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Welcome To Planet Pixar
gambit3 writes "Wired Magazine has an in-depth article on the growth of Pixar examining how it compares to, and how it became the new Disney: 'Pixar hasn't just turned into the new Disney. It has out-Disneyed Disney, becoming the apprentice that schooled the sorcerer.' Its films have grossed $2.5 billion, making it the most successful film studio, picture for picture, of all time."
From the article:
"There's this part of Steve that most people don't understand," says Catmull. "He's a very loyal person - he's invested in only two companies his entire life.
Lessee.... Jobs co-founded Apple, was ousted from Apple, founded NeXT, Apple boughtNeXT, and somewhere in between, Jobs got involved with Pixar.
Historically, that's three companies, all of which have accomplished some seriously badass things in their fields. Though I suppose if you look at it in the Now, Jobs is currently invested in only two companies....
From what I've heard before, Home on the Range was Disney's last Hand Drawn 2D film. They will still have 2D films, but they will be developed digitally.
Has everyone missed the fact that Steve Jobs runs Pixar?
Cogito, ergo sig.
Don't be too harsh. Eisner turned Disney around in the eighties by turning its focus on movies and new characters.
Remember Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King?
Although I do agree some decisions have been less than beneficial as of late.
Sounds great! However, the power players here are only interesting, and the "better end of the deal" isn't as clear cut as you suggest!
1. Pixar still has rights under the Disney copyright - Disney is under contract to share revenues and licensing profits from ALL Disney/Pixar films. Disney can make a new Toy Story, but merchandise licensing profits will still have to be shared with Pixar.
2. Same thing holds for the next two Disney/Pixar movies. Although Pixar is under contract, again, it is a revenue sharing deal - for both the cinematic releases and the licensing of products (toys, etc).
3. Movies are a hits business. However, Disney is not the only studio in that business. And in fact, MANY would argue that Disney is a has-been player. It IS better if Pixar gets out of the "Disney exclusive" contracts and shops its services to the highest bidding studios. In fact, according to recent press reports, virtually all the big studios are lining up at Pixar's door.
4. Although Disney can enhanse its own studios, it will take time and money. Disney has yet to produce its own computer-generated animation.
And remember, if Disney creates a new Toy Story, licensed product revenues still must be shared with Pixar. Those contacts are still valid regardless of who produced the (new) film. Disney may own the copyrights, but its the other contracts that make it interesting.
It has out-Disneyed Disney
... it out-herods Herod."
What I love with English is the ability to turn nouns into verbs and vice-versa without shocking anybody (and without even needing to be in Soviet Russia).
It's a paraphrase from Hamlet, iii. 2: "Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to latters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundings
Only if you fall into the usual mistake of not adjusting for inflation and compare Lion King's 1994 $319 million with Nemo's 2003 $340 million. But just because in-numerable economics incompetents make this comparison, it doesn't mean it's meaningful.
If you correct for inflation, then things look quite different.
In adjusted terms, the highest grossing animation film is... (drum roll) The Jungle Book. It's $206 million box office take might look paltry compared to Lion King's $313 million, but that was back in 1967 dollars, while Lion King's BO is in 1994 dollars. Adjust both for inflation and you get $627 million for Jungle Book and $423 million for the Lion King (and $340 million for Nemo).
If you rank all movies by adjusted BO, you find lots of animation movies in the top 100. Looking at only the top 50, you have the following animation movies
Rank/Movie/Year/Un-adjusted BO/Adjusted BO (million $)
9 The Jungle Book 1967 $141.8 $626.8
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 $184.9 $615.2
12 101 Dalmatians 1961 $152.6 $593.9
26 The Lion King 1994 $312.9 $422.5
27 Sleeping Beauty 1959 $51.6 $410.2
31 Bambi 1942 $102.8 $397.4
35 Pinocchio 1940 $84.3 $380.5
As for Finding Nemo, it just misses making the top 50:
51 Finding Nemo $339.7 $339.7
Highest-grossing movie of all time, for those of you who won't bother to check the linked site, is
1 Gone With the Wind 1939 $198.7 $1187.7
Followed by
2 Star Wars 1977 $460.9 $1026.7
Titanic is only 6th:
6 Titanic 1997 $600.8 $747.4
(all of the above in US domestic BO only. The numbers change and the rankings are a little different if world BO is used.)
Ummm... No!
Pixar may have had Next right after Jobs took over - I don't remember that far back. Pixar started with SGI's, when SGI's were faster. Pixar then switched to Sun's When Sun was faster. They bought 250 additional Sun 5000's to render Monster's Inc - No linux there. They switched to Linux when Linux became faster for Finding Nemo. They did not render all their movies using linux since that would have been moronic for the earlier choices. They picked the fastest platform for the buck at the time they were rendering. Rendering A Bug's life on Linux at that time would have taken forever, since Intel's Pentium II would have been too slow.
Please pay attention. Linux has its place now, but it certainly wasn't as capable as Unix platforms back then. It took Intel and AMD some time to catch up to MIPS, Alpha, HP-RISC, and SUN. When x86 CPU's finally caught up, then Linux became a feasable alternative. In the future, Pixar may choose something other than linux. It all depends on which platform is fastest at the time, and that won't necessarily be Linux on x86 since each CPU company tries to outdo the other and they leapfrog each other as the fastest from time to time.