Pixar Eaten by Mickey Mouse

The rumors went flying this weekend, but Dekortage writes "It is official: Pixar has been sold to Disney. Steve Jobs will join the Disney board, and John Lasseter is now Disney's Chief Creative Officer. So, dear Slashdot, does this mean that Disney's movies will improve, or that Pixar's will become worse?" Also the price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollars.

Comments

Could be worst...

[__aaclcg7560]

Pixar belched on Mickey Mouse...

Re:Could be worst...

[Professor_UNIX]

Pixar belched on Mickey Mouse...

For a second there I thought you said Pixar felched Mickey Mouse. Ewww.

Price

[Ours]

price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollars

Thats a lot but it may have been interesting to say it was in Disney stock.

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if it was Disney dollars, or US dollars?

Re:Price

[foo fighter]

Exactly.

And even if all of Pixar^H^H^H^H^HDisney's annual releases are a blockbuster grossing more than $100 Million, it's going to take 74 years to get a return on that investment.

Yeah, I'm ignoring marketing tie-ins.

Disney had to do something to revitalize it's franchise, and it's interesting that they thought it was cheaper and easier to buy Pixar than to clean house.

Re:Price

[Boone^]

Considering Steve Jobs paid $10M for the CG division of Lucasfilm Ltd and renamed them Pixar... not bad.

Re:Price

[WhiplashII]

Except from Disney's point of view - very few large company mergers are beneficial. Mergers are best left to little companies, or big cmopanies aquiring little companies.

Re:Price

[Hexydes]

At least it wasn't $7.4 billion in Disney "fun money", right?

Re:Price

[takotech]

All of Pixars films have grossed well in excess of $100M. And that's only in the US. There is also the merchandise revenue to consider. I think $7.4B is not a bad price. And remember it's in stock.

Re:Price

[jaypaulw]

Yes Jobs truly is a god

Re:Price

[iwsnet]

Jobs sold at the right time, at the peak of the market. No guarantee that the next movies Pixar comes out with are hits like the previous ones. Box office is down and DVD sales are slowing as well.

Re:Price

[Guspaz]

I think that this may be more about gaining leverage in pushing content to iTunes. Steve Jobs is now the single largest Disney shareholder. That gives him a LOT of swing in the company. Disney also owns ABC, if I'm not mistaken. Now, if Jobs says to the board that he wants all of Disney's movies and all of ABC's shows on iTunes, he's got a lot of pull. While he might have been able to convince them before when he didn't own a huge chunk of Disney, now that he does own a hefty chunk of the company any such move is almost certain to succeed.

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. However, I don't really see this as Disney buying out Pixar, but more as Disney choosing its own silent death. Disney as one of you guys stated, will not be able to reap the benifits of this buy out for a very long time. The time it will take for Disney to recover from this will be too long, by then Pixar will have, if Jobs even thought about this, had time to completely take over. I may be wrong but only time will tell this one. We might as well just start calling Disney movies the Pixar movies. I for one am very glad do Isner gone this just makes it that much better, and I'm sure Roy is a much happier person as well.

Re:Price

[macadamia_harold]

I think the whole thing is sad. I'm sure Pixar will soon be forced the churn out rushed, poorly done projects to feed to our children.

Re:Price

[72beetle]

it's interesting that they thought it was cheaper and easier to buy Pixar than to clean house.

They DID clean house, and still suckage abounded. Buying Pixar was an act of serious desperation. Let us not forget that when Pixar went packing, Disney went 'so what?', canned their traditional animators, and tried to re-establish with Pixar wannabe's.

Typical of all of Disney's gambits lately, their improvements sucked up the joint. Buying Pixar is an admission of defeat, and giving Jobs the reins might well be the only thing that can save them.

Re:Price

[AVIDJockey]

Additionally, a very large chunk of a movie's gross goes to the distributors (probably more than most people realize), so obviously the film (and ancillary, including iTunes distribution) revenue isn't the only thing they're gunning for in this deal.

What they're paying for is revitalization of their brand across all of their properties, including their parks and networks.

Re:Price

[slashdot.org]

[price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollars]

Thats a lot but it may have been interesting to say it was in Disney stock.

To put it in perspective, that's about tripple the amount eBay paid for Skype. Doesn't seem like a lot to me, given that whatever Skype is doing is something that's easily reproducible. It would be a lot harder to find the body of talent that Pixar employs.

Re:Price

[God of Lemmings]

Look at what happened the last time someone bought one of Job's companies...
he took it over! And Steve already had significant stock and a board seat
in Disney to begin with this time...

Re:Price

[timeOday]

Is Pixar a big company? I bet it has a lot fewer employees than most other companies that could fetch such a price.

Re:Price

[Doogie5526]

I still find that hard to believe. He's selling a company he's helped raise for the past 15-20 years just to push iTunes. A product that doesn't really produce income, but just pushes another product (iPods).

While I'm not one of those crazy "Steve Job's" has a master plan, I do think he has something else in mind. Likely, something that isn't publicly known at the moment.

Re:Price

[BishopSRQ]

>>>
I think that this may be more about gaining leverage in pushing content to iTunes. Steve Jobs is now the single largest Disney shareholder. That gives him a LOT of swing in the company. Disney also owns ABC, if I'm not mistaken. Now, if Jobs says to the board that he wants all of Disney's movies and all of ABC's shows on iTunes, he's got a lot of pull. While he might have been able to convince them before when he didn't own a huge chunk of Disney, now that he does own a hefty chunk of the company any such move is almost certain to succeed.

Interesting idea and commentary, grasshopper. However, one would be wise to think bigger than this.

15 years ago, had this occured, and people had been talking about increased Mac usage in the Disney back office, it would be more important to think of Jobs' bigger goal: control of Disney.

Go hither and find knowledge.

Re:Price

[jonwil]

If this means an end to the "limited availabillity" of disney films (try and get hold of The Little Mermaid in any format for example), GO STEVE.

Re:Price

[Lord Flipper]

I'm sure Pixar will soon be forced the churn out rushed, poorly done projects to feed to our children.

You're "sure", huh? Spoken like a bonafide toad with zero understanding of what's taking place. Let me explain it to you, and then you be the judge:

Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, was named president of the combined Pixar and Disney animation studios . Previously, he was vice president of the computer division of Lucasfilm, which later became Pixar. Mr. Catmull has a undergraduate degrees in computer science and physics and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah.

John Lasseter
Mr. Lasseter is a founding member of Pixar and oversees all of Pixar's films and associated projects as creative director. Under the Disney deal, Mr. Lasseter will become chief creative officer of Disney's animation studios. Before Pixar was formed in 1986, Mr. Lasseter worked at Lucasfilm Ltd. He soon began writing, directing and animating short films and commercials for Pixar, including "Tin Toy," which in 1988 became the first computer-animated film to win an Oscar. Mr. Lasseter directed the Pixar hits "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2" and was the executive producer for "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." "Toy Story" earned Mr. Lasseter a special Oscar in 1995, and 2003's "Finding Nemo" won for best animated feature.

Bob Iger was named Disney's CEO in March 2005 and took over from Michael Eisner in October of that year. Born in 1951, he has been the president of Walt Disney since 2000. Mr. Iger got his start in TV in the early 1970s as a weatherman and reporter in Ithaca, N.Y. He joined ABC in 1974 and climbed the ladder to become president of Capital Cities/ABC. He guided the merger of ABC and Disney in 1995, and was very active behind the scenes as Disney tried to prevent a shareholder rebellion in March 2004. Mr. Iger gained momentum as a CEO candidate when Disney's financial performance picked up thanks to television hits "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."

To sum up: Messrs. Iger and Jobs acknowledged that the key was to maintain Pixar's unique culture. "Most of the time that Bob and I have spent talking about this hasn't been about economics, it's been about preserving the Pixar culture because we all know that's the thing that's going to determine the success here in the long run," said Mr. Jobs. At the same time, Pixar President Ed Catmull and Mr. Lasseter will "help provide a slightly different culture at Disney feature animation that will maximize some of the talent there to make even better films," said Mr. Jobs.

Mr. Catmull, who co-founded the studio, will become president of the combined Pixar/Disney animation business. Mr. Lasseter will take a role as chief creative officer of the combined company as well as a creative role advising Disney's Imagineering division, helping design attractions for the theme parks . Pixar will remain based in Emeryville, Calif., far from Disney's Burbank, California, home.

Do these guys sound like a crew that is just 'wingin' it', to you? Relax, for fuck's sake./P

Re:Price

[Bing Tsher E]

Try and get ahold of Song of the South in any format.

Nice deal

[mwvdlee]

I think the devil made a nice deal; only $7.4 billion for a prime quality soul.

Re:Nice deal

[__aaclcg7560]

So you're saying Steve Jobs only got $7.4 billion. Or is the devil in the details?

Re:Nice deal

[Urkki]

So, what's so evil about Disney again? I mean, other than the whole no-pants thing corrupting minds of youngsters, and the various "Donald Duck"-parties that have been inspired by this...

I guess I could google for the evilness of Disney, but you should never trust the Internet so I'd rather read about it here on peer-reviewed slashdot.

Re:Nice deal

[__aaclcg7560]

Be careful... weirder things are happening at Google than Disney these days.

Re:Nice deal

[thesandtiger]

So, what's so evil about Disney again?

