India to be big stage for VFX co ILM that powered Star Wars

For Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) known for in a range of movies from Star Wars to Avengers, a key element of its strategy lies in India, where it just completed a year of operations.

While it has already hired 130 employees in India, the global leadership believes that India will become the company's largest studio with 700 people in the near future.

Founded by George Lucas in 1975, ILM currently has studios across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, London.

and Sydney. It shut its Singapore studio in a bid to consolidate operations after setting up its Mumbai studio in January last year. "India will be probably our largest studio, and it's a key element of our future strategy," said Janet Lewin, SVP at Lucasfilm and GM, ILM. "But we're not in any hurry. We don't see ILM as just a vendor.

We're a partner to our filmmakers," Lewin, currently in Mumbai, said in an interview.

She said the company's global expansion is carefully considered and unlike other visual effects studios in India, ILM is not treating its Indian arm as an outsourced entity for preparatory work.