Disney Buys Pixar

BlueDjinn writes to tell us that it appears a great deal of speculation over Disney's buyout of Pixar Animation Studios is in fact true. From the article: "[Pixar] is set to meet tomorrow to approve the company's $7bn (£3.9bn) takeover by Disney. The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Star Wars creator George Lucas."

Comments

this sucks

[Hank Chinaski]

Now we will see Nemo 2, Nemo 3 (dvd only release) and a Nemo tv series, with each one getting a little crappier. Same for all other Pixar films.

Disney will milk the IP till the cow dies and will probably not fund development of new IP.

1) Buy Pixar
2) Milk IP
3) Short-time profit

the parallels are interesting

[eobanb]

The parallels here are almost amusingly similar to when Apple bought NeXT, ten years ago. Because so much of NeXT's advanced technology essentially displaced Apple's own struggling and dated codebase for the Mac OS to become Mac OS X, and Steve Jobs' own idea of a trimmed and stylish product line replaced the beige box Power Mac (insert four-digit number here), many industry analysts joked that 'NeXT had bought Apple for negative $400 million.'

Look at what's happening now! Like NeXT, one of Steve's projects, was bought by Apple, and its technology incorporated into the company to revamp its product line, Pixar, again a project of Steve, may very well save Disney. For the purists that either hate to see Disney's long-lived traditional animation replaced by computer 3D rendering, or fear that Disney will mishandle Pixar's talent and resources and bring an unfortunate end to the latter studio's remarkably successful run of films, consider two facts: since this isn't a hostile takeover, clearly the folks in charge at Pixar, Steve Jobs included, believe that this will be as good for Pixar as it will be for Disney. They wouldn't be doing this if they thought that Disney was going to ruin them. Also consider now that Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder at Disney. That really carries some weight. Steve has a reputation for getting what he wants, and I also don't doubt that he made this deal without knowing he would have a significant say in Disney's direction.

So really, guys, calm down! Just imagine the headline read, 'Pixar buys Disney for -$7 billion.'

Pixar and Disney

[walnut_tree]

This is quite a development! I suspect that Pixar will continue to operate (largely) autonomously, but there will undoubtedly be a good deal of knowledge sharing between Disney and Pixar. John Lasseter has often expressed his admiration for Disney's animators and their pioneering role in developing the medium. While there might seem to be a lot of enmity between the two companies, I suspect there's also a lot of mutual respect between the artists at both studios.

People may not like the management decisions made by Disney (which have often dictated the direction of their films) but the company still employs a great many talented artists. And of course, Pixar continues to benefit from Disney's considerable marketing muscle - few other companies know how to so thoroughly milk their products for every cent they can get (and I don't say that as praise).

Disney empire

[gEvil (beta)]

Keep in mind that the Disney empire also includes ABC, ESPN, the go.com network, as well as a bunch of movie studio (Touchstone, Miramax, Dimension) and record company imprints. Several of these operate somewhat autonomously, but Jobs will have some say in things as the single largest shareholder in Disney. Gates wants to control the living room. Jobs will control the living room.

Re:Ok, what happens to Renderman now?

[jcr]

I should say that the golden age of CG movies are now over.

That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?

Now come the crap movies...the "me too" movies.

They're already here.. Didn't you hear about "Antz", the knock-off of "A Bug's Life"?

CGI is new tool. Some great movies will be made with it, and a probably a lot of crap, too. Take a look at some of the lesser movies that were being made at the same time as Citizen Kane. Did they keep Orson Wells from making his masterpiece?

-jcr

MOD PARENT +INF INSIGHTFUL!

[mrchaotica]

If it weren't for the assholes at Disney (and the *AA), you'd already be able to have Steamboat Willie on your iPod, for free!

Too much focus on Jobs

[namekuseijin]

I don't think much of the success of Pixar is due to Steve Jobs.

Rather, the main man over there is John Lasseter, the legendary animator directly responsible for some of the companies most memorable movies. Would Pixar be anywhere today wasn't it for the brilliant movies?

Jobs is just this one guy who sees ahead better than most and invest in people who can make it happen, like Lasseter or Wozniak...