That they're one of the key corporations behind the ever increasing extensions of copyright duration would be the biggie for me.

Granted, if it weren't them, someone else would do it, but they did do it. So meh.

Re:Nice deal

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what's so evil about Disney again?

They have an army of lawyers with frickin' lasers on their frickin' heads.

Re:Nice deal

[soft_guy]

The fact that they are hypocrtical. First, they used stories from the public domain to build their empire. Then they use their money and power to bribe congress to extend copyright from the original 14 years to be basically infinite. Thus, no material can ever enter the public domain again.

Re:Nice deal

[slart42]

So, what's so evil about Disney again? I mean, other than the whole no-pants thing corrupting minds of youngsters, and the various "Donald Duck"-parties that have been inspired by this...

Dr. Hibbert: Well, only one in two million people has what we call the "evil gene". [holds up a card showing DNA] Hitler had it, Walt Disney had it, and Freddy Quimby has it.

Re:Nice deal

[vortigern00]

The big one for me is what Disney did to my parents' town.

The swooped in and announced that they were going to build a theme park called "Disney's America." They got the town to spend huge amounts of money on road improvements and business development. Lots of people moved into new housing. Lots of new businesses opened. The entire town bet their fortunes on Disney.

Then Eisner said "PSYCHE! HAHA!" and pulled it all out, making comments that implied he was just testing to see how far he could push the town.

Of course, I was a kid then, and this was all seen through my parents' eyes, so my view could be a little skewed. Anyone from the area care to back me up?

Re:Nice deal

[Jimbroskee]

You know, I had never heard about this, so I googled Disney's America to see if I could find more on it.

I can tell you where it is, its in Anaheim. Some of the concept art that I saw online exists at Disney California, The new theme park that they built in the old Disneyland Parking lot.

Re:Nice deal

[Svenheim]

I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests. It's not the company's fault that the american congress cares more about them than they care about the consumers and the voters.

Re:Nice deal

[Pieroxy]

The problem with Disney, is that they made most of their early money out of public domain stuff. Yet, this stuff would not have been in the public domain if the copyright extensions had been active then.

So on one end they should protect their interests... And on the other, according to their own views of copyright, they stole it all.

Go figure...
--
Krazy Kat

Re:Nice deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, only one in two million people has what we call the "evil gene". Hitler had it, Walt Disney had it, and... Freddy Quimby has it. ..and so has Steve Jobs

Re:Nice deal

[Urkki]

I'm so sick of this bullshit. Stop blaming companies for trying to protect their interests.

I don't think he means to blame companies for trying to protect company interests. He blames companies for hurting his own interests, and I think he has not only the right, but *obligation* (as a member of a supposedly democratic society) to do so.

Re:Nice deal

[generic-man]

I remember Disney's America being announced. A lot of people were upset that Disney was going to be building a theme park based around its corporate vision of American history, and from what I recall Disney backed out due to all the bad PR.

Besides, wasn't Disney's America going to be in Virginia? I know your town didn't have all these things, but there are already a few big theme parks in and around VA and there are a ton of Civil War-related attractions without a corporate facade.

Re:Nice deal

[IANAAC]

On the other hand, they've time and again shown they're a decent company as far as (human) equality goes. They're at least able to either say "no" to or ignore the religious right.

Re:Nice deal

[0xdeadbeef]

Congress isn't the shooter, congress is the gun, fool.

Re:Nice deal

[vortigern00]

Yeah, they are close to the Manassas Battlefield. It's all civil war history down there. But, those things don't bring in much money and at the time the area was quite depressed. Things are better now, fortunately :) It became a bedroom community for the dot-com boom, and the guys who made money and got out still have big houses and spend a lot of money.

It was fun hanging out in the woods and overgrown former farmland when I lived there. Every once in a while you'd stumble over an old grave marker or civil war relic of some sort. I once even found some slave graves on my parents' property. For those who will ask.... these particular graves were marked by a rectangle of buried rocks and nothing more. The rocks were arranged in the outline of a grave shape, they were at the fenceline, and they were not marked in any other way, so I only surmise that they were slave graves.

Re:Nice deal

[good soldier svejk]

Besides, wasn't Disney's America going to be in Virginia? I know your town didn't have all these things, but there are already a few big theme parks in and around VA and there are a ton of Civil War-related attractions without a corporate facade.

Yes it was in the Manassas (Battle of Bull Run) area.

From my own experience, I live down the street from a small, well intentioned not-for-profit zoo. In past winters a local artist would decorate it for the kids by painting various characters on the walls. Two of these were a certain mouse with no shirt and an associated duck with no pants. Disney's armey of lawyers put a stop to this several years ago. Apparently they couldn't see their way clear to donating a gratis right to use license. Up the highway in Vermont I remember a dairy farmer with a cow whose markings closely resembled the silhouette of the aforementioned mouse. Disney did not sue the cow, but they did buy her off the poor rube for $10,000 (IIRC) then move her to Florida and display her. Fair enough; he's a moron. But they then issued a press release bragging about how little they had paid for her and how they were reaping millions in revenue by exhibiting her. This was many years ago, so my details may be suspect.

Most of all, of course, they gave us the Bono act.

Re:Nice deal

[alucinor]

Try being an artist for them. After you quit, they still own everything you draw or paint or whatever for the next 5 years.

Re:Nice deal

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Try reading this book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed for a good idea of some of the evil that goes on under the name of Disney.

Re:Nice deal

[Cutting_Crew]

don't worry too much. Pixar tends to make movies that, umm... sell really damn well BECAUSE they are created by people with talent. That is why Disney bought them. And don't forget, for almost the entire existance of Pixar, they have been in a strategic relationship with Disney, and Pixar was making great movies then.

I am encouraged that this is a "stock buyout" and not a merger. The difference being that in a merger, A buys B and B dissapears. In a stock buyout, A buys B and both remain as different operating entities but they are a singular financial entity. This means that the CEO of Disney probably has very limited power if no power at all over Pixar. Only the board of directors have power over Pixar.

Re:Nice deal

[ajs318]

"Disney's America" - Graham Parker
I knew Virginia once
She was a pretty thing
She walked in the wide fields
And swam in the wide stream
I took her out one day
To the civil war battlefield
Way down in Manassas
where I told her my dreams

But now it's Disney's America
A long way from anywhere
I've got a brand new coat to wear
With a brand name on the seams
Just Disney's America
Virginia she chose to stay
And we drifted apart like runoff
Into the chesapeake bay

Then I had a family
Virginia, I guess she forgot about me
She lives near the concrete sea
Or so people say
I don't remember much
About her gentle touch
My skin just turned so hard
And my feet turned to clay

It was in Disney's America
A long way from anywhere
You get what you pay for there
Man, you get it in spades
Just Disney's America
Virginia she chose to stay
And we drifted apart like runoff
Into the Chesapeake bay
Bridge
You can't get too excited
You can't get too enthused
From Dismal Land to the Tragic Mountain
We are not amused

Yeah I knew Virginia once
She was a pretty thing
She walked in the wild fields
And swam in the wild streams

But now it's Disney's America
That's where we collect our pay
Where we drifted apart like runoff
Into the chesapeake bay
Yeah we drifted apart like runoff
Into the chesapeake bay

Re:Nice deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Prince William county (same as Manassas) and sure enough, I have the same thing behind my property. Buried inside deep brush and trees with no easy access because of land lock, are four piles of rocks and cement and four small depressions in the ground. I would never have noticed any of it but there is one small actual tomb stone made from granite in there stating that specific person died in 1902. That headstone stone actually looks relatively new so I assume someone put it there in the last 20 years. I researched what I could find from the county and it turns out there is a record of a 1 acre square plot of land defined as nothing other then "Cemetary". The surrounding area including the other two adjacent properties are nothing but dense trees as well.

Re:Nice deal

[sjf]

Nonsense.

This is an acquisition financed with stock. A has bought B. A's board can do pretty much anything they want with B. They can run it as a seperate operating entity or not. Heck, they can run the Disney Postroom as a seperate operating entity if they want. Financially the same holds true. What changes is that PIXAR is legally no longer a seperate legal entity. It no longer has independent reporting responsibilities to the SEC for instance. Otherwise, Disney can run it financially as it chooses. Disney's CEO will have as much power over the PIXAR business unit as the board of Disney gives him, and he would hardly be CEO if PIXAR did not report to him, that's pretty much the definition of the role: "the buck stops here".

Re:Nice deal

[Mark Gordon]

That's true of Disney. It's worth noting that other than the (limited) similarities between "Bug's Life" and "The Seven Samurai" and "Toy Story 2" being a sequel, all of Pixar's films to date have been completely original works. I'm curious to whether Disney will start creating more original works rather than making adaptations of ill-chosen 19th century French novels (one shudders at the prospect of Disney versions of "Scarlet and Black" or "Madame Bovary").

Re:Nice deal

[C0rinthian]

Well, because of these extensions being possible, no new material is entering the public domain. Hence Disney is running out of material to use without paying royalties. Ironic how they've undermined their own business model...

Re:Nice deal

[Cutting_Crew]

so me where it says merger?? i only see an acquisition of stocks..nothing about a merger. the offices and such of Pixar will remain at the same locations of business and JObs is now on the Board of Directors..this is more like Pixar taking over Disney(in a sense), at least all of the animation parts. there is nothing mentioned of a merger.. just an acquisition of stocks.

