While the Star Wars saga turns fifty in 2027, the company created to deliver its 365 visual effects hit the half century mark this year, and on 13th January 2026 Abrams release ‘Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation’ by author Ian Failes, and Lucas Seastrom from ILM.com sit down with Ian to discuss his own journey into the world of Industrial Light & Magic and how be brought this 368 page tome into existence.
“I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘yes’ faster than when I was asked to write this book,” Failes recalls with a laugh. ILM’s 50th anniversary “crept up on me,” as he says. “Visual effects companies don’t normally last that long. This isn’t a common thing.”
In discussing the book’s story with ILM’s leadership and publicity team, Failes worked to identify the company’s many eras, each full of creativity and transformation. ILM didn’t reach its 50th anniversary without constantly embracing changes in technology, filmmaking trends, and an expanding, global industry. The company itself has played a significant role in shaping that industry, making ILM’s story a 50-year history of the visual effects art form in itself. In the end, Failes is pleased with the resulting book in which readers “can see the progression of work and changes over the years,” as he explains.
“There are great stories about people embracing change,” Failes says. “There were artists who were practical modelers or painters, and they realized that they needed to move into the digital realm to keep their jobs. As those individuals had to adapt, ILM as a whole has had to as well. The good thing is that ILM has jumped on big changes all the time. Digital was one of those, but virtual production is another one, with ILM StageCraft and how that’s been used on The Mandalorian [2019-23] and elsewhere.
“What interests me is that these changes were not brand new inventions,” Failes continues. “There are all these nice threads in ILM’s history linking a past development to what they’re currently doing. The virtual production work has its roots in older rear projection methods, and ILM has dabbled with this kind of thing a lot over the years. So many different tools and techniques come together. Because ILM is a place full of innovation, they can put the best and brightest onto these projects and make them happen. So I hope that when people read the book, they can see that we’ve connected some of those threads together.”
