“The cloud of uncertainty hovering over Disney thickened as Pixar closed the door on their distribution arrangement,” George Mannes reports for TheStreet.com. “Pixar, the animated movie studio led by former [sic] Apple exec Steve Jobs, said Thursday it ended talks over extending its collaboration with Burbank, Calif.-based Disney. Pixar said it will instead retain full ownership of movies made after 2005.”
[MDN Note: Relax, Steve’s still Apple CEO, too. There’s nothing “former” about it.]
“The status of Disney’s lucrative relationship with Pixar has been a matter of some vexation among Wall Street analysts, given how well movies like Finding Nemo have done. Pixar’s decision offers a further hurdle for Disney CEO Michael Eisner as he tries to steer his struggling media conglomerate into a full turnaround. The news comes as Eisner deals with uncertain economics in the TV and theme parks businesses, along with a pair of dissident shareholders seeking to portray the executive as overpaid and unresponsive to shareholder needs,” Mannes reports.
“Whether or not Pixar’s departure will hurt Disney is unclear, but analysts must think the deal is important to the company’s future. They’ve been asking about the progress of negotiations between the two companies at virtually every public forum in which Eisner has taken questions,” Mannes reports. ‘After 10 months of trying to strike a deal with Disney, we’re moving on,’ Jobs said. ‘We’ve had a great run together — one of the most successful in Hollywood history — and it’s a shame that Disney won’t be participating in Pixar’s future successes.'”
Full article here.
Journalistic misprints like above “fomer Exec” are scary.
Pixar can do much better on its own now. They don’t need Disney anymore.
and now pixar can make movies making fun of disney characters…
Beautiful…Just Beautiful.
Pixar makes great movies and shouldn’t be dragged down by disney and thier baggage/reputation/and terrible business tactics.
Thanks God!
For those of us in the industry we know what a nightmare Disney is right now. Eisner is in fact the day-vil!
With the firing of some 400 animators from the Florida facility and Disney’s continued reliance on theft for even semi-decent properties I think there are storm clouds in the offing for Disney.
There was an interesting exchange at Siggraph this past year.
When asked what they thought about the future of 2D animation, the Pixar reps commented:
“We don’t think there is anything wrong with 2D and we see a future for it… we just think it is in the wrong hands right now.”
HA! Where’s that Disney gal that posts on here when you need her?
Excellent decision, Mr. Jobs… no matter what the money outcome. Pixar trashes itself when associating with Disney – a corporation that makes and distributes much hard core porno garbage under it’s corporate umbrella…. (Or is that, “raincoat”)
Disney needed Pixar… Pixar can find distribution through many other willing and happy partners.
“former [sic] Apple exec Steve Jobs” ?
What’s that about.
Think that Katzenberg would be interested in making a Dreamworks SKG/Pixar distribution deal?
It’s all about Eisner.
“led by former [sic] Apple exec Steve Jobs,”
they replaced “former” with “top” now
Hmmm….
former … top
former … top
former … top
yeah, I can see how they could mistake one word for the other. 8*P
So… When Apple is going to buy Disney?
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I think Steve just served Eisner his retirement. Other Disney execs were calling for him to step down a couple months ago. After this, I’d bet his days are numbered.
it is obvious that michael eisner is flunking as the ceo of disney when roy disney left the boards a while back.
micheal eisner is bad for disney.
good for pixar!
I’d rather have Apple NOT buy Disney. It’s a mess.
Parks -> boring. Movies -> Suck. ABC -> Stinks.
Best news I’ve heard all day. Pixar can distribute the stuff or take it’s pick of studios. Either way the money will be even better than it has been.
Great news!!! Disney is in a tail spin. Turning out home videos like Lion King 1.5. They will be paying a huge settlement to the owners of Winnie the Pooh. It appears they didn’t own all the rights to Winnie and now they have to back pay royalities. Ouch!! Jobs must be feeling pretty powerful now with his mushrooming music and animation empires. Hopefully he doesn’t lose it this time.
slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if Pixar will shift its renderfarms over to xserves? I hear they currently run on linux/intel boxes and/or sun boxes.
RenderMan Server does come in a version that runs on OS X. I wonder what the performance is like vs. the versions that run on other platforms.
If 1100 xerves can rank as 3rd fastest supercomputer, then one would imagine “a few” xserves could churn out the odd frame of animation.
does anyone know if Pixar will shift its renderfarms over to xserves? I hear they currently run on linux/intel boxes and/or sun boxes.
I would imagine that they will not, at least until after “The Incredibles” is complete. As I understand it, Pixar pretty much buys a new Renderfarm for each movie, since (a) the technology just gets better and (b) they’ll make enough money off the movie. But assuming that the farm is already cranking out frames, I can’t imagine that they’d shut it down and replace it with Xserves, even if the Xserves would make up the time.
That said, we’ll see what happens when they start work on the movie after “The Incredibles”…
It is too bad The Incredibles and Cars will now become Disney properties. The hardest part for Pixar will not be distribution but watching Disney do as they wish with the characters from Pixar’s films. This will surelly affect the talent working in Pixar who have to start from scratch. Oh well, at least by then they could be working on G5s.
I wonder what software Disney will use to make Toy Story 3…
Pixar will be able to distribute their movies throught the Apple’s iflicks movie store…
Sol,
I agree. The thought of Disney releasing crappy straight-to-video films based on Pixar’s characters turns my stomach. Personally, I believe that a partnership with DreamWorks Animation would be quite intriguing.
kickass!! woohoo!!
This happens 2 days after Eisner got $6.25M bonus. Quite a performance, don’t you think? Ironically, the bonus is for the company’s performance which was boosted by Pixar’s performance (Nemo’s box office and Nemo’s DVD). Then, he managed to lose his one of biggest cash cows. It’s time Disney’s board to sack Eisner. The guy doesn’t know how to run a company and can’t spot a talent when one kicks him in the balls.