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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."
Either way, go Pixar!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
I don't believe they will have a hard time finding a new partner, I think that what they did was the best stuff disney has done in a long time. So What does disney have up its sleves now? I seems that the upper management are making poor decisions(something had to prompt Walt's son to leave), marketing is making poor decisions(disposable dvd's), they are shutting down animation studios left and right. What is thier current future focus?
They have to do something to pay for Eisners new Bel Air Home thats just down the street from his current one.
moo.
Yup! Dismay, as a company, really, really sucks.
Help Save Disney from Eisner, who has turned the company from setting trends to following the current trend of the time. He fires the animators who have made the company great simply because it will increase their short term profit. They have completely abandoned the principles Walt Disney used in running the company. If you own Disney shares, support Roy Disney, the surviving member of the Disney family.
I have always admired his direction.
He is pretty hands off with respect to the artists from my understanding. Just creates an environment for great art to thrive.
Bravo Pixar!
"They say travel broadens the mind, so I went over the falls in a barrel." -Thomas Dolby
I'm a father of two great kids and a part-time Linux geek to boot. Pixar's films have given myself and both of my children hours of enjoyment - the youngest (2 3/4) is in love with Woody and Buzz, found Bruce the shark a frightening (and probably life changing!) image at the cinema, thought Mike and Sully were as cute as teddy bears, and literally danced on the spot when A Bugs Life kicked into life on our DVD player... all I have to say to the guys at Pixar is a huge THANK YOU for making my childrens lives so the much happier for the hours they have enjoyed your films :)
...and fsck Disney!
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
I know, I know...too flaky, mod away. =)
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Disney is with Nike on the list of companies that I won't have anything to do with. But now I'll be able to watch Pixar's new movies. http://www.google.com/search?q=disney+sweatshops
bits and peace
Nicholas Daley
Actually I'm quite glad. In my opinion, the only thing keeping Disney's (animated) movie quality afloat was Pixar's stunning contributions.
Disney seems to be playing the role of the archaic ruler here, desperately trying to advance to the next level (abandoning 2d animation department in favor of their own 3d department), but missing the entire point.. It isn't 2d animation that's the problem; it's the quality of the storyline, plot, characters, and overall tone of the last crop of 2d Disney movies. 2d offers a lot of stylistic options that 3d, in this case, hasn't quite been able to emulate. As sad as it is to see 2d's death in Disney, I'm quite glad that pixar is going solo. Disney needs to learn that it is the both the quality of the work and the execution that is driving Pixar's success, and not just eye candy.
Hmm, Pixar does all the work, Disney gets the copyrights. I guess this might have been beneficial years ago when nobody knew who Pixar was, but these days they've made a big enough name for themselves that they don't need to be exploited by a megacorp to be noticed. In fact, Pixar has been responsible for the only good stuff coming out of Disney in the past few years.
Bad news for Disney. I for one won't miss 'em.
But will they be able to say From the makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo or does Disney have a clause stating they don't have the rights to those title?
What, me worry?
I'm sorry, but I side on Eisner on this one. People on /. love to hit on Disney but, frankly I've been pretty happy with what disney has done:
1. Sat morning-esque cartoons - Much better IMO than the competition (FOX, etc). Kim Possible (I hate to admit it, although the art looks a lot like penny arcade), Proud Family, etc are actually funny while kid centered.
2. Feature films. Like Pirates of the C. and Freaky Friday (surprisingly good as well). A few other flops, but they are trying.
3. They distributed pixar. I realize it was the creative genious of someone else, but that is the way *all* big studios work. Pixar was theirs to keep and they shouldn't have let them go.
4. Anime. Say what you will about burying studio ghibli films. They bought them and brought them to the US and played a big part in popularizing anime to the general public.
5. Other things. Like Broadway musicals. Bringing back sunday night disney movies. etc
That is a lot better in my opinion than Disney has been since its golden age. There are few things disney puts out that are *worse* than watching another episode of pokemon.
-Sean
How can Disney (or anyone) have "rights" to a fact? It's a _fact_ that Pixar made those movies... Kind of like saying, "this is a post on slashdot".
