“John Lasseter, the creative chief of Pixar Animation Studios, has wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar’s takeover by Walt Disney – by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films,” Jason Nissé reports for The Independent.
“The original Toy Story, completed in 1995, was the first major collaboration between Pixar and Disney. The highly lucrative partnership went on to produce the hits Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles,” Nissé reports. Disney’s desired to keep the Toy Story franchise running with a third and forth movie, without Pixar’s input, as the deal between Disney and Pixar allowed. “Mr Lasseter was deeply opposed to the idea but Disney went ahead, as it owns the intellectual property, putting 100 scriptwriters, animators and other creative staff to work on Toy Story 3 at its own Walt Disney Studios animation complex in Burbank, California… [the new] Disney-Pixar deal gives Mr Lasseter creative control over all of the two studios’ animated film output, while still maintaining Pixar’s independence.”
“On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Mr Jobs and Disney’s new chief executive, Bob Iger, unveiled the merger, Mr Lasseter went to Burbank with Pixar’s president, Ed Catmull. He announced that Toy Story 3 would now be scrapped, without a word about the fate of the animation team,” Nissé reports.
Full article here.
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Related article:
It’s official: Disney acquires Pixar for $7.4 billion, Steve Jobs joins Disney Board of Directors – January 24, 2006
There will eventually be a Toy Story 3 – it will just be John Lasseter´s version.
It was axed because it so was an all Disney production – no one from the original Toy Story team had any say in it.
I think that when the Pixar guys saw that David Hasselhof (Knight Rider) and the Olsen Twins were singing the theme song and Bill Clinton was doing a cameo 3D role (putting the moves on Little Bo Peep and the Dinosaur), plus the Disney script had a couple of sections of flashbacks with Roger Rabbit as Batman vs. a gay King Kong vs. the cast of “Friends” and “Desparate Housewives” (all rendered in 3D) they knew they had to ax this Toy Story.
I dunno what this has to do with MDN. So what? So Lasseter asserts his authority? That’s what he’s supposed to do. So the team working on the script may be screwed… again: so what? What next: a discussion about Pocopechas?
This talk about reverse takeover is so off. Iger paid those 7 billion bucks to get Lasseter. Of course, he knew what that entailed, Lasseter and SJ have never been shy to speak their mind. Iger wants Lasseter to clean out the muck.
All the creative staff will soon learn the excitement of creating something new and innovative. With the added man/womanpower, Pixney will produce original movies at a higher rate. If I worked at Disney animation, I’d be happy to be pulled from producing made-for-DVD sequels.
When are we going to see a movie of Thundercats ??!?!
A third Toy Story could have been good but with Disney’s animation department? That’s like Apple reveling Mac OS X Leopard will be based on Windows (ok, a bit harsh but you get what I mean, right?).
Let’s keep the news relating to Apple MDN.
Why don’t you just register pixardailynews.com or disneydailynews.com and post this information there?
Don’t post this junk here.
While I’m glad to hear Lasseter put the smackdown on Disney’s mediocrity, I agree that this forum needs to be careful not to turn into PixarDailyNews.com…
peee!!!!
Whoooho! Kick some Disney ass Lasseter! Good decision. APPLAUSE!
Disney will take ANY fantastic original idea and run it into the ground shamelessly to milk every last cent out of it with total disgreguard for quality of output.
Former Disney philosophy: It’s easier to keep watering many, many classic movies down to mindless dribble–“fast-food” style productions based on the same burger. Disney’s survived the last decadees by collecting pennies here and there from the low-end DVD sales of spin-offs that keep 3 and 4 year olds entertained (same characters, brainless story). Less effort than to start from scratch, work hard to think of something ORIGINAL again and write a WHOLE NEW CREATIVE CONCEPT (GASP!) that wows the world anew and brings in millions of fresh dollars.
Disney says: What? Yawn! Too much like work–besides we haven’t completed the 63rd version of Winnie the Pooh getting stuck in another windstorm, this time in a rainforest with a chimp. Or Herbie version 73 races agains dirt-bikes with Menudo!
This place isn’t in danger of being Pixardailynews, it’s more like stevejobsandvaguaelystevejobsrelatednews.com
Okay you guys complaining about what in the hell does this story have to do with Apple?
You see the Steve is a big honcho at Apple because of his cashing in his Pixar stock.
So with Stevisney over there and its part of a company that is a board member then through MDN´s logic this has something to do with daily news regarding Macs.
Just think we will now be getting all the latest Disney news here at MDN because of Stevisney´s connection.
Coming up on MDN stories on:
– “Toilet paper shortage reported at Disneyworld.”
– “The little eskimo in It´s Small World fun ride loses his nose from old age.”
– “Bambi II” – the review by MDN
– “Brittany Spears – ex Micky Mouse TV fan club star: where is she now?”
