“Boosted by a record quarterly and full-year performance, Pixar Animation Studios chief Steve Jobs on Wednesday explained his company’s decision to split with The Walt Disney Co., blasting Disney as weak creatively and unwilling to compromise on a new agreement,” Gary Gentile reports for Associated Press. “In a conference call with analysts to discuss Pixar’s earnings, Jobs took a slap at Disney’s recent animated films.”
“‘The truth is there has been little creative collaboration with Disney for years,’ Jobs said. ‘You can compare the creative quality (of Pixar films) with the creative quality of Disney’s last three films and judge each company’s creative ability yourselves,'” Gentile reports. Jobs criticized Disney’s last two animated efforts, this year’s ‘Brother Bear’ and last year’s ‘Treasure Planet,’ as ‘flops. No amount of marketing will turn a dud into a hit,’ Jobs said,” Gentile reports.
“Jobs said it is unlikely Pixar would ever agree to make a sequel of the five films co-produced by Disney and said he would not want to see Disney exercise its right to make sequels on its own. ‘We feel sick about Disney doing sequels,’ Jobs said. ‘If you look at the quality of their sequels, such as ‘Lion King 1 1/2’ and (the Peter Pan sequel ‘Return to Neverland’), it’s pretty embarrassing,'” Gentile reports.
“Disney called Jobs’ remarks ‘unfortunate. It is unfortunate that Steve Jobs has grossly mischaracterized good faith negotiations to reach agreement on an extension of the present, successful partnership that has been beneficial to shareholders of both Pixar and Disney,’ Zenia Mucha, a Disney spokeswoman, said in a statement. ‘It’s also sad and unfortunate that he has resorted to insults and name-calling in the wake of the disagreement. We expected better of him.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Zenia better hope that Steve doesn’t soon become her boss – unless she likes pink slips.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Film Exec: if Eisner’s out ‘Steve Jobs could now be a candidate to run Disney’ – January 30, 2004
Pixar shares rise, Disney falls after film distribution deal breakup – January 30, 2004
Studios suitors ‘falling all over themselves’ to woo Steve Jobs’ Pixar – January 30, 2004
Pixar dumps Disney; Steve Jobs: ‘we’re moving on’ – January 29, 2004
Disney who? Steve Jobs rides a rocket named Pixar – August 08, 2003
Steve Jobs’ Pixar about to put the hurt on Disney – February 04, 2003
To infinity and beyond!
Go Steve!
I shed no tears for disney.
I worked for them off and on for a few years, and found them to have a vicious and predatory corporate culture.
Good Riddance.
dv
Is it an insult to tell the truth? Even Disney’s PR can’t change the fact that Treasure Planet and Atlantis tanked in the box office.
Pixar could merge with Lego?
Then Apple could do electronic things for Lego.
http://www.lego.com/eng/products/next/
Steve don’t play with Disney.. play with Lego instead.
Right?
You want the truth. You can’t handle the truth….
Disney has really stunk lately. All they seem to put out are crappy sequels to their other movies. I don’t think Disney could put out a really good movie even if they wanted to.
Eisner is the reason, has been, always shall be.
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Well, they sold out my legacy. They have turne a family-oriented business into a mediocrity slinging hack. It’s a shadow of its former self. And the sad part is, they think they are doing good work. But as Steve says, the people are voting with their ticket purchases.
Get a clue Disney! Fire those who have turned my legacy into an insult!
Hehe, CLASSIC Steve! Excellent. Eisner’s probably already sobbing in a corner.
Fsck Disney. Bosko was more popular than Mickey in the early thirties, damn it!
Bosko sucked, I should know!
Hey Fred,
Maybe if you spent a little money on things like better art supplies it might be Bosko’s ass living in Orlando right now, ya cheap f@ck!
Hugh, why are you so angry?
I hate you Rudy…
Yea that’s the Steve that we know. We know Steve is an a-hole but he knows what’s going to sell and he knows how to market it.
I just love how Disney is complaining about Jobs “resorting to insults and name calling” after Eisner predicted Nemo would be a flop (someone should give him an analyst job) and his testimony to congress complaining about Rip, Mix, and Burn.
I totally agree with Jobs on his views of the modern Disney as a film company. IF Disney can’t handle the truth about their current products, thats their problem.
I use to consider them to be one of the finest producers of quality entertainment, but over the last 10 years or so, they have been reduced to a cookie-cutter style schlock house.
The only decent stuff came out of the PIXAR collaborations. The rest of the stuff they put out was complete garbage.
The is and was no “collaboration” between Disney and Pixar. Pixar does all of the creative, Disney just distributes the films. For a little while longer, that is.
Remember the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights on ABC? They used to have Eisner come on and welcome the viewers. What a loser. Disney sells out so much that they can’t even afford character design. Instead, they take Peter Pan and the Lion King and just reanimate them into sequels. I would even bet they use footage from previous movies in the new ones, trying to save money. Sell out losers.
There’s a good web site about Disney’s fall from greatness. In fact, there’s a great three-part article on it now about how Disney could come back.
Read it here:
http://www.jimhillmedia.com/
They have tremendous creative talent that is being oppressed by the “vicious and predatory corporate culture” (As David Vesey put it)
I, for one, am a huge Disney fan and am am more than a little dissappointed that Disney and Pixar can’t come to an agreement. However, I see far more creative potential at Pixar than I do at Disney right now.
Here’s another good site:
http://www.savedisney.com/
Shawn
Katzenberg ran the animation division well, but Eisner didn’t give him the path to higher power so he left to join Dreamworks.
The last thing that Disney did that I liked was “Lilo and Stitch”.
So Disney lacks strong creative leadership in the animation area, and the Pixar thing really puts them in a bad place. They’re not making it, and they’re not distributing it.
Eisner’s stranglehold on power is hurting Disney and his job there. I would expect the board to ask for Eisner’s resignation soon, unless Disney’s numbers are very good.
david vesey
I have the distinct impression that S.J. is trying to dislodge Eisner to cut a better deal with Disney’s next CEO, who will then owe his job partly to Steve. I mean, they had a good collaboration with Disney over the years. It was just that Jobs and Eisner could not close a deal. Without Eisner, talks may resume quickly.
Lion King 1 1/2! Totally. I couldn’t agree more with Steve on that one. The first Lion King was one of the greatest animated features in history (not the most successful thanks to Pixar blowing it out of the water with Finding Nemo). The sequel to the Lion King was total crap. Instead of doing the right thing, they took the spinless-straight-to-video-don’t-scare-the-investors route that led to the Lion King sequel. Whatever happens with Pixar as a result of Jobs giving Eisner the old fsck-you will be golden. Way to go Steve. Can’t wait.
Zenia Mucha? Is that name for real, even sounds like a Disney villain, if a rather moderate, unimaginative and inept one so befitting of their present output in fact. However if for real I can’t believe that anyone would be that stupid about risking their own job, unless she too has plans to quit the good ship Titanic pretty soon, has a death wish, or has simply been set up by more experienced colleagues.