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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."
I wonder if the plussing model of development could/has been applied to software development. Perhaps this is a case of featuristis applied to movies
I think Pixar will be the new Disney. Not that it will be an outright replacement for them, because you will always have Mickey, DOnald, etc... But with the advent of all of this newer technology to create more in-depth animation films, I don't think Disney can catch up to them. The article also states that Disney is now done creating 2D films and everything else from them will now be 3D. But I think Pixar is just too far ahead for Disney to catch up. Thoughts?
Hmmm.
Gross income is a good indicator of box office success, but I would be interested to see how the net income and the profit margins for Pixar movies compare against traditionally shot movies. Are the server farms and custom renderers burying them in expenses, or are they saving a ton by not having to pay top-notch actors (other than voices)? Also how about comparing profit margin to traditional animation (Snow White style disney) and modern animation (cel shaded Disney) movies?
This is not intended to be a flame... but this is not really surprising. Pixar makes better moves than Disney/non-Pixar related movies. It's all about quality.
Take a look at Finding Nemo. First off, an interesting tidbit: My atmospheric dynamics professor knows another fluid dynamics professor that was working on fluid dynamics in the college setting but has since switched to films to employ Navier-Stokes equations in movies...
Look at Nemo, those shallow waves (found near-shore) are actual mathematical simulations based on nondispersive wave equations. Pixar employs scientific concepts to its movies. I have not heard of Disney/non-Pixar movies doing this. This minor tidbit adds to the quality of Pixar films versus Disney/non-Pixar films.
Pixar uses the best voice actors (and comedians), mathematical/real-time physics, and, most importantly... a well developed plot that is interesting. This is why I think it has been so successful versus others.
Go Pixar!
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
It's all about a well-developed and solid *story* - something that Disney was a big proponent of, but seems to have forgotten...
(Technically Roy wasn't kicked out, but resigned on his own; he was going to be forced out due to his 'age,' but left first) See his site.
That's not quite the same as saying that Disney comes out ahead. By letting Pixar go, Disney doesn't GAIN anything they weren't already entitled to under the old contract. But, as you point out, they're not losing anything either. No one's denying that the old contract was absurdly lucrative for Disney. In retrospect, Pixar gave up too much. But of course no one knew that at the time, who could have predicted that CG films could draw in that kind of money?
Anyway, my only point is that you're saying that Disney is somehow "winning" by severing ties with Pixar. They're not. They're simply keeping their winnings from the negotiations several years ago.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The Lion King has been toppled by Finding Nemo as the highest grossing animation ever.
The Lion King was lauded for it's return to traditional hand-drawn animation techniques. In the past Disney had created some of the most stunning and timeless visual effects without the use of computers, and it's use of CGI was critised as they tentatively tried this new technology (most notably the flying carpet in Alladin). It seemed Disney was turning back to it's roots.
But they weren't. Instead, they turned 180 degrees, and their next movie would be 100% CGI.
Disney's early attempts at CGI belied the problems inherent in training their artists to drop the pencil and grab the mouse. The decision to hire Pixar Studios to take over their CGI efforts was made, and will go down in history as a Damn Good Move.
Toy Story was a groundbreaking film. Nothing like it had ever been tried before. Pixar were the pioneers of feature length 3d animated films. Toy Story set a precedent that would be surpassed by each subsequent film from Pixar Studios, and a precedent for others to aspire to.
Almost ten years since Toy Story, Pixar are now in direct competition with Disney. Disney's The Lion King, praised for it's hand-drawn animations, has been knocked off the box-office podium by Pixar's Finding Nemo, 100% computer-generated.
Both companies now make CGI films exclusively.
I ran a benchmark on my quantum computer, now I can't find it anywhere!
By letting Pixar go, Disney doesn't GAIN anything they weren't already entitled to under the old contract. But, as you point out, they're not losing anything either.
Well, not technically. But they "lost" all of the future revenue they would have had from future Pixar films. They lost the *potential* for revenue from future films, which is what companies are based on after all - revenue potential, not current revenue. A company with no future is not a company for very long, pretty much by definition.