Re:Nice deal

[DroppedPacket]

Sounds like the first 10 minutes of a horror movie... Next thing you know ghosts or zombies will be after you. Watch your six.

Re:Nice deal

[retrosteve]

Ironic how they've undermined their own business model

Actually, now that they've become rich by mining the public domain and selling it back to the public, they can afford to license stories for future films. It's the business model of any of their smaller, newer competitors they've undermined.

I'm not sure if this counts as evil or just canny business practise.

Re:Nice deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought copyrights lasted until 70 years after the death of the author. 14 years is patents.

Of course, that becomes problematic when corporations own the copyrights.

Re:Nice deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Seven Samurai?

A Bug's Life is an expansion of the old 'ant and the grasshopper' fable in classice Disney form.

Re:Nice deal

[jacoplane]

Don't worry, Big Media still wins at being "evil" (make sure to read the follow up comics, it's a series). Still, the news of Google censoring its search engine in china does seem to bring into question google's philosophy of not being evil (anyone else notice that the google cache always seems to have "66" as the first two digits of it's IP ;)...

Re:Nice deal

[rk]

Up the highway in Vermont I remember a dairy farmer with a cow whose markings closely resembled the silhouette of the aforementioned mouse. Disney did not sue the cow, but they did buy her off the poor rube for $10,000 (IIRC) then move her to Florida and display her. Fair enough; he's a moron.

Given that you can typically get a dairy cow for about $1,000, I'd say selling one for 10k is a pretty shrewd deal, actually.

However, if it were me and Disney wanted to buy something like that, I think I'd ask for more.

Re:Nice deal

[good soldier svejk]

It's shrewd if you don't believe in opportunity cost.

Re:Nice deal

[eefsee]

This is probably way too much to hope for, still... I hope that Disney recognized that part of the reason they atrophied creatively is that they lean too heavily on their legacy. It is one thing for all of us to moan and groan about Disney's zealous defense of their aging intellectual "property". It is quite another for them to realize that all that old stuff really does not do them all that much good. Future success derives from having great new ideas. Now they have had to buy the minds of Pixar, the driving force behind not just a bunch of terrific new movies, but the developer of new characters, new methods (new McDonalds happy meal toys). Their own creativity hit a wall, I hope this may be a sign that they have to change their priorities to succeed long-term. Maybe they will loosen up a bit on the IP side. Like I say, probably too much to hope for.

Re:Nice deal

[HiThere]

Evil.

I'm not a competitor, and I've removed myself from their market-space, so I'm entitled to judge. I.e., I have no personal bias, I'm judging them by the effects they are having on society and on people I have no personal involvement with. (And I also don't benefit from either their success or their failure any more than an average member of the society.)

If I have any inherent bias it would be in their favor, since I used to like their movies, and they bring income into the country in which I live. So I would have some tendency to judge them favorably when they didn't deserve it.

Re:Nice deal

[Rakarra]

It's not a gun's role to analyze a situation and decide whether to allow itself to be shot or not.

Re:Nice deal

[damiam]

Say I owe John a bunch of money. And say I could kill him and get away with it. Since it would be in my financial interest to do so, I assume you wouldn't fault me for murdering John?

Re:Nice deal

[Svenheim]

There is a difference between using any legal means, lobbying etc to make you earn as much money as possible, and murdering people. A company who doesn't use what they can within the law to protect their interests have no place in a capitalist society. And just for the record, I think that copyright should last 5-10 years, tops.

Re:Nice deal

[daspriest]

so me where it says merger?? i only see an acquisition of stocks..nothing about a merger. the offices and such of Pixar will remain at the same locations of business and JObs is now on the Board of Directors..this is more like Pixar taking over Disney(in a sense), at least all of the animation parts. there is nothing mentioned of a merger.. just an acquisition of stocks.

I think you are confusing two different terms.... A merger being where two companies in the same business join together to form a larger company (i.e. AT&T and SBC). WHat Disney did was an aquisition of a company that was not in the same line of business as them. They bought Pixar outright, so now Disney owns Pixar the same way they own ESPN, ABC, and various other smaller companies. So your right its not a merger. But its not as simple as a stock aquisition either.

Re:Nice deal

[Mark Gordon]

A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.

If you've seen "Seven Samurai", the parallels are quite obvious. It's admittedly mapped onto the traditional grasshopper/ant fable, but as a movie, it's clearly patterned after "Seven Samurai".

Don't kid yourselves

[nagora]

Disney is a supertanker of a company and it'll take more than a seat on the board or even being nominally in charge of animation to turn it around from the pile of crap it has become. Pixar is dead, for all serious purposes, although I'm sure Disney will make a big deal out of exploiting its "brand" on more of its third-rate tat.

TWW

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this mean: it means that with Jobs in charge, Apple is now more of a media company than it ever was... which means that they are definitely going to push ahead with the customer-screwing, privacy-invading Trusted Computing versions of Apple Macs and severe DRM.

Someone want to tell me again why I should buy an Apple Mac when it is going to be little more than a Hollywood set-top box?

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[tpgp]

Disney is a supertanker of a company and it'll take more than a seat on the board or even being nominally in charge of animation to turn it around from the pile of crap it has become.

Kinda reminds of Michael Dell saying (about Apple) "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders"

I think if anyone can turn around disney, then Lasseter with Steve Jobs backing will be the ones to do it.

What I think we should be more worried about is the creation of the most vertically integrated entertainment duopoly since paramount case of 1948 broke up the old vertical monopolists.

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

The potential for abuse is frightening

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[squiggleslash]

I'm pretty sure people said the same of Apple before the NeXT people took over (that was carefully worded and I'm still sure someone's going to point out Apple bought NeXT - yes, they did, but NeXT's people took over Apple, I mean, they became the senior people and stuff.) Right now, with John Lasseter being Disney's Chief Creative Officer, and Jobs both on the board and being Disney's largest shareholder, it looks like, at least nominally, a replay.

Now, that said, there are differences, chief among them being that neither Jobs nor Lasseter is a former CEO of Disney, and as such are not necessarily as familiar with the culture and market as Jobs was with Apple.

Disney, like Apple in the mid-nineties, has lost its way. For the past 30 years, it's not really had any significant direction, and has concentrated largely on media takeovers and lobbying for copyright extentions to protect Mickey Mouse, arguably a brand that has fizzled out anyway over the last decade. There's still a lot of good coming out of it, clearly there are good people in parts that are trying to find good things and pump Disney money into them, whether it's Pixar or Miramax (Pulp Fiction.) While I'm not necessarily going to argue that Jobs or Lasseter are the right people for the job, it certainly needs a fresh approach, and Jobs and Lasseter may, ultimately, be the right people to do that.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[node 3]

In the early 80's, Disney was severely in danger of fading away. Eisner not only saved Disney financially, but built it into the huge, powerful media corporation it is today. However, it's not all roses. As you noted, "Disney is a supertanker of a company" that "exploit[s] its brand[s] on ... third-rate tat."

Disney's new CEO, Robert Iger, has impressed Steve Jobs enough to make this deal possible. Jobs is the type of person who wants to make [insanely] great things, and he wouldn't send one of his greatest creations into the maws of mediocrity. If you recall, it was recent that Jobs was ready to leave Disney in a very public row between Jobs and Eisner.

I fully expect the Pixar acquisition will make Disney better far more than it will make Pixar worse. I also suspect that under Iger, Disney will be vastly different from the Disney your post describes. How Disney's new CEO fares has yet to be decided, but the prognosis is positive, especially if Steve is willing to trust one of his three greatest creations to him.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[saltydogdesign]

But why bother? Is Disney really anything more than a brand? Is it really worth it to revive the brand when Pixar was making great stuff? Jobs was already producing content, distribution (iTunes), the codec and the device. What does Disney give him other than a bunch of headaches? I'm sure they'll get some good talent, but hell, Pixar can hire good talent any time they want.

I'm not being snide -- I really don't know the answers to these questions. I do agree, though, that the potential for abuse is frightening, if only because this means there is less competition now. I guess that's something in Jobs' favor.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Dan East]

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

Are you talking about Sony?

Dan East

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[mblase]

What I think we should be more worried about is the creation of the most vertically integrated entertainment duopoly since paramount case of 1948 [cobbles.com] broke up the old vertical monopolists.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Disney acquiring Pixar only means that they acquire a whole lot of proven talent and technology in a field they were already in. The only thing Pixar did that Disney didn't (besides profit) was sell their Renderman software.

There's no new "duopoly" here. Disney has bought a company that does exactly what Disney was doing anyway.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Doctor Faustus]

I'm pretty sure people said the same of Apple before the NeXT people took over... I'm still sure someone's going to point out Apple bought NeXT - yes, they did, but NeXT's people took over Apple

The usual way to word that around here is that NeXT bought Apple for $-400 million. Alas, I didn't come up with that, but it's very apt.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[gad_zuki!]

>>arguably a brand that has fizzled out anyway over the last decade.

Right. Now kids are all about the Devo 2.0. Soon kids at Disneyworld will be wearing flower pot hats and everything. Flash link w/ music here.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney is known for being "extremely" politically correct, making US govt. propaganda and censoring the artists work.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[wootest]

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

The only playback codecs Apple make that are somewhat relevant to this is Pixlet and Apple Lossless, and both are high-quality codecs that might make sense inside the studios but will never be used to encode any content distributed by the network to the playback device.

