Survival movies continue to be hits with audiences. The genre can take many forms, often crossing over with action and thrillers, or sometimes with sci-fi and fantasy. Some notable entries in the genre include The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Alive (1993), Cast Away (2000), The Grey (2011), In the Heart of the Sea (2015), Jungle (2017), and Beast (2022), among many others.

While there are plenty of survival movies, it’s less common that these films perform well at the Oscars. A notable exception came in 2015 with The Revenant, a gritty Western survival movie that won star Leonardo DiCaprio his first-ever Academy Award. Prior to that, a 2012 survival fantasy movie was also a major hit at the Oscars, with particular praise levied at its groundbreaking work in visual effects.

Life Of Pi Stuns VFX Artists 12 Years Later

The 2012 Film Features Outstanding VFX

VFX artists are floored by the digital effects featured in Life Of Pi

. Directed by Ang Lee, the fantasy survival film follows Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma), a young man who survives a disaster at sea before embarking on an epic adventure. Along the way, Pi forms a powerful bond with a Bengal tiger. Life of Pi relies heavily on VFX to bring this tiger – as well as other animals and environments – to life, and ultimately won the Best VFX Oscar. Two of the VFX studios who worked on the film, however, ended up going out of business.

In a recent episode of their “VFX Artists React” YouTube series, the VFX artists at Corridor Crew break down several scenes from Life of Pi, including the shipwreck sequence. “It’s crazy how detailed the bottom of the water is,” co-host Niko Pueringer says of the scenes that feature Pi swimming to the surface. Fellow co-hosts Jordan Allen and Wren Weichman also praise the scene before the conversation then turns to Rhythm & Hues and MPC, two of the now-shuttered VFX houses that worked on the film, with Allen lamenting how Hollywood studios continue to take advantage of VFX houses:

“You move to post, it’s the flat bid structure, not pay-per-hour. That’s where it all comes from. That’s where the “fix it in post” mantra comes from. The post house basically says, ‘We can do it for X amount.’ They commit based on the scope, and then, guess what the studio does – they change the scope.”

Later on in the conversation, Allen, Weichman, and Pueringer discuss Life of Pi‘s groundbreaking CGI animals, with some scenes having them second-guessing which animals are real and which are entirely digital. Check out Allen’s explanation below:

“They’re intercutting plate pH๏τography of real animals with the CG. But it is interesting because, especially with the tiger, it’s really hard to tell when they’re switching.”

What This Means For Life Of Pi

The Film’s Reception & Legacy Explained

Life of Pi was nominated for 11 Oscars in total, including Best Picture. The film ultimately won four, taking home statues for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best VFX. As the Corridor Crew VFX artists explain above, though, this acclaim wasn’t enough for two of the film’s most important VFX houses. Rhythm & Hues was in the midst of closing down as they accepted the Best VFX Oscar in 2013, and MPC just shut its doors in February 2025.

The conversation above highlights the precarious position in Hollywood for VFX houses, as they bid to work on projects for a certain amount, which will take a given number of work hours. When studios and filmmakers change the goal posts late in the process, however, these VFX houses are left having to complete the work they agreed to for the same amount of money, but with far more time spent than originally planned. Though Life of Pi evidently remains a stunning achievement in VFX, it also seems stands as a cautionary tale.

Source: Corridor Crew