Vanguard Animation

The studio was founded in 2002 by John H. Williams. For its launch, it signed with Ealing Studios a four-picture deal to produce sub-$40 million computer-animated films. The following year in July 2003, Vanguard sold a minority stake to IDT Corporation and partnered with its animation unit, Digital Production Solutions, to co-produce and co-own all Vanguard's properties, including Valiant (2005) produced for Disney.

The company was part of the then-new "pipeline-free" trend (reported by Variety in 2006) in animation production, where the companies did not keep the talent on payroll and instead were "establishing a team from scratch to execute each new feature", allowing them to secure tax breaks from the governments. For example, the feature "Valiant" was produced in the UK in order to collect the tax incentives there. With UK incentives ending, the production (for "Space Chimps") moved to Canada (Vancouver).