The FairPlay DRM, however, is proprietary, but that's not a codec. And both H.264 and AAC are supported parts of the independent MPEG-4 standard. Nice try though.

(And again, like someone else said, "You mean, like Sony?")

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

What content does Pixar have? A half dozen childrens movies and a few shorts.
What content does Disney have? Hundreds of movies in every genre imaginable (except possibly porn), countless shorts and several tv shows.

If I was to try to start a new video distribution channel I know who's content portfolio I would want to start with. If Jobs can get even a few % of Disney content portfolio onto ITMS it will totaly change the value and viability of it.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Gorbag]

The potential for abuse is frightening

I think you meant profit. Time to call Ameritrade!

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Fishstick]

>there is less competition now

I'm not sure I see that. This is the way I see it:

Pixar was/is a studio, Disney had a (sweet) distribution deal.
Pixar made the movies, Disney financed, promoted and distributed (and both made money).
Their deal ran out after the last (next?) movie.
Disney tried to negotiate a new deal and Pixar turned them down.
Pixar was free to either find a new distribution deal or do it themselves.
Disney worked out a deal to acquire them for stock.
Pixney is now going to (probably) keep making computer animated features.

Okay, *maybe* they *would have* competed had Pixar found a new distributor or raised the capital to distribute their own features. That hadn't happened yet. My guess is that there was a continuous negotiation starting with re-upping their original distribution deal and ending with Pixar getting a bunch of equity shares in exchange for their souls.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Pixar destroying lives of former employees?
The demise of BMRT & entropy

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[j_cavera]

> does this mean that Disney's movies will improve, or that Pixar's will become worse?

Put a gifted kid in a class full of idiots. Will the idiots become smarter? Think not.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[GenKreton]

I believe yur understanding of the situation is weak at best. SInce when is a 7% share controlling a company?

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Rebelgecko]

Well actually...

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[solios]

I'm pretty sure people said the same of Apple before the NeXT people took over (that was carefully worded and I'm still sure someone's going to point out Apple bought NeXT - yes, they did, but NeXT's people took over Apple, I mean, they became the senior people and stuff.)

Look what became of the operating system. Mac OS X is about as "Mac" as OS/2. It's NeXT for the masses and any resemblance to OS 9 is purely coincidental. :P

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[tpgp]

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

        Are you talking about Sony?

Sorry, I meant to say:

I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce content we like, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device.

See - sony no longer fits the description ;-)

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[norman619]

The potential for abuse is frightening

What abuse? You talk as if them two becoming one is something major. Pixar did the same thing that Disny did only better. They(Pixar) don't have many films under their belt yet. But the few they do have are gems. Disney has been slapping it's name on their product for a while now. So the only thing thay may happen is the quality of Pixar's films may go down a bit under the oppressive creative conditions that have existed at Disney for a while. Why do you think most of their real talent jumped ship? Hopefully those will change as well. Disney used to be THE place animators dreamed of working for. These past few years it's been the place to avoid. The only issue I have with Disney for now is the death grip they have on the rights to many of their characters that should have become public domain. Their creativity is all but dead. I hope Pixar will be the shot in the arm they need to become the mighty creative machine it once was.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[somersault]

Some of his friends may. In general the gifted kid may become demoralised, but if he is truly 'gifted' then nothing is to stop him learning on his own outside of school. And Jobs has probably had to suffer a lot of idiots in his time, but seems to be doing pretty well. I remember reading Mac maagazines in the 90s and sorely hoping that they were going to pull out of their rut, but I thought they were going to go the way of my precious Amigas. Now look at them. Admittedly they're not famous for their computers, but the man does indeed have some kind of gift :p

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[noamsml]

That's a good thing, OS9 sucks in every aspect.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[rjung2k]

Look what became of the operating system. Mac OS X is about as "Mac" as OS/2. It's NeXT for the masses and any resemblance to OS 9 is purely coincidental.

Speaking as a Mac user for over a decade, I have to say that you make this sound like a bad thing.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[MightyMartian]

Look at Disney's animated output over the last ten years. Then look at Pixar's. They may hypothetically be doing the same thing, but in reality Pixar's in an entirely different league.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[sjf]

In itself it isn't. However, many companies have no single shareholder holding much more than that percentage. What 7% gives you is the loudest independent voice on the board and the right to make the phone calls to the other investors.

Indeed, typical large companies with long histories will not have any single investor with anthing approaching 50%.

I've no idea if job wants the CEO position, in fact I expect he doesn't, but if he did he's in a great position to persuade other shareholders. 7% of a huge company like Disney is a bucketload of influence.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[C0rinthian]

Talks between the two companies had pretty much stopped because Jobs didn't like Eisner. Once he was out of the picture, things sweetened up.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[nellardo]

I think if anyone can turn around disney, then Lasseter with Steve Jobs backing will be the ones to do it.

Don't forget Ed Catmull taking over management of the animation studios.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Bob Iger is safe, believe me -- and Disney has been profitable for years.

I'm happy to see Jobs join the board and Lasseter rejoin the company, but if you think that constitutes a takeover in any way shape or kind...well, enjoy your stay in Neverland.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Fishstick]

good point

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[AnalystX]

http://news.com.com/How+long+before+Jobs+is+Disney s+new+boss/2010-1030_3-6030716.html?tag=carsl

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, with John Lasseter being Disney's Chief Creative Officer, and Jobs both on the board and being Disney's largest shareholder, it looks like, at least nominally, a replay.

I wonder why John Ratzenberger is not being made into Chief Voice Cameo Officer

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Aqua OS X]

Pixar is far from dead.

No one in their right mind would spend 7 billion dollars on a brand... especially when they already own the IPs associated with that brand. Disney wants the studio and the creative process associated with that studio.

Pixar will probably function as it has always functioned. Yet, they may have access to more money now.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[dlelash]

"I mean we're going to have one guy (Jobs) essentially controlling two companies that will between them produce the content, the distribution network, the playback codec and the playback device."

Umm, largest single stockholder != majority stockholder. Jobs won't "control" Disney unless they also make him chairman.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[nagora]

No one in their right mind would spend 7 billion dollars on a brand.

The last 15 or 20 years has shown that the only thing Disney knows or cares about is branding, and they've made a fortune at it. Creatively, however, they've not been even close to their right minds.

TWW

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

if Steve is willing to trust one of his three greatest creations to him.

Implying:

1) The rebranding of Pixar
2) RDF
3) Lisa

(Spoken with tongue in cheek as an Apple user since the ][+, 48k.)

PR#6

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[rossifer]

Hey, "Lilo & Stitch" was a very good traditionally animated feature, IMHO. It was almost to the quality of Pixar's earlier offerings. Granted, "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" have substantially raised the bar since then.

But then, "Lilo & Stitch" only supports the contention that even a blind dog occasionally finds a bone. To extend the analogy, "Lilo & Stitch 2" is evidence that a blind and stupid dog will then proceed to bury the bone and forget where he put it

Regards,
Ross

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[shellbeach]

Look at Disney's animated output over the last ten years. Then look at Pixar's. They may hypothetically be doing the same thing, but in reality Pixar's in an entirely different league.

Um ... correct me if I'm wrong here, but wasn't Pixar part of Disney for almost all of the last ten years?? Everything up to and including "The Incredibles" was released with Disney ...

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[MightyMartian]

Pixar and Disney had a distribution agreement. Pixar was not owned by Disney. It was dissatisfaction with Disney's cut that lead Pixar to start shopping around, and also, as I recall, to many questions being asked of Eisner.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[MightyMartian]

Lilo and Stitch was amusing, and even the Emperor's New Groove wasn't that bad, but at the end of the day, Disney just seems to have lost the ability to write scripts. Yes, the animation is still very good, but where Disney will pick Elton John and Phil Collins to write songs, Pixar would get Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett. Even if musical choices, Pixar is out of Disney's league. Disney, with all its stupid talking animals, its desire to out-Broadway Broadway has made it into a joke. And then they milk the crap out of every movie with bad direct-to-video sequels. They've managed to out-greed themselves and have become nauseating.

I remember watching the Hunchback of Notre Dam and thinking to myself that there was no cultural icon, no great work, that Walt Disney couldn't regurgitate as a Burger King toy, and make into shallow, pathetic, sing-song entertainment. Then you'd watch a Pixar film like Toy Story or Monsters Inc, and they were edgy and entertaining, getting right everything that Disney just can't do any more.

I just hope Disney has the brains to leave Pixar at arm's length, but knowing Disney, they'll try to "improve" it until its pumping out the same purile garbage that Disney has become known for.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[NeutronCowboy]

How Disney's new CEO fares has yet to be decided, but the prognosis is positive, especially if Steve is willing to trust one of his three greatest creations to him.

Either that, or Jobs figured that even if the deail fails and Disney/Pixar goes south, a couple of billion dollars in pay off are enough to allow him to start over.

Everyone has a price. Some are just more expensive than others.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[nagora]

I've no idea if job wants the CEO position

Bloody hell! First the boils, then the post of CEO of Disney. Poor old Job's having a bad time. Still, better than Jonah. Marginally.

TWW

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[nikster]

Disney animation is filthy: No ideas, No ideas, and no ideas, and the rot goes all the way up to the top. A desperate situation.

