Bluth moved out after the success of the first Fievel movie (An American Tail), but perhaps I'm mis-remembering. I know it says US on IMDB, but I'm unconvinced.

During production on An American Tail, Morris Sullivan drew plans to move the majority of the studio's operations to Ireland to take advantage of a scheme set up by the Industrial Development Authority encouraging filmmakers to invest in the country by offering grants, tax benefits, and lower operating costs. Difficulties with American trade unions that arose when Bluth offered his employees wages below union rates during the financially tense production of An American Tail may also have influenced the decision to relocate. The IDA offered Sullivan Bluth Studios the largest grant in the country's history to relocate to Dublin, in return for a 5% government ownership of the studio. This, along with Sullivan's own investment, funded the foundation of a large and sophisticated new animation studio near Dublin's Phoenix Park. The studio opened with a staff of 85, mostly handling the ink-and-paint process, but expanded to employ over 300 people, including some 100 staff relocated from the California studio, and to cover all aspects of the animation process and even film processing. To build up this workforce, the studio brought young Irish people to the USA studio to train, and Bluth helped to set up an animation course at the nearby Ballyfermot Senior College. Despite the majority of operations eventually being moved to the Dublin studio, an executive office was retained in Burbank, California to maintain ties with US producers and distributors.

During the move to Ireland, production had started on the studio's second feature, The Land Before Time. Again, Amblin and Spielberg backed the production, with additional input from friend of Spielberg and Star Wars creator George Lucas, who had worked with Spielberg on the initial story treatment. The movie had been rushed into its early production stages even before the release of An American Tail to meet an autumn 1987 release date, a very tight schedule for a feature-length animated film. However, between delays caused by the disruption of the move to Dublin, and the unwillingness of Amblin and Universal to fully commit to the project until An American Tail's release, production fell behind by several months, and it wasn't until spring 1987 that The Land Before Time went into full production.