A number of people have criticized Atlantis as a swipe from Nadia, which was directed by Hideaki Anno (later famous for Evangelion) and based on an original concept by Miyazaki. I'm not sure if the criticism is entirely fair- I've seen Nadia but not Atlantis- but it has been made. In both cases, Disney has claimed with a straight face not to have been familiar with the Japanese work they were alleged to have been stealing from. That seems especially hard to believe in the case of Jungle Emperor Leo, since the first animated version was partially US financed and shown on American TV as Kimba the White Lion.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Anyone know if Dreamworks has a good inhouse distrobution channel, or if they use someone else?
Dreamworks has the only other animation house out there worth its salt. Imagine if these two joined up?
Except that Disney has a trademark on Toy Story as it relates to " prerecorded audio cassettes, compact discs, and laser video discs featuring music, stories, activities and other such educational and entertainment topics for children; prerecorded video cassettes featuring animated entertainment; computer software featuring music, stories, activities and other such educational and entertainment topics for children; motion picture films featuring animated entertainment."
They also hold it for lunch boxes, toys, etc.
They have around 20 trademarks for Finding Nemo.
I really think that beginning of the shit anmations by Dinsney started with Little Mermade.
I reall think really old disney animations were truely great. Black & White Mickey Mouse were the greatest amonst others..like Snow White, 101 Dalmation, etc. I really pity today's art industry where really talented people go by unheard... and I see many mediocre talented sweet talking corporate type guys in the helm of studios(I mean art director & etc etc). I also know many new generations of student who graduated from art college with no drawing skills....they may be able to manipulate 3d tools, but I really think that pen & pencil is the bread and milk of art creation. I have seen way too many computer graphics artists who can't draw shit using pen & sketchbook! I wonder how they managed to wing art classes where drawing / painting were necessary!
Oktokie
PS: Oh... I also hate those stupid loud mouth clumsy side kicks Dinsney keeps putting into their inferior animations. Not to mention all those songs by some celebraty musicians. In old times, music & singing used to be put into just right moment(can you spell magic?) with good story line. I have a feeling that today's Disney animations are done in backward.
1) First They sign a contract with celebrated singer.
2) Make up stories so they can put music/singing stuffed into animation.
3) It takes x3 tiems longer to draw characters on computer due to artist's lack of drawing talents(Um...he cannot draw without computer's aid).
4) copy & paste one and only drawing around. No wonder characters are less detailed than what it used to be in old days. Um..sometimes, characters look like icons on the desktop(no detail at all).
5) more copy & paste.
6) make multiple plots.
7) invite idiots to bring their kids to the studio and show them multiple ending/story and have them choose the story/ending.
8)
9)
10) Steal 70% of 2.5billion $$$ from pixar
11)
12)
13)
14)
15) Profit!
Man...I miss black & white mickey mouse! They were awesome!
Pixar knew they could do it, but they didn't have the marketing muscle.
This is BS. The Toy story porject was floundering after three years in production and not getting any closer to a decent product. The problem was that pixar focused on the animation and ignored the script.
Disney sent a bunch of professionals who threw away well over half of the rendered images and rewrote the script.
This was something of a bastard stepchild at the Disney studios. It started out following the standard Disney formula but took a different turn somewhere along the road and became something extremely enjoyable. I think it flopped because Disney plumb didn't know what to do with it, and they were already pouring all their resources into promoting Treasure Planet (ugh) which came out around the same time.
Think an hour-and-a-half of classic Loony Toons, and that's pretty much The Emperor's New Groove.
And the brethren went away edified.
What really made "The Emperor's New Groove" for me was the "kronk" character who the voice was Patrick Warburton. If it weren't for him the movie woulda' been completely boring to me. It really took me being forced by the kids to watch it two or three times in the period of a month or two to actually enjoy it though.