Pixar on the other hand is the white knight. They can do no wrong. Their blockbusters are not just blockbusters, they are seriously good movies. If anybody can save Disney animation, it's John Lasseter. I am willing to bet money on this, and I actually am by keeping the DIS shares I got for my PIXR. Pixar knows a little secret that many in Hollywood have forgotten: A story makes a movie.

The rest of Disney, I don't know about, but if Steve Jobs drags them into the forefront of the digital media revolution then I would say they have a leg up on everyone else. Especially since the others are torn between stalling, denying, and suing their own customers.

Disney is in much better shape than yesterday: Animation unit basically restored to glory, and at the forefront of digital media. There is huge growth potential in it. Of course, potential is just that, and they could just as well stupidly throw it all away. Though I would think that the majority share Steve Jobs holds prevents that.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Steve also brought in (and trust) John Sculley to run Apple?

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Simon Garlick]

even the Emperor's New Groove wasn't that bad

No, it was. I challeng you to watch anything made by Pixar and then TENG from start to finish. You won't be able to do it - TENG is a stinking turd.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[node 3]

Didn't Steve also brought in (and trust) John Sculley to run Apple?

Yes, and?

Do you think Iger is going to remove Steve from the board of Disney? That he's going to frustrate the efforts of Jobs and the rest of Pixar to the point of making things that much worse?

Sure, Steve made a mistake with Sculley, but one mistake is not a trend.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[node 3]

Either that, or Jobs figured that even if the deail fails and Disney/Pixar goes south, a couple of billion dollars in pay off are enough to allow him to start over.

That's impossible. Steve cannot buy the almost 20 years he spent building Pixar back with the money he'll have made in this deal.

However, you're right that he's taken a risk. My point is that it's a risk he believes is likely to succeed without destroying what makes Pixar so great (as so many people seem to fear).

Everyone has a price. Some are just more expensive than others.

That's not true, not in the way you mean it to apply here. Once you are a billionaire, how much money would it take to make you do things that right now, as a "thousandaire" would only cost a few thousand? Do you think (for example) that any amount of cash would convince Bill Gates to brutally kill his parents?

Even so, your statement raises a valid question. But, given the facts, it's just not likely that Steve is knowingly cashing in on the destruction of Pixar. It doesn't even enter the realm of the significantly possible. But he is taking a risk that Pixar will be destroyed by Disney, if that's all you mean, but that's a whole different thing than "everyone has a price". There's a huge difference between "betting the company" (as it were), and "selling out the company" (what you've implied).

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[typical]

Eisner not only saved Disney financially, but built it into the huge, powerful media corporation it is today.

You know, I'm not saying that Eisner might not have had some important ideas or insights, but the idea that any CEO does something like this is absurd. Yes, business rags like to make statements like this, to glorify high-level execs, but the idea that the thousands of people who *aren't* the CEO were just sitting around directionless when the new CEO walked in and personally made everything better is absurd. There were business development people out closing new deals, animators producing better products...the whole mass of people. What's more, it's a pretty safe bet that the CEO you just slapped in, who doesn't have the years of experience with the company and industry that other people already there do, isn't going to be likely to singlehandedly do much.

I'm not saying that the CEO doesn't do anything, but he's one administrator in a very large pool.

What the CEO *is* good for is PR value. Bad couple of years in a publically-owned company and the shareholders are getting cranky? Kick out the CEO, take an artificially inflated "one-time restructuring charge" that you separate when talking about your profits ("Hey, it was just a one-time thing, you know?"), do some creative accounting to funnel that overstated loss into "profit" the next couple quarters (which keeps the shareholders off your back for a while while you try some other things and hope that the market improves), declare that the CEO is a brilliant success who has solved the company's problems, and then hang onto him until the next time that you need a scapegoat. He knows the risks of the job and goes with a golden parachute (without which he wouldn't have put himself in the position of sacrificial lamb). Repeat as needed.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[NeutronCowboy]

Once you are a billionaire, how much money would it take to make you do things that right now, as a "thousandaire" would only cost a few thousand? Do you think (for example) that any amount of cash would convince Bill Gates to brutally kill his parents?

Point taken, and further supported by the fact that he didn't simply bail. Otherwise, it would be possible that he just figured it's a good time to start something new.

I'm just not quite sure what the benefit is. Some people mentioned that this creates the most vertically integrated company since... well, since the other media companies. With the significant advantage that the company is a leader in three critical areas: distribution, movie appeal and brand recognition.

I'm curious though how his 7% (?) stake and seat on the board is gonna pan out. Will he be able to tie Disney/Pixar to Apples Itunes and Ipod? If yes, that could really put it ahead of all other Movie studios. I guess that's the payoff - and you're right, that's a worthwhile risk to take.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[node 3]

You know, I'm not saying that Eisner might not have had some important ideas or insights, but the idea that any CEO does something like this is absurd.

No, what is absurd is your entire post. Your post completely underestimates the importance of leadership. If Eisner's sole goal was the "golden parachute", do you think he would have stayed with Disney for over 20 years? Wouldn't one want to get in and out as quickly as possible in order to seek the next big bonus?

If you need examples of how leadership can affect an organization, for better or worse, one need only look as far as:

Apple
The executive branch of the US
HP
Wal-Mart

Each of those organizations have thrived or suffered under their leadership, and have all done so in different ways due to the very different character of their respective leaders.

Do you think Apple would be the company it is today with Amelio still CEO?

Don't be absurd.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[Aqua OS X]

True... their own brands.

I'm sure Disney will whore the hell out of the Pixar brand. However I doubt they'll abandon their creative process. That's really why they're acquiring Pixar.

Re:Don't kid yourselves

[mblase]

Look at Disney's animated output over the last ten years. Then look at Pixar's. They may hypothetically be doing the same thing, but in reality Pixar's in an entirely different league.

That has nothing to do with the monopoly/duopoly argument I was replying to. The fact that they are, as you say, doing the same thing is the only issue.

My Guess:

[bakes]

does this mean that Disney's movies will improve, or that Pixar's will become worse?

My Guess: both.

We shall see.

Re:My Guess:

[zaxus]

OFF TOPIC:

Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

You're dispicable! :-)

Re:My Guess:

[soft_guy]

That's a pretty safe bet. Pixars movies have been very good and there is no where to go but down from there. Disney's have been abysmal and there is no where to go but up.

Re:My Guess:

[somersault]

Come on now, "there's nowhere to go but down" is going a little bit too far. There are plenty of great stories left to tell in the world (ones that haven't been heard before would tend to be great I'd say, but most stories are made up of elements of others).. and their software and hardware will only improve over time, giving possibilities for spectacular effects/realism (which I enjoy, but do find secondary to the actual story, same as with games).

Also Disney still do the occasional good movie, I dont tend to look at who-made-what but I'm pretty sure there have been some that I liked. Though admittedly there cant have been any outstanding movies made by them or I'd remember!

Hopefully the guys who were in charge of creating/finding plots and directing Pixar films will be put in prominent positions in Disney. Anything else would be a waste.. it's nice that some people still appreciate storytelling even when they have the ability to stun simply on a visual level.

Re:My Guess:

[soft_guy]

I'm merely pointing out that there is a "ceiling effect" and a "floor effect" with the quality of movies from the two companies.

Donald Duck

[VGh0st]

Does this mean new donald duck episodes may include luxo?

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it may mean that Donald Duck and friends will leave flatland.

More Like Pixar Took Over Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Lassiter is now Chief Creative Officer of the animation studios, as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering. Pixar president Ed Catmull is now president of the new combined Pixar/Disney animation studios. And as much as I dislike Technomessiah Steve, I would love to see him take over the creative vision aspect of the theme parks.

Re:More Like Pixar Took Over Disney

[f0rtytw0]

I would have to agree with this. I also hear that Steve Jobs is now the largest share holder of Disney.

Re:More Like Pixar Took Over Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes...He'll own a whopping 3.5% of Disney shares.

iTunes

[Peter Bonte]

I'm wondering what the Disney/Pixar - Apple relation is going to work out. iTunes is selling Disney material now so apparently there is some cooperation.

Re:iTunes

[vistic]

Well there was an even bigger relationship between Apple and Pixar (as its own company) and I don't recall seeing a ton of special promotions and cross-over collaborations and such. So I would expect even less from Disney and Apple now, since Steve's role at Disney is less than it was at Pixar.

Re:iTunes

[Peter Bonte]

Up until now Apple didn't really had a good use for the Pixar content and the distribution was with Disney. Pixar lately did use more and more osX and Apple hardware so there is a business connection somewhere. Did Pixar use Shake? (Apple's digital animation/effects software)

Re:iTunes

[jc42]

I'm wondering what the Disney/Pixar - Apple relation is going to work out.

Right now Disney/Pixar and Apple reps are discussing with John Negroponte the design of the new children's computer, the cMac, with a price of $100. It will be powered by a hand crank, have builtin wireless networking, and instead of a glowing apple-with-a-bite-missing will have a glowing Mickey Mouse head.

They're also talking to google about bringing up a worldwide wireless system for delivering content (entertaiment, education) on demand to all the world's children.

Meanwhile, their lawyer lobbyists will be making "deals" with governments everywhere that will guarantee their perpetual control of the rights to everything delivered by their system, regardless of who made it.

Remember, you heard it here first.

Re:News headlines eaten by trollishness

[kevn]

You think " Pixar Eaten by Mickey Mouse" is witty?