So Disney did give up a lot, quite a lot. I really doubt Pixar will keep up this run of massive hits forever, but assuming they even put up half the gross over the next five movies, that's still $1.25 billion in gross Disney just threw away.
Was Disney put in an impossible position by Pixar's demands? I don't think so. Pixar had become Disney's animation business and they knew it. Disney's in-house animation has stunk up the business for years and it's only getting worse - that's of Disney's own doing. It was Disney's mis-management that put Pixar in the position they were in, where they could make such demands, and in my opinion Disney was in no position to refuse them, even as unreasonable as they sounded.
If you run an ice cream stand, it's not you or your stand that people are coming for, it's the ice cream you're selling. And you need to get that ice cream from somewhere, whether it's by making it yourself or by buying it from someone else. Without ice cream people want to buy, you may as well not have an ice cream stand, right?
The question is, does Disney want to be in the animation business or not? Letting Pixar go suggests to me that they don't - otherwise, there's really no price that would have been too high to pay. This was their source of ice cream. Without Pixar, there is no animation business at Disney anymore, and they need to rely even more on their theme parks (which are nothing without their animation business) and ABC. Eventually, the theme parks cannot really survive without the animation, as it's all based on Disney's "branding".
I don't usually like to sound too dramatic about these things, as most companies can survive events like this, but I really think Disney threw away their core business here, first by letting their own animation division fall apart, then by throwing away their only remaining source of reliable animation revenue. They no longer have anything they can really market as Disney animation with a straight face. (Personally, I think their Studio Ghibli contract has left them with some films better than either their own *or* anything Pixar has ever done, but they'll never use them to their potential - they're too hung-up on 3D right now). Without that animation, their theme parks decline, and then the whole company crumbles. Disney cannot survive just as ABC.
This was not a win for Disney. The deal Pixar wanted was not a very good one for Disney, but it was the lesser of two evils.
My favorite bits (in no particular order):
- Mention of the Genesis Effect from Star Trek II
- The stories of Disney's rejections and failures trying to assembly-line movie production
- A feeling of satisfaction reading about how rejects from Warner and Disney found their utopia
- A left-brained acknowledgement of the tools and their makers.
- A right-brained acknowledgement of the creative stories and their creators.
Having lost interest in superhero power fantasies for a number of years, I had zero interest in seeing The Incredibles. From what little bits anyone knew about this movie it sounded like the first Pixar loser story. "Rev up the digital effects Joe! Another superhero movie broke box office records. Get the writer to draft something where the good guy uses the new fire effect!" I'm now quite intrigued to see just what sort of spin Pixar plans to put on superheroes.Call me a sucker, but Pixar really does seem to know what can make or break a good movie. Now let's just hope they aren't beaten by the quantity over quality rules that other animation houses may adopt.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but I think the parks are a bit of a daft idea and vaguely repulsive. You cannot bring Mickey Mouse "to life" by sticking a man in a giant plastic Mickey head. Said man will be nothing but a dead mockery of the the "live" Mickey seen on the screen.
I have a very small DVD collection, only nine titles, two of which are classic Disney animations, because they are damned fine movies.
It's about the movies, all the movies, and nothing but the movies.
If the parks all dried up and blew away I'd probably feel a whole lot better about Disney as a company and giving them any of my money for their movies. I hate to think I'm doing anything to encourage, let alone make possible that sort of shit.
KFG
I think that their brand name is now strong enough to survive a movie that doesn't live up to the rest of Pixar's films. With that said, barring serious evil taking over the management and infecting their processes, I doubt that Pixar will allow the release of a film that doesn't live up. Contrast that to Disney, which has slowly used all of its positive branding that was built up during the mid 90's, to the point where they felt they needed to jettison their ENTIRE 2D feature animation division, and replace it with a crew oriented toward 3D.