“Geez, I hope he at least took a look at the work done thus far (script, animation quality, storyline, etc.). That seems a bit harsh if he didn’t.”
My guess is that’s WHY he axed it. If Pixar had NO creative input into the film, and it sucked, there’s no fixing it unless you start at the beginning. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a TS3 at some point but my guess is it isn’t time for it and they have their own ideas what it should be about.
“I dunno what this has to do with MDN. So what? So Lasseter asserts his authority? That’s what he’s supposed to do. So the team working on the script may be screwed… again: so what? What next: a discussion about Pocopechas?”
You always have the option of not clicking on a link. What is it that much for you to bear that it took .072 seconds to read one headline that wasn’t 100% Apple related? You’d think they posted a story here about cooking or dogs or something. Get over it. Move on.
Fourth, not forth.
Reginald: You have a valid point about profits, etc., but some of the examples you use are poor. Many of them are adaptations of books or master story lines that could not possibly be condensed into a single movie. Everyone knew from the start that there would be sequels (or, more accurately, a complete series); there is simply no other way to do it.
I wonder if he’ll kill “Bambi 2″…
Pixar news is important as it speaks to the convergence that is happening within media and the IT industry. Apple, quite obviously is positioning itself so as to increase their leverage and power through the marriage of their expertise with the behemoth that is Disney. To take the fight back to Microshit, Apple needs to be more than just a niche player. They did it with the iPod, they need to do now with the Mac. Its my sense that this deal with Disney is yet another move in that plan. Remember, Jobs has had a largely hands-off approach with Pixar. His orientation has always been with his core interest – Apple.
Remember all those that whinged about iPod news. Now look at what the iPod has brought – the seemless integration of software(iTunes), technology(iPod) and sales (iTMS). This tight integration of the whole experience has carried over into the even tighter integration of all iLife apps. There are similarities within the pro line of apps too.
So c’mon, sure Pixar news maybe the stuff of page 3, but dont kid yourselves – it is still important. This Pixar deal signposts the direction where we might be headed (at least in part).
I’m with Wally Wallet, there probably will be a Toy Story 3 one day, only a pixar version. Although really, Andy has got to be in at least Junior High school right now. Could he still be playing with that cowboy toy? It’s either Toy Story 3 the ashcan or Toy Story 3, ebay.
All Steve touches affects Apple. Some of us WANT to know.
The MDN headlines tell you what is being discussed in a link. If you aren’t interested in Pixar news, don’t click on the link. It’s that simple.
Reginald said, “Why do you think we have the Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Star Wars Episodes 1,2,3,4,5, & 6, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Spiderman, X-Men, Batman, Super Man, Hell Raiser, Miss Congeniality, Big Mammas House, Under World, etc…”
I don’t disagree with you but some of these examples are really not applicable. Lord of the Rings was never written to be a movie, and condensing into one movie would have been terrible.
Star Wars was written to be a series of movies but George Lucas saw the big picture first, he didn’t rush to come out with the rest of it after the first was successful. In fact, he said that after he finished the first movie but before it was released, that he didn’t think he’d ever have a chance to tell the whole story.
The Harry Potter series was written to be turned into movies either. JK Rowling only allowed them to become movies after the studio granted her the right to complete creative control. That was brilliant on her part because they’ve stayed very true to the books.
As for the Chronicles of Narnia, I haven’t seen it yet, but I must admit that my first thought when I heard they were going to make a new series of movies from it was that they were trying to cash in on some of what Harry Potter had created.
The other examples you cited I agree with, but the ones I listed above were done for the same reason Pixar did TS2, they had a good idea for another story. That’s something Disney lost a long time ago, and the reason that acquiring Pixar is probably going to be a good thing for the company.
Sorry, that should have read, “The Harry Potter series wasn’t written to be turned into movies either.”
Change it to SteveDailyNews. End of problem.
Moral: Don’t play global thermonuclear war with Steve Jobs.
“Why do you think we have the Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Star Wars Episodes 1,2,3,4,5, & 6, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Spiderman, X-Men, Batman, Super Man, Hell Raiser, Miss Congeniality, Big Mammas House, Under World, etc…”
Well, I would disagree in some of the above cases.
Lord of the Rings was at least three books. As was said above, trying to condense them down to one 2-3 hour movie would have been next to impossible. It’d been tried (Anybody else remember Ralph Bakshi’s attempt?)
“Superhero” movies, I can easily forgive. Much like James Bond, these are designed to be serialized.
“Chronicles of Narnia” is one movie. There are no sequels (yet). It’s been years since I read “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and I don’t remember if there are other books.
Miss Congeniality and Big Mama’s House, though? Definitely! Add in Barbershop II, Princess Diaries 2, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.