“Pixar Animation Studios, creator of ‘The Incredibles,’ and The Walt Disney Co. are rumored to be on the verge of a deal — either a new distribution pact between the longtime partners or the possible sale of Pixar to Disney,” Adrienne Sanders reports for The San Francisco Business Times. “According to the Los Angeles Times, two sources close to the deal said ongoing talks have been turning to Disney acquiring all or part of Emeryville-based Pixar. In that case, Jobs, also CEO of Apple Computer, would become a major Disney shareholder and possibly the company’s chairman. Disney and Pixar have no official comment.”
“Analysts are questioning whether a full acquisition of Pixar would be a good move, even for a media conglomerate the size of Disney. Pixar’s market value is nearly $7 billion and Disney would likely pay a premium for the company,” Sanders reports. “Some analysts have speculated that selling Pixar would allow Jobs to focus on running Apple Computer Inc., which is enjoying the popularity of its iPod products. But others doubt that Jobs would be willing to sell off even part of Pixar, which he bought in 1986 from George Lucas for $10 million. Jobs and Pixar’s creative director, John Lasseter, a former Disney animator, established a independent and creative culture that draws in artists from around the world.”
Full article here.
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It’s a distribution deal. Nothing more, nothing less.
Jobs is doing a great “job.” If cars is a success, stock will go ^.
Buying would be bad. If Steve calls me today, I’ll have to advise against it…
macnut222: It’s a distribution deal. Nothing more, nothing less.
And you know this, how?
Disney culture would kill Pixar.
Disney must really worried about the end of their Pixar partnership after “Cars.” I predict a long-term distribution deal.
Wow! $10 mill to $7 billion. That is some staggering growth!
No way would they buy Pixar – Steve would demand a seat on the board of directors or some other post and nobody at Disney wants his “Royal Highness” there.
Steve is trying to figure out a way to secure exclusivity to Disney´s catalog of videos and tv shows for his iPods. If he sells Pixar his clout is gone. (If Pixar ever brings out a dud film, his clout is also gone.)
“And this is Mac news HOW???”
There, I said it, so the people who actually have that kind of tunnel vision don’t have to take the time to do so as well.
IMO it’ll just be sewing up a long-term distrubution deal. But who knows??
Disney lost its creativity back in the days with Alladin, Pocahantis (however its spelled), Lion King, or somewhere around there. They haven’t made anything great for the last 30 years; now they want to infect a great company w/ the disease that plagues them. A sale of Pixar to Disney would be a bad idea. It will make a lot of suits’ pockets fatter but I think such a deal would dilute Pixar.
Cars is going to be the first Pixar bomb.
I cannot imagine steve would do this. It really would be the end of Pixar as we now it. Disney would corrupt the creative culture of Pixar and it would sound the end of the string of hits that Pixar enjoys.
Once you get the bean counters and marketing people in control of the creative process, it’s all over.
“Cars is going to be the first Pixar bomb.”
Yeah that’s what I thought about the Incresdibles too when I first saw it. As it turns out, it’s my favorite Pixar film.
It’s easy to sit back and predict the NEXT thing is going to suck. People ahve been doing that about Apple for years.
I predict, Mac Bill, you are wrong. If anything this film brings out all the car fanatics and ends up being the biggest Pixar film.
This makes sense if SJ wants to become the king of the new media-via-IP content distribution model we seem to be moving towards. If disney buys Pixar, and in so doing, gives SJ significant leverage within Disney, then he has a huge cache of content he can distribute via iTunes, iFlix, iWhatever. And, possibly, it means an exclusive partnership between Disney and Apple (total speculation on my part).
But, having said that, I’d hope that he wouldn’t take his eye off of Apple as a hardware/software company. He seems to be the only one who can make the company what it should be.
Cars is gonna Rock… GO Steve… be the vision… kick Disney’s Ass and Micro$uck
Is Mac Bill really Bill Palmer?
Inquiring minds want to know.
“And one more thing…”
MDN word: “consider” SJ selling part of Pixar to Disney, and then concentrating all of his efforts on increasing the Macs market share in what will be an Intel world…?
If Disney buys Pixar, which is hard to believe, it’ll end up in a reverse takeover like when Apple bought NeXT. I find it hard to believe though. Pixar is Steve’s favorite hobby. Disney sound like a real job.
“In that case, Jobs, also CEO of Apple Computer, would become a major Disney shareholder and possibly the company’s chairman.”
Maybe Steve is just what Disney needs to revitalize the company. Sometimes, when A buys B, doesn’t necessarily mean that A is ABSORBING B. It could very well be the other way around. Look at the Apple/NeXT deal.
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MW: old. Disney buying Pixar is such old “news”.
The deal depends on just how well SJ has been getting on with Robert Iger.
If they turn out to be soul mates it could be the big deal and the makings of a fantastic future for Disney.
Let us not forget that Pixar owns the Toy Story franchise too. In fact, there’s plenty of sequel potential in every one of Pixars creations.
SJ, you’re looookinngg gooooood!
I predict distribution deal, SJ gets a board seat at Dis (if he’d even want it) and iTMS gets more content which is a win-win-win deal for everyone.
Hardware Prediction: MiniCluster PowerMac Systems consisting of 5-networked quad machines (1 master & 4 slaves), a sizzling mountain of processing power for 3-D, filmwork and video. Just line the machines up, plug them together (similar to making network connections), install the software on the Master machine, and voila, monster realtime 4K film production capability. That would sell a lot of Powermacs!
Sell Pixar and Jobs’ loses his clout with Hollywood and by extension the music industry…
big1 – Actually, a major sticking point so far has been that Disney owns the Toy Story franchise, and all of Pixar’s other characters, due to the original (and then re-negotiated) contract. This is what is allowing Disney to produce Toy Story 3 if they wish, independently of Pixar. I suspect that one of the things that Pixar really, really wants is to gain those rights to the characters they created back.
yeah sure, like all the stories about sony buying apple over the years–all of it planted by sony no doubt.
why would pixar be sold? no reason at all, disney needs pixar more than other way around. likely disney platyed rumors or osme such.
” In that case, Jobs, also CEO of Apple Computer, would become a major Disney shareholder and possibly the company’s chairman.”
Holy mouse poop!
Should have bought stock in Pixar when I bought the Apple stock.
I can’t wait to see the Cars movie. I’ve always chuckled at the Cheveron(? if that’s the brand?) ads with the talking car animations.