Pixar - Disney deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know for the movies, but I can confirm you that Steve Jobs's bank account will improve (not that it was so bad though :-))

Pixar Buy Disney for -$7.4b Dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, with Steve Jobs being the largest stockholder, and that other guy from Pixar become head of creative stuff and of the themeparks, it would seem this is the actual outcome. Steve Jobs will probably get a nice title at Disney too.

No...

[xusr]

it means Geri and the Genie go head-to-head in the next short...

Isn't it the other way around?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Steve Jobs is now one of the (if not _the_) biggest share holders in Disney, and John Lasseter is head of the artistic department, one could say Pixar now controls Disney's future...

Re:Isn't it the other way around?

[csoto]

Exactly my thoughts. Basically, Disney Animation is gone. It has been replaced in whole by Pixar, which isn't altogether a terrible thing. I mean, Disney couldn't milk the Lion King forever, and they had no new ideas.

I don't think Jobs would have agreed to this if he wasn't sure the talent were also coming along. He did the same with Apple - he brought Avie and gave Ive the carte blanche he required. If Jobs cares about Pixar, and my understanding is, he does, then there's little to worry about. Lasseter is the creative force behind Pixar, and not only will he be in charge of Disney's animation vision, but they're putting him in charge of theme parks, consumer goods and even their broadway stuff. That's a massive shift in power, and it's long overdue.

Re:Isn't it the other way around?

[ZaMoose]

Two repsonses:

1. There's only so much of Lasseter's time to go around. I think one of the big benefits of him being restricted to Pixar was precisely that he didn't have to worry about all manner of marketing, distribution and theme park crap. If he has to pay attention to all those extra facets, something has to suffer (at least until we figure out how to switch to a 36 hour standard day...).

2. As long as he manages to help Disney avoid atrocities such as Bambi freakin' II ("The Love of a Father, the Courage of a Son". Shoot me now.), it'll be a net positive, IMNSHO.

Re:Isn't it the other way around?

[rjung2k]

There's only so much of Lasseter's time to go around. I think one of the big benefits of him being restricted to Pixar was precisely that he didn't have to worry about all manner of marketing, distribution and theme park crap. If he has to pay attention to all those extra facets, something has to suffer (at least until we figure out how to switch to a 36 hour standard day...).

Assuming this deal wasn't sprung on John Lasseter in the last 24 hours, it's safe to assume he's been pondering this step for a long time and eventually believe he's up to the task. He might not be able to fully direct animated movies any more (though I think he's contractually obligated to do two more after Cars), but creative control at Disney Imagineering is nothing to sneeze at.

Re:Isn't it the other way around?

[Moflamby-2042]

Disney couldn't milk the Lion King forever

Not to mention it doesn't look like the Lion King was Disney's corps. idea to start with:
http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm.

Either which way

[TehBlahhh]

I think it is too early to draw any conclusions from this deal. It could still go any which way - better films, worse films, more web X.0 content, more DRM, and so on and on. I'd say we need about half a year before any 'conclusion' on this deal is more then mere speculation.

With that in mind, allow me to say: WOHOO! all the backlog of (quality) disney movies on my ipod!

In the best of all worlds,

[ameline]

This will be similar to Apple buying Next. In the end, all the senior people of Next wound up running Apple -- Apple adopted NextStep as their OS, and called it OSX.

With any luck, Jobs, Lasseter, and other senior Pixar people will wind up running Disney. It would be a substantial improvement.

Re:In the best of all worlds,

[Cutting_Crew]

AdObe buys MaCRomedia

AutOdesk buys Alias and DiScreeT

Disney buys PIxar

Microso t

only an f to go!!!..lets see, what needs to finish the puzzle..:)

Re:In the best of all worlds,

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not at all similar to Apple buing NeXT. Apple was on the ropes when it "bought" NeXT, and probably wouldn't have survived otherwise. Disney is in excellant fiscal condition with a very profitable revenue stream. Pixar, on the other hand, was capacity without a distribution system. BTW, some of you are very naive about how creative duties were distributed in the Disney/Pixar collaborations. Disney was NEVER just a passive channel.

Oh, and one other thing: If you think that Disney is an animated film producer with some side businesses you are very, VERY naive. Media Networks (ABC, ESPN, SoapNet, 'Toon, etc) dwarfs all of Studio Entertainment in both revenue and earnings. That's also true of Parks and Resorts. Consumer products is almost equal (to ALL of Studio) and growing at a much faster rate.

I'm a big fan of animation and very happy about the deal -- not to mention Lassiter's return, but this drivel about Pixar dominating Disney or Jobs ousting Iger is so stupid it's not even good for a laugh.

Pixar = NeXT

[illtron]

Somebody said this elsewhere on another site, but Pixar will be to Disney as NeXT was to Apple.

I expect very good things from now on from Disney. This will be their saving grace. And they're very lucky to have Steve Jobs on board now. I suspect he'll be CEO someday.

Re:Pixar = NeXT

[grahamlee]

They did in slashdot too.

Re:Pixar = NeXT

[Anonymous Coward]

it was this site, the guy above you.

Re:Pixar = NeXT

[illtron]

Ha, my bad. I could have sworn it was TUAW or something. Apparently I'm having memory issues.

Not hard to see why....

[FalconZero]

...from the box office totals (in millions of US dollars)

Pixar

• Toy Story (1995) $191
• Bugs Life (1998) $162
• Toy Story2 (1999) $245
• Monsters, Inc (2001) $255
• Finding Nemo (2003) $339
• Incredibles (2004) $261

Disney

• Aladdin (1992) $217
• The Lion King (1994) $312
• Pocahontas (1995) $141
• Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) $100
• Hercules (1997) $99
• Mulan (1998) $120
• Tarzan (1999) $171
• The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89
• Atlantis (2001) $84
• Lilo & Stitch (2002) $145
• Treasure Planet (2002) $38
• Brother Bear (2003) $85
• Home on the Range (2004) $50

Can you guys spot the trend too?

(Data from Wikipedia/www.boxofficemojo.com)

Re:Not hard to see why....

[poeidon1]

Yeah, Disney released twice the number of movies than pixar 1995-2005, but revenue was almost half per movie, so its the same in the end for both. Now are they trying to get disney number of movies with pixar revenue or pixar number of movies with disney revenue

Re:Not hard to see why....

[augustz]

My gut tells me Cars is not going to do as well as other Pixar films, though with disney owning pixar, they will probably promote the hell out of it. You read the prediction here :)

After that though, they could crank out blockbusters. I loved Monsters, toy story, even nemo. Sequels (to monster etc) are obvious, and franchise films can make big bucks..

Be interesting to see how it turns. out.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[FalconZero]

Not quite. In the period since 1995 Pixar's box office returns totalled $1,453million, where Disney's totalled $1,122million. (Pixar come out $331 million up, which isn't to be sniffed at), however (and crucially) Disney's recepts are in decline, whereas Pixar's are not.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[iamdrscience]

Yeah, Disney released twice the number of movies than pixar 1995-2005, but revenue was almost half per movie, so its the same in the end for both

I think actually what he was trying to point out was that Pixar's revenues are going up while Disney's are going down. Besides that though, in regards to what you said, given the numbers in the grandparent post, the average Pixar film makes ~$242M and the average Disney film gets $127M, so already Pixar is getting close to double the revenue.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[chrisgeleven]

Except Pixar had 6 films since 1995, while Disney has had 11 films. And with barely half as many films, Pixar killed Disney by roughly $300 million.

More bang for the buck if you go with Pixar movies. It isn't even a question.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[16K Ram Pack]

I've managed to only see 1 Pixar movie at the cinema (TS2), because in every other case, the teasers put me off the movie.

The teaser for Cars makes it look unappealling, but I'm going anyway.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[btpier]

But what you're not taking into account is the production cost of the movies. Even if you assume that pixar spent more per movie in production costs (which isn't incredibly likely), they certainly spent less to make half as many films and brought in $300 million more in revenue. You also have to assume that Pixar's "brands" are stronger than the ones Disney has created recently as far as non-movie sales for related products. All this combined and it's obvious the Pixar has kicked Disney's ass in Disney's own playground.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[david.given]

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89

Damn. There's no justice. That film is great, and completely blows away most of their other recent films for sheer style, verve and originality --- I reckon it's better than The Lion King, which suffered rather from the Disney over-earnestness.

Treasure Planet (2002) $38

That one's a real pity. Everything about it was so good --- the animation, the concept, the style, the characterisation, the acting --- except for the actual plot. If only they'd stuck to the original Stephenson novel instead of going off into la-la land with space portals and huge explosions and crap like that, this could have been good. The first half --- up until whatshisname gets pushed overboard by Silver --- is well worth watching.

Home on the Range (2004) $50

I've never even heard of this one. That's how much Disney's impacted me recently...

Re:Not hard to see why....

[deltatype0]

The Little Mermaid (1989) $111

random facts from imdb, Louie's voice was Rene Auberjonois, aka Odo from DS9. Crazy. Also Nancy Cartwright of The Simpsons fame

Re:Not hard to see why....

[slashrogue]

Yea... Disney movies lately have sucked. I liked Aladdin and the Lion King, but the only other movie I've even bothered with on that list is Lilo & Stitch, which was actually fairly amusing. The rest of 'em tho... meh.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[Andy_R]

What is is hard to see, looking at those numbers, is why Disney's stock value is $50Bn and Pixar's is $7Bn.

