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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."
Then why isn't it iPixar?
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
...distribute.
Either way, go Pixar!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Imagine.. pixar now can do ANYTHING they want.. they are now unleashed. Imagine a porn flick by pixar? Imagine hot grits.. Seriously.. now they can really get into the adult market with their style, their writing.. the previous stuff was cool and all, but lets see what they do without disney holding them back..
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.
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
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!
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.
They are better off without Disney. My wife is a film buff, and I have it on her good authority that Disney is in touble, all over the board. Movies, animation, parks, everything is tanking.
But as good as Pixar is at making great movies, financial success doesn't come from that. You need good marketing and distribution. I hope Pixar finds a good partner that won't take the lion's share of the profits. They will also need to scramble a little bit more to find funding, but with their reputation, capital should be no problem.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I see this as being both good and bad...
;) (assuming they don't squash all competition).
Disney needs to pull out of its slump. They make the whole industry look bad right now.
Pixar will go on to bigger and better things, which will help the industry.
They are big enough now, they could probably handle self distribution, although they probably don't want to get into that role yet.
Best of luck to the both of them. The better they become, the better we all become, the more secure my job is
I imagine the Pixar boys are out celebrating tonight... (if deadlines aren't killing them...) maybe I should head over across the bay and buy them a round.
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
By the end of the year, 90% of Disney's revenue will come from licensing its characters to junk food restaurants, manufacturers of lunch boxes and backpacks, and makers of disposable training pants.
It will use its last bit of influence to convince Congress to make image piracy punishable by death or five years janatorial duties in the Disney[world|land] Outlet Malls.
Stefan
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.
It means I can stop boycotting Pixar films. Hooray!
Random and weird software I've written.
Disney will probably start suing the hell out of everyone for copyright infringement, including ANYBODY who made a cartoon mouse. Their main source of income will be from litigation. Their theme park will be called the Copyrighted Kingdom.
You know in Soviet Russia... (no jokes here) the cartoons had to be the most free expression of the artist's spirit since the party paid little to no attention to their messages. But the films came out with better moral message than the average tom and jerry. In fact NO ONE almost got hurt there
http://www.russiananimation.com
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.
That's unture. While Gates is a partial owner, the G in SKG stands for Geffin. SKG stands for Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffin.
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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It sounds like Disney-insiders blame the CEO of Disney.
From the article:
Roy Disney and ally Stanley Gold, who both resigned from the Disney board late last year and called for Chief Executive and Chairman Michael Eisner to step down, placed the blame on Eisner.
"More than a year ago, we warned the Disney board that we believed Michael Eisner was mismanaging the Pixar partnership and expressed our concern that the relationship was in jeopardy," they said.
why always when someone mentions Pixar they say that "Pixar is best known as the studio behind the Toy Story series and the more recent movie Finding Nemo"? Monster's Inc. anyone? and For the Birds? thats masterpieces!
While this could concievably just be a negotiating tactic by Pixar, it's more likely to be a simple case of Disney needing Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Not updated regularly for obvious reasons, but one of my favorite hidden gems on the web nevertheless.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
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
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.
Goodbye Disney, hello Vivid.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Disney also has the right to finance and produce sequels if Pixar declines to co-finance and produce them under the current agreement
...all done with that craptastic bargain basement 3D animation you see every afternoon on the WB. Ugh. Ugh.
NO NO DAMMIT NO!
I will make it a personal mission to urinate on Eisner's grave if Disney rapes a single one of Pixar's excellent films. I am so f'ing sick of Disney executives walking around the park trying to figure out what movie, series even RIDE they can milk for another buck. Every time I see an advertisement for (classic movie) 2, 3 etc I want to scream.
Steve Jobs is the biggest ass in the world for allowing Disney this option. Give it a year or two after Pixar profits are gone, and get ready for
* Toy Story 3 - Buzz and Woody go to Camp
* Monsters, Inc. 2 - Giggles, Inc.
* Finding Nemo 2 - Doria's Quest for Paxil
Like how "spam" came to mean "unsolicited email" I propose we make "disney" as a synonym for cancer, as in "my grandfather's prostate got disneyed" or perhaps as synonym for necrophilia.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
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?
the recent pooh suit setback
I don't know what this is but it sound disgusting.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
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.
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!
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!
mine Mine mine MINE mine Mine
Anybody want a peanut?
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
Um, no, it's Abu. Apu is a quickie-mart clerk in the simpsons. Remember? The monkey? From Alladin?
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.
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.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
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
D'oh!
I will fully read the post before I reply...
I will fully read the post before I reply...
I will...
I find it very hard to hear or read anything about Disney without getting frustrated with their copyright practises. That name has become the definition of evil copyright abuse.
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?
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
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.