“Pixar Animation Studios, which produced last summer’s popular ‘Finding Nemo,’ said on Thursday that it was ending talks on continuing its 12-year partnership with the Walt Disney Company and would seek another studio to distribute its films, beginning in 2006,” Laura M. Holson reports for The New York Times.
“Several theories emerged rapidly about why Mr. Jobs, who did not return three phone calls seeking comment, sought to terminate the partnership now. Perhaps, said one of the people involved, Mr. Jobs ‘made the announcement thinking Disney would come back on its knees.’ Wall Street analysts are set to meet with Disney executives in Florida in two weeks, when Mr. Eisner will face tough questions about Disney’s future in animation. Its own films have not had nearly the success of those produced by Pixar and Disney has effectively closed its Florida film animation operations,” Holson reports. “One film executive suggested that Mr. Jobs could now be considered a candidate to run Disney if indeed Mr. Eisner ever left.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have a hard time figuring out how Steve runs both Apple and Pixar now; how’s he going to run Disney on top of those two, especially as running Apple alone, more so than Pixar, is such a monumental task? Perhaps by doing as Ronald Reagan espoused, “Delegate, delegate, delegate!” Or by folding one or more of the companies into another? Get ready for another round of “Disney to buy Apple” rumors.
Steve doesn’t run Pixar, he OWNS Pixar. His stake in the company is 55%. He owns roughly $2Billion worth of Pixar stock, after having bought the company from Lucas for $10Million. Smartest investment ever.
As for Disney’s creative input, the person who stated that will have to provide a link to a story that purports that to be the case. I’ve seen those 2 disk DVDs where they show the creative process behind the movie, and nowhere have I seen Michael Eisner stick his head in the shot!
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Personally, I think this is a lose-lose situation for both, so I suspect that this is just a Jobsian negotiating ploy to pressure Eisner ot cave.
Yes, Pixar needed Disney when they started – people thought CG animation was cold and sterile – now, that’s obviulsy not the case anymore.
The name Disney also means much less now than it ever has. Before it was THE stamp of approval for parents and pre-teens but now, they have the 2-5 audience and the 8-12 year old girls but that’s it!
Nickelodeon and Nick holds the title as the cool animation house.
As for Disney Marketing – YEA, that Teacher’s Pet that opened two weekends ago – what it’s final gross be? Around $8 million? Tarzan? Atlantis? Treasure Planet? Yea, that Disney Mkt powerhouse – just a myth. Movie marketing means PR and spending money – ANYBODY can do that … Mkt get people there the first weekend and if people like it, they will spread the word. MGM is a “brilliant” marketer when it’s a Legally Blonde movie, but suddenly with Legally Blonde II, they lost it? Or is it because it’s a crappy sequel? It doesn’t matter how many toys or tie-ins you have like the HULK, people might go weekend 1 but if it’s no good, doesn’t matter how many partners and the literally hundreds of millions dollars throw at HULK.
Same with the sequels of the movies we know – who went to see Dumb & Dumber the Early Yrs without Jim Carrey – who’s going to see a crappier version of Toy Story without Tom Hanks?
Tom does not need the money and he;s no idiot. Tim Allen might do it for the money but he doesn’t really need it either. John Ratzenberger is not going to tick off Pixar and his future gigs. Still going to see Toy Story 3 – that’s not to say Disney won’t do it but are you going to see the new MASK movie without Jim carrey? But it’s one thing to throw $10 million at a cheapo movie and hope to trick people to show up, it’s another to commit serious movie to a full-scale animated piece – with the layers of depth of all Pixar movies, Disney is also under the microscope – they can’t do cheap animation like Shrek or Ice Age.
Disney can do TV cartoons with them like they did with Toy Story but they would hard pressed to commit 2-3 YEARS and $100+ Millions of dollars for a Pixar sequel without Pixar & the stars.
Pixar does not need Disney. WB (HARRY POTTER/LOTR) and to a lesser extent, Fox can market just as well (Fox did ICE AGE). Univ is tied into DreamWorks. Paramount has Nick and they are cheap. Sony & MGM are last choices.
