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Pixar Drops Disney To Find a New Studio Partner
da_anarchist writes "After much speculation, Pixar has announced that it will end its distribution agreement with Disney. This comes after much bitterness at Pixar over the terms of their current deal with Disney, where Disney took a sizable (and some would say unfair) portion of the $2.5 billion in revenue generated by Pixar's films. Pixar is best known as the studio behind the Toy Story series and the more recent movie Finding Nemo."
Disney may have been good, long ago, but after the success of Toy Story I don't think Pixar needed Disney for distribution. Worse, I've felt, is a Disney influence on characters in the films, certain attitudes and stereotypes which are pretty tired and one reason Disney's animated offerings don't impress.
Sadly, this will also mean any sequels to the Disney-associated films will be done by Disney, which as I've said, employs some pretty tired ideas about character development. Hopefully the well at Pixar is far from dry and fresh new ideas continue to emerge.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I think it leaves Disney in the crap :)
Pixar at first needed Disney to promote them, but now the tables have turned and its Disney that needed Pixar. The talent and ideas at Pixar are a lot better than anything Disney has produces. All of the latest block-buster releases that have held the Disney name were made by Pixar.
But one thing to note is that this decision will not have an immediate impact. "The Incredibles" due this year and "Cars", expected in 2005, will still be distributed by Disney.
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Pixar hooked up with Disney in 'ancient times.' When Toy Story was still just an idea, nobody had *ever* made a 3D animated feature. Pixar knew they could do it, but they didn't have the marketing muscle. So, They signed a contract with disney to deliver, IIRC, five features. Disney had a sweet ride, but Pixar was never really very happy with the contract. Watch, for example, Brother Bear. Now, go watch any Pixar film. You will notice that there is a lot more interesting, grown up humor in the Pixar movies. This isn't to say that Pixer will strike out and target adult audiences with violent-anime-esque features from now on, or anything, but Pixar is going to have a lot of room to flex its creative muscles, and basically do whatever it wants. Huzzah! I simply can't wait to see what they come up with over the next five years. It ought to be grand.
Disney, meanwhile, decided to scrap all 2D animation recently. They did this because, apparently, they think Pixar's success is because they work in 3D. While this may have had a lot to do with the buzz behind TS1, it just ain't the case. The reason Pixar movies make mad money is because they are good movies. Finding Nemo could have been made with a dull pencil on notebook paper, and those guys still would have made something worth seeing!
The only good things Disney has done lately were the Pixar movies and Fantasia 2000, which was driven mainly by Roy Disney. Now both these creative sources are gone, they are running out of out-of-copyright stories to rip off, and everybody thinks Eisner is an ass. The only think they can do now is churn out cheap marketing-driven shlock; the age of considering Disney as "art" is over. (Incidentally, I've always maintained that Disney and Microsoft had simular business models: "steal other peoples ideas, then jealously guard them as your own.")
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
With _Nemo_, the bar got raised too high for Disney again (although you could argue that Disney didn't do much in the way of making it.) Now that Disney isn't hooked up with Pixar, I hope that the bar is set appropriately for future Disney animation.
Not that I didn't like _Nemo_, I thought it was great, wonderful, funny, my kids loved it and I loved it too. But that's a once-in-a-generation thing; it's great it happened, but we shouldn't let _Nemo_'s success stop us from appreciating good work. If Disney had stuck with Pixar, they'd be afraid to release anything that wasn't going to gross more than _Nemo_; now that they've broken up I hope we can look forward to seeing three or four good animated features a year, with some of them being really original.
Leaving Disney hasn't changed the fact that Pixar still needs a distributor and, perhaps, investors. (Anyone know where I could sign up to invest in Pixar?? :D ) The only difference is that, having proven themselves, they now have free reign and should be able to get much better deals. Still, that doesn't mean they're about to start making R-films.
The big bucks are usually with the G to PG-13 crowd... For a film of a given quality, the broader it's potential audience is the better it's earnings will be. As rare as they may seem, G rated films that are actually good are literal box-office gold. The folks at Pixar now has several such films under their belts.
Here's a question to ponder though... Everybody know's who directed Kill Bill. Everybody and their freaking dog knows who directed the LOTR trilogy. How many of you honestly know who directed "Finding Nemo" and don't have to look it up on IMDB? Be honest now!
Man, I really feel sorry for that guy.
I wouldn't consider Pixar's stuff to date "watered down."
In fact, I think they've done a great job of making films that entertain adults as well as kids.
It would be interesting to see them take on other projects, though.
Eisner is a total idiot for letting Pixar go. They were practically stealing from Pixar getting 1/2 the profits plus a distribution fee. Mr. "Mickey Mouse" CEO has now fully gutted the Disney animation legacy. All the talent has either been laid off or fled to Dreamworks and Pixar. What a darn shame. I mean Treasure Island vs. Shrek & Finding Nemo? Total disaster.
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I agree with what you said about CG and traditional animation. And once again the people who run a large corp (Disney) misdiagnose their illness. They switch their designers to CG because "That's what's selling these days", never realising that many of their recent animated films aren't great. It's not the animation, it's the story lines.
The Toy Story films would have been just as good if they were done with traditional animation.
My Prediction: Disney continues to flounder because Eisner's more interested in having a media conglomeration than making good films, and in 15 to 20 years some small studio will start making hand drawn animated features and they will become popular again.
