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Disney Buys Pixar

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the not-just-for-rumor-mills-anymore dept.

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."

7 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck to Steve J... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nobody deserves a few billion bucks more than he does, the way I figure it. If he manages to pull Disney out of their spiral of mediocrity, he'll have earned every penny...

    1. Re:Good luck to Steve J... by jcr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If it looks like Disney's paying attention to what the Pixar people tell them, then I'll be buying Disney shares this summer. The real key for Disney Animation is John Lasseter. If they put him in charge, expect great movies.

      As for the business side of things, I hope this means we'll see ALL of the Disney archives available on line. I'll pay two bucks for Steamboat Willie on my iPod, and there's a whole lot of other classics I'd love to see again.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  2. Lamp by QBasicer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hopefully they won't do away with that Pixar lamp, I kind liked the little guy.

    --
    x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
  3. Might be OK by nighty5 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As slashdot sees Disney as mostly evil, it should be noted that most of the sceptical activities of Disney can be attributed to one man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Eisner.

    I have a good feeling about the new CEO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Iger

    Read up on these completely different management styles and then take a look at Disney again. Iger was responsible for talks to continue with Pixar, so its no suprise that it might lead to this.

  4. Re:this sucks by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As Jobs is still the largest stockholder of the company, how many changes will really take place?

    Unless I've totally misread the story, Disney will now be the sole owner of Pixar. Jobs will now (not still) be the single largest shareholder in Disney. That doesn't mean that he necessarily has the power to change its entrenched culture. I doubt he has anything like enough of a shreholding to replace the existing management, or to plausibly theaten to.

    --
    To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
  5. Re:this sucks by Voltageaav · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Reguardless, he'll still have clout, and there's been talk of him being put on the board of Directors. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan200 6/nf20060120_2325_db016.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

    --
    Someone save me from this sanity.
  6. Re:this sucks by grahamlee · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What this *does* mean is that Pixar will make any sequels to Toy Story et al, rather than Disney trying to do it with some crappy in-house team. The terms of the contract for Pixar's first five movies was that Disney had the rights to the characters and any spinoffs, exclusively. That's still true, but now they can guarantee on Pixar being on board to make said spinoffs. Oh, and Cars might finally get released ;-)
    In other thoughts; does this sound like something we've seen before? Small Steve-owned company gets bought for vastly more than its market value by big failing company, Steve gets put in charge of big failing company, big failing company becomes big meteoric success company? Does the word NeXT spring to mind for anyone else?