Part II
Disney needs Pixar – that’s nearly $1 BILLION dollars in gross they can NOT count on when the contract expires – not to mention anchillary revenue in theme parks, DVD’s, TV, etc … Disney does NOT need Pixar if they can find a John Lassiter but right now, wouldn’t Eisner just scare that person away …
Quote from ANIMANIACS – “The studio of Mos Eisner. .
.You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and
villiany. So be careful, we’re going in without an
agent.”
Just another thought.
Eisner is the BMOC at Disney right now, and Roy Disney has stopped being in the mix. Pixar leaving may be the final straw to Eisner’s rule.
NEWSFLASH: Disney will ousts Eisner, and Roy returns as CEO.
Disney could possibly then renegotiate with Pixar. The renegotiation would be that Pixar gains rights to all its previous characters, a 50/50 split on profit, and Disney absorbs the distribution costs instead of Pixar.
Both sides win out, Disney keeps making money and Pixar makes money with the ability to keep making money if ever put to the screws.
BUT thats just another thought.
Well I love Apple and I love the Pixar movies so far. However, the latest teaser re: some moutain sheep character looked pretty lame. The graphics didn’t even look good to my eye compared to what they have done before. So, I hope Pixar isn’t going to blow it by getting overconfident.
The sheep video is a movie short. Like “Tin Toy’, and “Geri’s Game”. A very small crew works on them. They are used to test artistic techniques as well as rendering technologies. “Geri’s Game” was a test bed for advanced cloth rendering which was subsequently used in “Monsters, Inc.” So don’t worry about the low grade graphics, that what we here artists call “stylized”. It’s not a real movie, it’s a cartoon short!
pkradd,
Disney had ZERO creative input in the string of blockbusters. They merely provided the marketing and distribution muscle Pixar so badly needed. The quality of the animation is meaningless without the superb storytelling talent to provide a compelling tale, and Pixar has both. I agree completely with you that the thought of Pixar’s characters in Disney’s hands makes me sick. A gang of ham-fisted chimpanzees with Tourette’s syndrome could turn out better screenplays than Disney has of late.
“That was the dumbest contract to give up the rights to ANY of those movies”
eaxit,
Read Nobody’s post on the matter, it was absolutely spot on: “Had Pixar kept the rights, probably there wouldn’t have been a Toy Story. At the beginning, Pixar was an unproven entity, even after they won an Oscar for short animation. They needed a deal where a studio financed the movie.”
In the beginning Pixar needed Disney far more than Disney needed them, but now the shoe is on the other foot. What you don’t seem to realize also is that Jobs became a legend in Hollywood by wringing a 50-50 profit sharing deal from Michael Eisner, something NO ONE had accomplished before or since. Not bad for a then-unproven company.
Steve Jobs does not “run” Pixar on a day-to-day basis, he makes strategic company level decisions and largely stays out of the content side. John Lassiter and his team ARE Pixar.
NoPCZone: With 55% of Pixar stock in his portfolio, like it or not Jobs is Pixar. Here are a couple of excerpts from Pixar’s 10-Q filed in May ’03:
“Pixar was formed in 1986 when Steve Jobs purchased the computer
division of Lucasfilm and incorporated it as a separate company…”
“Our Chief Executive Officer, Steve Jobs, beneficially owns approximately 56% of our outstanding Common Stock as of March 29, 2003. As a result, Mr. Jobs, acting alone, is able to exercise sole discretion over all matters requiring shareholder approval, including the election of the entire board of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions, including an acquisition of Pixar.”
Steve does not give out this. Period. Extra Double Period.
“Our Chief Executive Officer, Steve Jobs, beneficially owns approximately 56% of our outstanding Common Stock as of March 29, 2003. As a result, Mr. Jobs, acting alone, is able to exercise sole discretion over all matters requiring shareholder approval, including the election of the entire board of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions, including an acquisition of Pixar.”
Well, if Disney bought Pixar and Steve Jobs got the CEO spot at Disney, I can only hope the end result would be better than what has happened to Boeing Aircraft since they bought McDonald Douglas….