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A U-Haul truck, back door gaping, was parked on the circular drive facing the roar of lunchtime traffic on a busy street in Phoenix. Inside, Gary Goldman and a few helpers were sorting through what was left of Fox Animation Studios: 40 cardboard boxes. Don Bluth, the studio's creative force, had packed up his office the week before and was long gone.
A 5-foot-high Lego-block statue of Bartok, the bat in "Anastasia," the studio's first major animated feature, still sat in the lobby beside some posters from "Titan A.E.," its final animated film. In the nearly empty underground garage, rows of chairs were clustered in groups like prisoners sorted for transport.
"Animation isn't dead, not by a long shot," Goldman said. "And neither are we."
It may not be dead, but some are wondering whether animation's pulse - at least that of the traditional, two-dimensional variety made by anyone other than Disney - might be fading. This downturn perhaps signals an end to a costly five-year cycle in which several major...