That movie rocked. The david spade character was great, and the traditional art styles used in the characters and setting was impressive. It had a very good message about the pointlessness of materialism and the songs were actually cool for a disney flick.
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Roy keeps the Disney flame alive once again. He quit over the liquidation of feature animation in Florida. He told it like it is. Disney has fallen so far away from it's core values (making excellent animated features, and then marketing them in it's parks) that he felt Eisner should leave.
Eisner and the other souless robots on the board countered by justifying Pixar and digital animation shopped out to other studios as the future.
Guess what? Pixar is gone, at best, Disney can only do cheesy straight-to-video sequels from now on. They have no decent feature animation left to speak of. It's all regurtitation of old ideas from here on out.
Roy will be back in about a year, when Disney's stock drops by $5. That should be enough to bring Roy back just like last time he did this. Eisner is a dead man walking. Perhaps Disney will be able to right the ship after he's gone. No more Mighty Ducks, Haunted Mansion, or Miracle movies unless they actually release actual animated flicks.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
That "other animation house" is PDI. You know, they made a little movie called Shrek...
I'll take Shrek over "Finding Nemo" any day (not that I didn't love "Finding Nemo"). I'm not saying one house is better than the other, but PDI is real competition for Pixar, and thank goodness for competition if they keep putting out movies like Shrek and Finding Nemo!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Have the talent bitch and moan about terms of original deal
Pixar is not bitching and moaning about the original deal, (three movies) which they actually extended (to five movies). They are just declining to enter a new deal.
"All of the latest block-buster releases that have held the Disney name were made by Pixar."
:P
Pirates of the Caribbean was made by Pixar? huh. Learn something new every day.
I think people tend to forget Disney has it's fingers in a helluva lot more than animation. Pixar is a great asset, but they won't be dead without it (unfortunately).
The hardware and programs are well within the reach of a multi-billion dollar corporation.
What makes pixar great is not the animation but the storytelling talent.
I'm just curious as to how much Disney was actually "involved" in the making of their films at pixar...
Were the movies written at disney and animated at Pixar, or is the whole thing done at Pixar (and Disney takes care of the marketing)?
I just wonder, because, while Pixar does indeed produce some of the highest quality animation in the world, it's the story and the creativity which make the movie (anyone remember the Final Fantasy movie? blah).
That being said, I wish all of Pixar the best of luck, and hope their last two Disney films are as great as the last few. (It would be tragic if disney significantly cut funding to pixar for these films as a result of this announcement).
That also being said, I want to wish Roy Disney the best of luck in his quest to bring the company back to the way it used to be.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Being the undisputed cartoon motion picture producers have certainly bloated their ego, but done nothing for their movies. Take any 5 Disney movies of the last 10 years and I guarantee they each have the mandatory criteria/characters:
1. The comedic relief
2. The love interest
3. The complacent good natured affable hero
4. The easily-identifiable bad guy (always in black and smoking something)
4. The up-beat music song
5. The slow-dance music song
6. The Billboard song
7. The humorous evil sidekicks.
Put 'em all in a bag, add some celebrity voices, and presto-chango, we've got ourselves another cliche by-the-book Disney flick.
Now take a Pixar movie, not quite such an easy formula? AND NO STUPID SONGS. I hope they mop the flour with Disney.
PS. I must say though The Gummi Bears cartoon series was awesome.
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I think Steve Jobs' decision to sever Pixar's relationship with Disney maybe the final straw that will force Michael Eisner out of running the Walt Disney Company.
This turn of events is not surprising, given that Roy E. Disney is a close friend of Jobs. I believe that Jobs did this out of his friendship with Roy E. Disney.
Given what has happened with Disney's 2-D animation department lately in addition to losing Pixar, I would not be surprised that we will see a shareholder revolt that forces Eisner and his cronies from the Disney Board of Directors. In Eisner's place, Roy E. Disney becomes the new head of the Board of Directors, and Steve Jobs will be offered (and accepts!) a Disney Board of Directors position.
Yeah isn't it funny how all of the "great" Disney movies were nothing more than remakes of old stories, legends, etc that are in the public domain, and yet they are fighting tooth and nail to prevent their own works from ever going into the public domain?
It's true that Disney used well-known stories from the public domain to build their empire, but it also means that they can't stop 2-bit animation houses from slapping together their own versions of Aladdin, Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, et. al. Disney spends a tremendous amount of money to build each brand they create, and they are powerless to keep others from diluting that brand.
The value of Pixar is that they are creating entirely NEW and popular brands that cannot be appropriated by others. Disney's own efforts to use public domain stories lately has done a big belly flop ("Treasure Planet"), and their attempts to create new brands haven't done too well, either ("Brother Bear," "Teacher's Pet"). Sadly, Eisner doesn't realize how badly he needs Pixar--or, maybe he does, and it scares him to be that reliant on another company.
Not sure whether it'd work. I don't entirely understand the business world, but with Disney working with Square-Enix on the Kingdom hearts games, wouldn't it run the risk of Disney leaning rather hard against them teaming up with Pixar?
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What iTunes seems to be doing now is getting people to use it. The fact that the record companies are taking the money now from selling on iTunes is not necessarily relelvant to the long term.