This deal must make some sort of sense to both parties though, so it wouldn't surprise me if what's actually happening here is that the Pixar people will do the movies and the Disney people will do the part of the business that they do best: theme parks and retail stores.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[MrNiceguy_KS]

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89 Damn. There's no justice. That film is great, and completely blows away most of their other recent films for sheer style, verve and originality I so agree with you on this. Such a great movie - great sarcastic humor and perfect use of comic timing.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[vanguard]

What is is hard to see, looking at those numbers, is why Disney's stock value is $50Bn and Pixar's is $7Bn. Really? Disney had theme parks around the world, ABC, ESPN, several movie studios (touchstone comes to mind), and much more. Do they still own the Mighty Ducks hockey team? Disney is enormous. What I can't figure out is why Pixar is worth $7b. They make about $100m a year right? Ignoring the cost of money, that's 70 years to break even.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[sjf]

A guided tour of the contents of my 10 year old daughter's bedroom would easily explain why Disney is valued at $50B.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[nellardo]

Why is Disney's market cap $50b ($49.513b as I write this) and Pixar's $7.4b (market price $6.9b - clearly some people cashed out last night)? But Pixar made $300m more in gross receipts?

That's easy - Disney has 15 major subsidiaries, including ABC, ESPN, their live-action studios, the theme parks (yay, Disney World!), video games, mobile phone, and merchandising. The Mouse is much more than its cartoons.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a great movie

Wow, did we see the same flick? You guys are actually serious, and not being sarcastic? I respectfully disagree with both of you. Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm 38)? My 8-year-old daughter didn't think much of it either. I thought it was utterly forgettable. I mean, it had its moments, I did laugh a bit, but overall my impression was that the humor and plot were both predictable and lifeless. I thought $89 million in business was far more than it deserved.

Maybe the real problem is I can't get David Spade's whiny, obnoxious face out of my head when his character speaks. And that's from someone who thinks his regular obnoxious brand of whining can be pretty darn funny.

Oh well, to each his own.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[Carewolf]

Home on the Range (2004) $50

I wonder is that the Moo-vie?

Re:Not hard to see why....

[david.given]

You guys are actually serious, and not being sarcastic?

We're not going to agree, are we? There's a wall there...

Re:Not hard to see why....

[javaxman]

My gut tells me Cars is not going to do as well as other Pixar films, though with disney owning pixar, they will probably promote the hell out of it. You read the prediction here :)

You do not have a four-year-old boy. He tells me that Cars is going to be a mind-blowing success. Anyone who was ever into Hot Wheels, NASCAR, or cars in general, or who just likes funny, cute, slick-looking movies with good stories is going to love it... so, most of the U.S., especially families with boys. Yea, that's a good market, and they'll buy. Shoot, at this point, it could suck and still do well, the Pixar reputation is that good.

Also... the buzz is that it's absolutely fantastic. This movie won't suck. I haven't seen anything other than the trailers ( which do look good ) but... I predict it'll be bigger than the Incredibles.

You read my prediction here ;-)

Re:Not hard to see why....

[Blakey Rat]

Ditto on Emporer's New Groove. Excellent movie. Lilo and Stitch is another under-appreciated strange and hilarious movie from Disney, except it sticks a little bit closer to the Disney formula than New Groove does.

Incidentally, Emporer's New Groove was co-written by Chris Williams, whose Intelligent Humor comic strip is (in part) available online at:

http://www.ccma.ca/inthumor/

Read a few of those strips, and you can easily see where the oddball humor in Emporer's New Groove came from.

And remember: Pudge controls the weather!

Re:Not hard to see why....

[mixmasta]

More like ~150 a year in the US boxoffice. Don't forget the rest of the world, merchandise, and even some pocket-change from renderman.

Plus theyve got brand, momentum, and real talent ... those things are worth a premium in this mediocre world.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[AJWM]

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89

Damn. There's no justice. That film is great,

Agreed, completely.

Treasure Planet (2002) $38

That one's a real pity. Everything about it was so good --- the animation, the concept, the style, the characterisation, the acting --- except for the actual plot.

Mostly agreed. It was better than I thought it'd be (I refused to see it in the theatre), but I still can't get past the spaceships that look like old sailing ships silliness. And no, don't tell me about solar wind unless you can explain why they didn't also have sails on the "bottom".

My favorite take on "Treasure Island" (and I've seen it as everything from a stage play to the old Disney live action film, as well as reading the book) has to be Muppet Treasure Island, with Kermit playing Captain Smollet and Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Aside from giving Ben Gunn a sex change (it's now Benjamina Gunn, played by Miss Piggy), it's not too far from the book, with the usual collection (for a Muppet movie) of musical numbers and one-liners. (The best of the Muppet movies too, IMHO).

Re:Not hard to see why....

[david.given]

Lilo and Stitch is another under-appreciated strange and hilarious movie from Disney, except it sticks a little bit closer to the Disney formula than New Groove does.

Which is why I didn't mention it, and, well, I'd already done three. But yeah, I like that one as well. A bit too earnest, but I can forgive it a lot for that superb opening sequence...

Very Small Technician #1: Sir, he's stolen a police cruiser!
Very Small Technician #2: (with awe) He's taken the red one...

http://www.ccma.ca/inthumor/

That's... very odd. Very. Odd.

And remember: Pudge controls the weather!

Ech.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[Blakey Rat]

I think that "he's taken the red one" gag was a riff on how, in cartoons, the hero characters always have a unique vehicle and the enemies chasing them always look exactly alike and are in the exact same vehicles. Maybe that wasn't what was intended, but it made me laugh, especially when you think about it: Why would a starship have hundreds of identical police cruisers in blue, and one SINGLE one in red? I like movies that point out that the screenwriters are at least aware of the cliches, even if they're still using them.

Apologies if everyone else got that joke instantly and I'm a jerk for explaining it.

Re:Not hard to see why....

[typical]

Can you guys spot the trend too?

You mean *other* than that the movies in this list made by Disney are almost all retellings of public-domain stories (yes, public domain -- that awful fate of stories that Disney tries to help Congress save their own content from)? Well, aside from the one that they just outright stole, of course.

Now is the time

[aiabx]

It's hard to judge a movie by it's trailers, but if Cars turns out to be as awful as it looks, Pixar is going to crash and burn when it's released. Best to sell now while Pixar's reputation is still riding high.
        -aiabx

Re:Now is the time

[Stan Vassilev]

"It's hard to judge a movie by it's trailers, but if Cars turns out to be as awful as it looks, Pixar is going to crash and burn when it's released. Best to sell now while Pixar's reputation is still riding high."

This happens almost before every Pixar feature. Examples.

Finding Nemo? A story about fish? WTF can't they animate stuff with legs anymore, this is going to be so lame, omg Pixar is ruined. Results: critical acclaim and great box office, awards, great public perception.

Incredibles? Omg those are so stylised, nothing creative about it, some story with CG humans. It looks so lame, omg Pixar is ruined. Results: critical acclaim and great box office, awards, great public perception.

Now it's happening to cars. But all those who are trolling on the teaser trailer will be in for a surprise. Pixar isn't randomly greenlighting movie screenplays based on explosion/boob ratio.

I'm sure it's gonna be a great movie and I'm looking forward to it.

Re:Now is the time

[eclectic4]

"It's hard to judge a movie by it's trailers, but if Cars turns out to be as awful as it looks, Pixar is going to crash and burn when it's released."

Yes, it's very dificult to judge most movies by it's trailer. This is why we shouldn't do it. And to suggest that one bust in a string of hits will destroy PIXAR, then again, there is another gap in reasoning here...

Re:Now is the time

[16K Ram Pack]

Every teaser from Pixar sucked. Thankfully, every movie hasn't.

I personally rate Bug's Life as the least good Pixar movie. Which is still head-and-shoulders above every non-Pixar non-Shrek CG movie.

Re:Now is the time

[mblase]

Now it's happening to cars. But all those who are trolling on the teaser trailer will be in for a surprise.

The premise, if you haven't read about it yet, sounds clever -- a racing stock car and an old rusty country pickup truck buddy up and go on a road trip down Route 66. The stock car lives fast, flashy and rich -- but until now hasn't ever seen much of life outside the racetrack. The pickup has been everywhere, man, but doesn't know much of life outside of the rural Midwest.

Now that I type it, it sounds a lot like "Finding Nemo" with cars. The fact that Owen Wilson is voicing the stock car is a plus; I've always like his character (singular) in other comedies.

Re:Now is the time

[cyberbian]

Pixar isn't randomly greenlighting movie screenplays based on explosion/boob ratio.

That's what Touchstone is for!

Re:Now is the time

[aiabx]

Maybe I see things differently, but I thought Monsters Inc and Incredibles had great trailers. And speaking as the parent of a nine-year old, there isn't a Pixar film I haven't seen fifty times, so I know the subject matter. I will see Cars, and own the DVD and the happy meal toys, but it will be because of the Pixar brand name, and not because I think it looks like it will be any good. Which I don't.

Besides, if you'll excuse the circular reasoning, if Cars were any good, why would Pixar sell now?
          -aiabx

Re:Now is the time

[BobTheShrew]

I'm not so much for exploding boobs. Sounds painful.

Re:Now is the time

[Doctor Memory]

Just keep saying to yourself: "It's only a movie...."