When Pixar started off, they had no experience with distributing their work and marketing. So that's when they decided to collobarate with Disney. Disney being the giant that it was then, obviously had the better cut of the deal. The deal was to make 6 films. Pixar has done Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo. That's 5 movies they've done for Disney and by rightly, it would've been 1 more film and the contract would've been over. But why is Pixar making 2 more films for Disney (The Incredibles & Cars)? Well, Disney argued back that Toy Story 2 is a sequel. They twisted Pixar's arm on that, and that's why Pixar isn't doing anymore sequels, they've practically done Toy Story 2 for free! Frankly, I'd say good riddance to Disney! Pixar's build a name for themselves and they are well loved by audiences of all ages. I don't think anyone else could have pulled off a story about fishes in the way Pixar has done. The originality and creativity of Pixar is seemingly boundless. Good job to Pixar for ditching Disney and I wish them all the best!
Disney owns all the rights to the characters in Toy Story, so Toy Story 3 is not something Pixar can do outside of Disney even if they wanted to. However, Pixar owns the rights to all of the new characters in Toy Story 2, so either a Disney TS3 wouldn't have those characters, or TS3 just won't exist at all.
Rumor is that the timing of this announcement is purposeful in the efforts to get Michael Eisner outed in favor of Roy Disney. Steve Jobs is a pawn to that, as goes the theory.
Schnapple
Emperor's New Groove turned out better than I was expecting, lots of good comedic moments and an animation style different from the usual Disney. I'd rank it higher than Treasure Planet.
;-)
At first the whole concept of Treasure Planet revolted me (I'm a fan of the book, and have seen several different adaptations of it including "Muppet Treasure Island" (which is a hoot, and Tim Curry does a great John Silver) and even as a stage play). Once I got past that and suspended a ton of disbelief over the whole sailing ships in space thing, it wasn't half bad. I about fell out of my chair at the scene where Doppler (David Hyde Pierce -- Niles on "Frasier" - - doing the voice) who is tending to the injured captain, turns to young Hawkins and says "Damnit, Jim, I'm an astronomer, not a doctor!".
But on the whole, other studios are doing much better stuff than Disney-without-Pixar. Think Shrek, Road to El Dorado, Ice Age, all great animated family fare (meaning that it's kid watchable but enough stuff to keep the adults entertained too.) Heck, I'll throw Jimmy Neutron in there too
-- Alastair
In the article it clearly states that Pixar was always responsible for the content and Disney the marketing and distribution. If you've ever seen any news stories about Pixar (like the 60 Minutes II piece last fall) you would know Pixar has firm control over the creativity of its movies.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The idea that Pixar would crank out five consecutive blockbusters was simply not on the table in 1995. Pixar's output up to that date consisted of a couple of award-winning animated shorts; suggesting that Pixar would outshine Disney Animation by 2000 (with Disney releasing The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King in the five years prior) would have gotten you laughed out of the studio.
But then Jeff Katzenberg decided he'd had enough of Michael Eisner, and went off to Dreamworks to make Antz (and Shrek). Lion King turned out to be the high-water mark for Disney's 2D animation unit; their best effort since was Tarzan, which grossed $435 million worldwide -- a little more than half of Finding Nemo's leviathan take, which is currently at $844 million.
So, Pixar has ended up paying Disney about 10-20 times what Disney's contribution to the process is worth. Eisner was probably using these lucrative terms as the starting point in his negotiations, while Steve Jobs (who already has Sony and Warner on speed-dial) was starting from the idea that Pixar could snap its fingers and have five studios vying for the honor.
Eisner is unquestionably an idiot for failing to recognize this, because he desperately needs Pixar to feed quality product into the gaping maw of his marketing, distribution and merchandising empire -- he's not going to make as healthy of a living selling Brother Bear plush toys and video sequels, that's for sure. Pixar just needs a distributor, though, and they're big enough now that they can get one for the asking.
I wouldn't be surprised if kids knew the name Pixar anyway
I'm (reasonably) sure he doesn't know the name, but my three-year-old certainly recognizes Luxor Jr. hopping out during the credits, and has made the connection between Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo as a result. So yeah, I'd expect kids old enough to read probably know the name.
