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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."
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...
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
IAAL
Hopefully they won't do away with that Pixar lamp, I kind liked the little guy.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
...tells me that pixar is for sale in 10 years for 10m.
on a sidenote, what happens to renderman?
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.
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.'
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Steve Jobs will begin designing rides at Disneyland. You know there will be an acid trip ride, something Alice and Wonderland style. I can't wait.
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).
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.
This guy's the limit!
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
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Steve Jobs has little to no creative input concerning Pixar: John Lasseter is in charge. The last time Jobs tried to interfere with the filmmakers choices was just after the first private screening of a finished "Toy Story". Jobs hated the score by Randy Newman and wanted to replace it. Lasseter and the other guys stood by the Newman score and songs, which brought "Toy Story" an Oscar nomination and Newman four additional scores for Pixar. Jobs has an office at Pixar but he's never there. A documentary about the old Pixar headquarters around the "Monsters Inc." release (2001) showed an empty office with just a desk and a PC, not a Mac. Lasseter even jokes about the room, the least crowded area at Pixar. As a sidenote, this footage about the office could be seen on videos part of the original EPK: the "Monsters, Inc." DVD includes the same documentary but the footage is missing. (The explanation for the PC is that Jobs, after his return to Apple, didn't use a Mac running Mac OS 8 or 9 for himself. He still had a PC running OpenStep instead. When Mac OS X became the system of choice, he switched to the Mac.) On the other hand, Jobs plays the main part concerning business deals with Disney and other partners (Intel for the rendering part, for instance) and his input has been more than valuable to Pixar. Jobs and Pixar both run the company. If a deal is closed with Disney, Lasseter must be a part of it, because Pixar wouldn't be Pixar without him. So, I guess a term of the deal would be to grant Lasseter artistic direction of the whole departmetn. Else, there's no guarantee that Pixar future projects won't suck as much as most of Disney releases.
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...
I don't feel like it...
Loaded. In his house is a giant walk in wardrobe with a long line of turtle-neck sweaters, you fight through it all and at the back is a snow filled landscape where iPods grow on trees.
You see Steve Wozniak talking to a CGI lion on the technical production of blue boxes. In the background is a giant Intel factory, where little orange men are packing new iMacs into crates marked Nigeria...
Task Mangler
CGI is new tool. Some great movies will be made with it
Sure, I can see them now "Perl of the Orient" "Firewall Apache" and the classic "Slashdotted: As the Sun Went Down"
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The way deals of this size are accomplished is a 'stock swap'. For simplicity's sake, let's say that the deal goes down at the market price of Pixar's shares on the day of the deal. Before the deal, you own $10,000 of Pixar; after the deal, you own $10,000 of (Pixar + Disney). Similarly, someone who had $10,000 of Disney prior to the deal would have $10,000 of (Pixar + Disney).
The gory details are that Disney writes new shares equivalent in value to the value it's assigned to the acquisition of Pixar, and 'swaps' those Disney shares for Pixar shares (effectively removing them from the market). The value of Pixar is added to the value of Disney (that's the +$7bn), but no new value is created. All Pixar shareholders are now (Disney + Pixar) shareholders; they have a same-value piece of a larger pie. Their slice is 'thinner' -- a smaller percentage; Jobs goes from 50% of Pixar to 7% of (Disney + Pixar). Similarly for Disney shareholders, but not as big of a percentage drop since Disney's valuation prior to the deal was closer to that of the combined entity.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
for particularly large values of 7.
Does this mean that Disney cartoons will only have one mouse?
;)
No, they'll still have many mice, but Mickey's red shorts will only have one button.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
And Jobs did it with one thing: Quality. And Marketing. Ok, two things.
and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
I don't want to fit in, I just don't want to stand out