Industrial Light & Magic history

Lucas wanted his 1977 film Star Wars to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before.

In late 1978, when in pre-production for The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reformed most of the team into Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California.

After the completion of Star Wars Hoyt Yeatman and Scott Squires in 1979 founded Dream Quest Images.

With the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and a new home in San Rafael, ILM began to establish itself as the leader in visual effects production.

The Genesis Demo: Instant Evolution with Computer Graphics, Alvy Ray Smith, American Cinematographer (1982)

Boss Film was founded by former ILM supervisor Richard Edlund in 1983.

The rights to much of this ILM hardware and software technology was sold to Steve Jobs in 1986, as Pixar was founded (see next section).

John Knoll (who was a motion control technician) and his older brother Thomas Knoll (a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan doing work in image vision) developed Photoshop in 1987.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991 was another milestone in the history of Lucas Digital.

In 1992 George Lucas was honored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with the Irving Thalberg Award.

Eventually Lucas licensed and sold much of the technology to Avid in 1993.

In 1995 Sony offered Ken Ralston a position as its president to lead the expansion of the effort.

ILM received an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award in 1996 for ViewPaint.

In 1997, the twentieth anniversary date of Star Wars, all three movies in the Star Wars trilogy were rereleased.

Cary Phillips received an Academy Technical Achievement Award in 1998.

In 2000, ILM created the OpenEXR format for high-dynamic-range imaging.

As a result, ILM decided to close the department in mid-2002.

ILM operated from an inconspicuous property in San Rafael, California until 2005.

In 2006, ILM invented IMoCap (Image Based Motion Capture Technology).

The last documentary about ILM, “Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible,” directed by Leslie Iwerks (who helmed Disney+’s documentary series crown jewel “The Imagineering Story”), was released in 2010 (it currently is not available to stream).

In 2011, it was announced the company was considering a project-based facility in Vancouver.

In 2012, Disney bought ILM's parent company, Lucasfilm, and acquired ILM in the process.

Following the restructuring of LucasArts in April 2013, ILM was left overstaffed and the faculty was reduced to serve only ILM's visual effects department.

ILM opened a London studio headquartered in the city's Soho district on October 15, 2014.

As of 2016, ILM has received 16 Best Visual Effects Oscars and 40 additional nominations.

“In October 2018 while acting in the movie ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold,’ Kilcher allegedly injured her neck and right shoulder.

In July 2019, ILM announced the opening of a new facility in Sydney, Australia.