(Then again, my son's the offspring of two geeks, so he may have gotten the reading-the-credits gene a little stronger than the average...)
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Anyone hear about how Disney dropped out of Peter Pan because they didn't want to donate any money to a London children's hospital? The author of Peter Pan left the copyright to the hospital in his will. When the most recent movie was made, Disney believed it should be exempt from making any payment to the hospital from the sale of spin-off books, board games, soft toys and computer games, which are expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in their own right.
Read the full story here
So FUCK YOU Disney! Guess how much 50% of 0 is you bozos!
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
For some real healthy anti-Eisner articles written from the points of view of ex-Disney employees (Cast Members), I'll point you at MiceAge, a site that seems to be doing a good job bringing the park perspective to the forefront... seems to be a lot of behind the scenes politics, the comings and goings of executives, as well as how facilities is being (mis-)handled...
I think the average /.er might give Mikey a run for his money (which isn't saying much given the post quality around here including me). Eisner fixed a very broken company but hasn't had any good ideas since the mid 90s. Since then he has insulated himself with a management friendly board, done little to significantly improve the business, and overpaid himself with cash, benefits, and stock. Roy tried to oust him and found out just how well Eisner has protected himself. Disney would be an excellent hostile takeover candidate if you had a ton of perserverance. Here's the biggest problem with Disney animations, they are all too political. After Lion King they started getting very PC, regarless of your opinions of the belief's espoused, that really does not need to be in a kids movie. Also it pissed off the southern baptists and other conservative organizations which then began boycotting and denouncing Disney, loudly enough to cut spending in a group that covers lots of families.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
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.
You, obviously, have watched neither Barney nor The Disney Channel. I'll give my children Disney and their commercials over the insipid so-called "learning" of Barney in a heartbeat. They'll turn out just fine, thank you very much.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
The most apparent thing to me when watching Nemo was that the film has heros but no villains. There are some minor adversaries, but no bad-guy.
It's a really sublime film in my opinion.
Possibly we'd have seen the dead parents in "Empire of the Sun", which is what the project was originally called. By the time it had metamorphosed into "The Emperor's New Groove" they'd been pushed offstage. Kuzco is 18 and the reigning emperor. No visible mother or father, and his advisor Yzma mentions at one point that she "practically raised him." So yeah, mommy and daddy are dead, but we don't see them croak here. The one happily married couple we do see survives unscathed.
I meant that it wasn't a mucical; there was no romantic storyline; no comic-relief sidekick like the monkey in Aladdin, that stupid dragon in Mulan or the gargoyles in Hunchback; no hopeless climactic fight against impossible odds that were overcome by courage/innate goodness/magic/semi-divine intervention; and nothing notable in the way of marketing tie-ins. They decided to do characterization and plot instead.
And it turned out to be a good movie! Who knew?
And the brethren went away edified.
I had not thought much about disney other than mickey mouse until about a year ago.
I had to go to Irvine for a business trip and decided to head to DisneyLand since I had not been there since I was in 4th or 5th grade.
What a shocker. I could not believe how commercialized it was. Rides sponsored by corporations. all of them. Space Mountain by Fedex. Indiana Jones ride by AT&T (i think). WTF.
Toy Story 2 was originally supposed to go straight-to-video and therefore is not part of the original distribution deal. Once the Disney execs saw an early version of the film, they asked Pixar to expand on the story so it could be released as a full-length movie.
Considering how much money Pixar *did* make with TS2, I certainly wouldn't say that Pixar did it for free. I see your point, regarding that it was a movie that got distributed outside of their "feature" clause in the contract, but it certainly does fall under one of the clauses.
My two year old loves the THX thing at the beginning of the widescreen versions, where the robot dude shakes the can and it goes "mooooo". She'll clap and cheer and say "Yay cow!" and then ask, "Nemo?" If I answer no, she says, "Monster movie!"
So yep, she'll know Pixar - and I'll feel much better about buying their products now that they're not pumping money into Disney. Heck, we might go see the next one in a theater. 'Tis a shame they didn't do this BEFORE Nemo, though. She really loves Nemo.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!