The biggest threat to Pixar, I think, is if all these other studios, racing in to cash in on the money delivered by 3D films like Finding Nemo, and Shrek 2 (just as studios in the mid 90's all started up 2D animation divisions to make the next Lion King). With all of those companies out for the money, you're going to get more Final Fantasy type movies, with nice looking graphics, and lousy story/acting. This might take some of the shine off of 3d films, and possibly damage Pixar's ability to get wide distribution in the short term following a glut of bad 3d films.
Yes, but in this case it's so ambiguous as to be witty without having any substance. It's a miniature circular argument.
WTF does "Disneyed" mean in this context anyway? I can think of a number of things that Disney is famous for: merchandising, theme parks, corporate bullshit, animated movies. Am I to assume that we're talking about animated movies then? Disney's not known for *good* animated movies -- they pioneered animation for TV and movies, so they get the credit and the association. But this still doesn't make sense in the submitter's paragraph.
-Jem
I _so_ have to see The Incredibles when it comes out instead of waiting for the DVD.
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Rick belluzzo of SGI "fame" - sold out to MS buy spending SGI resorces on (crappy non-standard)NT boxes and... after leaving SGI after became the operating officer of microsoft.. but not for long.
but the worst thing, by far, was that he dicided to change the company name from - silicon graphics to SGI, scraping the old cube logo, which in my view is probably the best logo any hitech company ever had.
and of cource John Scully. who should have continued selling colored sugered water instead of driving Apple to the ground.
when any organization get old, it depends on its creators to rejuvinate itself. it is something like a dynesty-rule. as Disney was founded on the similar lines, it hurts when the Disney's leave the company the way they did. so we find websites like http://www.savedisney.com
this site says, save disney for future generations. i love disney cartoons, and the characters they have created. all the people who love them will agreee with me that, no other characters will outshine them(disney characters) which are already made an impression on their hearts.
but now, the competitive world demands something new from Disney, and they got it from Pixar. this must open Disney's eyes, and go for fresh start, new ideas, new characters etc. instead of whining and asking others to save Disney, they themselves should save it!
till they were successful, they ruled the world(practically) now they have to fight for their survival, and they have to do it by themselves.
Eisner saved the company. After some disasterous films (e.g. "The Great Mouse Detective", "The Fox and the Hound") the animation studio was bleeding reems of red ink from the 70s onwards... also Disney's ill-fated expansion into Epcot Centre didn't generate the crowds desired. By the mid-80s Disney was very likely going to go bankrupt.
Eisner is responsible for Touchstone Pictures (e.g. movies for adults), and for their revived enthusiasm for animation ("The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladin", and "The Lion King" -- all solid flicks).
I suspect Disney in this case has repeated the classic IBM blunder with Microsoft -- they outsourced their 3d animation to Pixar in the early days, thus allowing Pixar to fund its own development. Now Pixar has gone off on their own, and Disney is left with a gutted animation department. Also, Eisner has been in power far too long -- he's probably tapped out for ideas, and greed is skewing his view of the world.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Agreed. The Disney parks (I'm an orlando resident) are a HUGE part of the Disney experience. Some child poster (no pun intended) mentioned " You cannot bring Mickey Mouse "to life" by sticking a man in a giant plastic Mickey head."
Um...Yes. You can. These are freaking little kids. When they see a huge version of their Disney DVD characters (that they incessantly watch over and over again btw), that is a pretty big impact. The parent poster is right, there is no PixarLand to continue the revenue stream after winning the hearts and minds of the kiddie masses(just the DVD release, maybe some action figures). Disney traps you in their parks (yes they do trap you, you go in on your own accord, but you are so isolated from the outside world that you aren't going to leave anytime soon else lose $50 a pop on admission), make you eat their exhorbantly priced food, and stick as much of their "content (tm)", manifested in enumerable ways, in your face as they can. And when Jr. see's a big huge guy dressed as Shrek, you bet your ass that experience is ingrained in their little minds more than anything else. Disney has that one advantage, hooking up kids, in the real world, with their favorite characters in the movie world.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.