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."

Comments

Adios, Disney

[ackthpt]

I've always felt rather 'ugh' about Pixar's association with Disney and feel this is a good move.

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.

Re:Adios, Disney

[jobugeek]

I'm not sure I agree with you. Having the Disney name on it means it automatically becomes a must see for a lot of kids(people). Granted the well-made movie helped it, but don't underestimate the value of the Disney name

Re:Adios, Disney

[jeffkjo1]

The Disney name is important, but I think you've seen a marked decline in the quality of Disney films the past several years, and it has hurt their bottom line. Disney is in a position that IBM found itself in years ago, and Coca-Cola found itself in when Pepsi came on the market.

How to respond to competition. Disney used ot be the only game in town when it came to animated features, and that just isn't the case anymore. They're definitely hurting.

It's gotta be bad there for Roy Disney to just pack up his bags and leave.

Re:Adios, Disney

[afidel]

Actually most people I know are more impressed by seeing the name Pixar on a film than seeing that Disney is distributing it. All Pixar has to do to get people in door is say "From the makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo" and it will be an automatic must see for people with kids in their target age bracket. Hell I would probably own their films even if I didn't have a three year old.

Re:Adios, Disney

[furiousgeorge]

"Having the Disney name on it means it automatically becomes a must see for a lot of kids(people)."

You mean like "Atlantis" or "Emperors New Groove" or "Dinosaur" or "Treasure Planet" (biggest flop of the last 10 years). Lilo & Stitch was a moderate success, and the first real one they've had in 10 years.

Disney was must-see 50 years ago (their hayday) or 15 years ago (Lion King, Beauty & The Beast etc). Now they are only producing steaming piles of shite and don't have a new idea among them.

I mean - Cinderella2? PeterPan2 LionKing2 Aladdin2&3.

For christs sakes.

Re:Adios, Disney

[edsel]

One thing that distinguishes Pixar from Disney is the originality of Pixar's story-lines. John Lassiter is at least as creative as ol' Walt was in his hay-day.
I find it sadly ironic that Disney was one of the studios pushing congress to extend copyright protection ("The Mickey Mouse Protection Act") while nearly all of their films used material plundered from the public domain. Hans Christian Anderson, Bros. Grimm., Dafoe, etc....
Toy Story and Finding Nemo are among the very few Disney offerings that aren't blatant rip-offs of off-copyright "classics". And Disney didn't produce them.

Re:Adios, Disney

[DAldredge]

That doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

You let her be exposed to Disney so she will buy their crap, but you don't let he watch a show that helps her learn.

Great parenting!!! Start saving now for her bail.

Re:Adios, Disney

[Tassach]

I think that now, given Pixar's past successes, they've become a must-see brand name on their own merit. They don't need Disney any more; hell, in 5 years Pixar may very be distributing Disney's films. Disney is fast becoming the *dis*enchanted kingdom, devoted to squeezing the last drop of profit out of it's past glories. Whatever goodwill the Disney name might have commanded in the past is rapidly evaporating.

Re:Adios, Disney

[gmhowell]

Finding Nemo was/is Pixar. The only thing it has to do with Disney is distribution.

Re:Adios, Disney

[Tassach]

Hopefully Jobs et all didn't give up the whole farm

I think Steve Jobs is a whole hell of a lot smarter than Michael Eisner. Jobs & crew knew exactly what they were doing when they climbed into bed with The Mouse. They used Disney's marketing machine to build their own brand name. Now they don't need Disney anymore -- now Disney needs Pixar a whole lot more than Pixar needs Disney.

Re:Adios, Disney

[DAldredge]

This isn't my logic. My logic is that a parent who would rather their child watch DISNEY and BANS BARNEY isn't concerned about their child. They just do not want to be annoyed by Barney and if something as simple as Barney bothers them that much they have next to no hope of dealing with larger problems that involve their child in the future.

It's just a 30 minute TV show!

Re:Adios, Disney

[chez69]

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?

But thats a whole nother' thread...

Anyways, I'm sure one could easily argue that sometimes people benafit from pirating. I'm sure if college kids didn't rampantly pirate MS Office and Windows, Microsoft wouldn't have the market share that it currently does, and these same kids wouldn't be "locked" into Office and other such software as adults.

Heck, in college I had a cracked version of Warcraft II that I played all the time. I loved that game so much what did I do later on? I bought StarCraft and WarCraft III.

Re:So where does this leave Disney?

[a.koepke]

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.

Been Waitin' Fer This!

[forkazoo]

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!

Blame Eisner!

[El]

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.")

A good thing for all involved (and us too!)

[shoppa]

After _Lion King_, everyone expected every Disney animated feature to rake in cash at the box office. If you look at the reviews from the past few years, all the animation fans dissed Disney each time they came up with a solid film that didn't go straight to #1. It took Disney a while for them to get back on track making good consistent stuff. (In the past couple years, I put _Lilo and Stitch_ and _Brother Bear_ as really good stuff. _Treasure Planet_ was good too even though it didn't get nearly as much attention as it should have.)

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.

Eisner is an Idiot!

[firstadopter.com]

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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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Roy Disney was right!

[Teahouse]

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.

Re:Dreamworks/Pixar?

[gfxguy]

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!

Re:Typical

[overunderunderdone]

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.

Re:So where does this leave Disney?

[ziggles]

"All of the latest block-buster releases that have held the Disney name were made by Pixar."

Pirates of the Caribbean was made by Pixar? huh. Learn something new every day. :P

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).

Re:The sadly anonymous director of Finding Nemo.

[Jotham]

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!

I admit I had no idea (the answer is Andrew Stanton(story) & Lee Unkrich but I had to look it up)-- but poll a crowd of people and the answer will be 'Pixar'... not the director but that answer will still win.

How many people know (and care) who the distributor for Kill Bill is?

The names Pixar and Tarantino respectively draw the audiences and get the pay dirt - so they hold the power - the rest are all become negotiable contracts.

Disney needs the competition

[Killswitch1968]

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.

Eisner could be gone by March 2004!

[MtViewGuy]

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.