Re:Now is the time

[Stan Vassilev]

Just keep saying to yourself: "It's only a Slashdot comment...."

Re:Now is the time

[ejp1082]

Personally, I liked the trailers for Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. The only ones that I can say didn't immediately grab me was for the original Toy Story and Cars. In the case of Cars, I'm not even sure my apathy relates to the content of the movie - it just seems like a film targetted at Nascar fans... which I understand is a huge base, but doesn't hold any appeal for me personally.

Of course - you can't ever judge a movie by its trailer. I'll be sure to give it a fair shot when it comes out, just based on their track record.

Re:Now is the time

[rjung2k]

It's hard to judge a movie by it's trailers, but if Cars turns out to be as awful as it looks, Pixar is going to crash and burn when it's released.

That's as likely as George W. Bush admitting that he lied to the world in order to provoke a war with Iraq -- ain't gonna happen in this universe, at least.

Besides, from what I've heard, Cars has more-or-less been finished since November; it's sitting on a bunch of servers at Pixar right now, and is pretty much what we'll see in June. Folks who've seen the completed movie says it's easily another Pixar winner.

Finally, which Cars trailer are we talking about here? I've seen at least three:

1. An early teaser with the drive-in showing of a NASCAR race;

2. The current "test drive" trailer, which starts off as a car commercial (complete with "Professional driver" disclaimer); and

3. A full-blown trailer with general plot synopsis and additional scenes, including a painful accident with a cactus patch.

If you've only seen #1 or #2, that's not much to judge the movie on. I think #3 is not officially released yet, but will be unrolled closer to the movie's release date.

Re:Now is the time

[takotech]

The fact that Owen Wilson is voicing ...

Is it just me or is anyone else sick of the celebrities doing animated features? Maybe it is just me.

Re:Now is the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Cleverly, that's not actually the premise at all. Nice!

Re:Now is the time

[Anonymous Coward]

If you know the subject matter, then you should know that the trailer of the Incredibles (Mr. Incredible trying to fit himself inside his superhero suit) is nowhere in the actual movie. Pixar often releases trailers just to give an idea of what the movie is about, not just a simple clip of a movie. In some cases, you can even see that the trailer does not have the best rendered frames. It serves two purposes:
- It does not give away the movie
- It's not limited to parts of the movie that has been rendered/finalized since a movie is still in being worked on when its trailer is released

Look at the trailer of Cars, some details are still missing in some scenes. I can't imagine Pixar Studio compromised their quality that way based on my view of 6 releases and scores of short animations.

Re:Now is the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, if you'll excuse the circular reasoning, if Cars were any good, why would Pixar sell now?

Market dynamics and controlling interests. Opportunities like this do not present themselves very often and once you miss the boat, you'll probably never get to the other side. What happens if Pixar rejects this deal is hypothetical. Pixar could get bigger with more box office hits and Disney might not have the guts to buy Pixar. Or Pixar could drop the ball and subsequently be worth less than now. Or Disney chose to buy a competing studio. Alternatively, they might never choose to sell, in which case they might not grow as much/fast as they want. Or one hundred other scenarios that we never know.

Pixar people probably judge themselves that this is the prime time to sell to Disney. They have the upperhand to demand a huge payment, nice positions such as Chief Creative Officer and such and to dictate terms of sale like what kind of protection ex-Pixar people/projects have from Disney's interference.

The potential blockbuster of Cars is probably a small factor in the decision.

Re:Now is the time

[UnknowingFool]

But all those who are trolling on the teaser trailer will be in for a surprise. Pixar isn't randomly greenlighting movie screenplays based on explosion/boob ratio.

Also there's a difference between a trailer and a teaser trailer. I remember the teaser trailer for Finding Nemo. It had Marlin swimming then realizing there was a huge whale in front of him. For Incredibles, it showed Mr. Incredible trying to fit into his old uniform and not able to get on his belt. Those scenes weren't even in the actual movie. Pixar's teaser trailers often introduct audiences to a few characters and the animation style. They rarely give out more details that that.

Re:Now is the time

[Craig Davison]

"So when the snoody cat, and the courageous dog, with the celebrity voices, meet for the first time in reel three, that's when you'll catch a flash of Tyler's contribution to the film. Nobody knows that they saw it, but they did... a nice, big, cock."

Plan for Profit!

[wbren]

1. Buy Pixar for $10 million
2. Build it into a great animation studio
3. Sell yourself to the devil (Mickey Mouse)
4. Personal profit of $3.5 million!

Great work, Steve Jobs! See, this time I didn't even need to include the mysterious "..." step. Amazing!

Re:Plan for Profit!

[stunt_penguin]

Duh, it was sold for $7.4 BILLION dollars- seve jobs only put in a couple of hundred million back in the day so it makes him about a 1000 percent profit. Read the fuckin' article.

Re:Plan for Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

"3.5 billion"

- entire Slashdot readership en masse

Re:Plan for Profit!

[ericof]

4. Personal profit of $3.5 million!

should be:

4. Personal profit of $3.5 Billion!

Re:Plan for Profit!

[stunt_penguin]

Yea, Steve Jobs doesn't get out of bed for less than $3.5 million. Unless he's got mail.

I predict: the iBed :0)

Re:Plan for Profit!

[iamdrscience]

Personal profit of $3.5 million!

I think you may have misread something important. He bought Pixar for 10 million and it is now worth 7.4 billion of which he owns >50% of the shares. His personal profit is far far greater than 3.5 million.

Re:Plan for Profit!

[artemis67]

yeah, right, like you wouldn't be falling all over yourself for a chance to earn $3.5 billion...

Re:Plan for Profit!

[Provocateur]

3. Sell yourself to the devil

You know, I think I remember now exactly why we kept on not mentioning step number 3.
 

Re:Plan for Profit!

[Johnny Mozzarella]

1. Buy Pixar for $10 million

2. Build it into a great animation studio

3. Sell yourself to the devil (Mickey Mouse)

4. Personal profit of $3.5 BILLION!

Re:Plan for Profit!

[MouseR]

Jobs made a net profit of 3.5b USD on the sale of Pixar.

He didn't own the entirety of pixar after he had sold a bunch of shares in order to keep it afloat. Jobs invested lots of (his own) money in Pixar before it started to make a profit (with Toy Story). before that, it was spiralling down quite fast, just like NeXT was.

More info on http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/0123.html

Re:Plan for Profit!

[YukonTech]

1. Buy Pixar for $10 million 2. Build it into a great animation studio 3. Sell yourself to the devil (Mickey Mouse) 4. Personal profit of $3.5 million! I hope you meant 3.5 BILLION

Re:Plan for Profit!

[Castar]

Yeah, selling your soul for 3.5 million just means you're a piker. Doing it for 3.5 BILLION means you're a visionary.

Re:Plan for Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you may have misread something important.

I think you may have taken an obvious typo too literally. I think everyone else knew he meant billion, not million.

Toy Story 3 and history of Pixar

[boxlight]

does this mean that Disney's movies will improve, or that Pixar's will become worse?

Disney owned all the sequel rights to Pixar movies, so a few months back Disney was saying they were going to do Toy Story 3 without Pixar. If that'd happened it would've produced a better Disney movie, but a worse Pixar movie -- if you follow me.

Despite popular fanboy and media opinion, John Lasseter is the mind behind the success of Pixar's movies. Steve Jobs is the owner, distribution negotiator, but Lasseter is the talent.

BTW, there's a great chapter in THE SECOND COMING OF STEVE JOBS about the history of Pixar. Check it out.

boxlight

Re:Toy Story 3 and history of Pixar

[njen]

Disney began production on Toy Story 3 about 8 months ago, and it's still in full swing.

Re:Toy Story 3 and history of Pixar

[Vavu2001]

Read the book a few months back. The short version is that George Lucas (you remember him?) needed some quick cash for a divorce settlement sometime in the 80's, so he sold the computer animation section of ILM to Jobs and some investers. Jobs himself had little or anything to do with the creative end, but he was visonary enough to see where it might all lead. The guy can be an a**h*le (confirmed throughout most of the book), but he knows (sometimes) how to pick them.

Re:Toy Story 3 and history of Pixar

[cosmo7]

According to today's NYT story, the Disney unit doing Toy Story 3 was known as Pixaren't. It looks like Disney will kill their version in favor of a Pixar production.

Re:Toy Story 3 and history of Pixar

[mosb1000]

" Steve Jobs is the owner, distribution negotiator"

I think there's some talent in that.

does this mean we'll see Pixar's TRON 2?

[boxlight]

I wonder if this means we'll see that remake of (Disney's) TRON that John Lasseter wanted to make?

Cool!

boxlight

Re:does this mean we'll see Pixar's TRON 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly hope not. While I personally loved TRON when it came out, since I'm a geek (I even had a Priority One Catalog and related to the ending), my kids still tease me about bringing it home from the video store 10 or so years ago. Why did we keep watching it? In the hope that it would get somehow better.

Nope, let the dog lie, it broke ground back then, but it would take more than even Pixar to bring it back.

Re:does this mean we'll see Pixar's TRON 2?

[16K Ram Pack]

I'd love to see that.

Tron was a flawed movie. Groundbreaking in effects terms, but could have been much better.

Re:does this mean we'll see Pixar's TRON 2?

[ettlz]

I wonder if this means we'll see that remake of (Disney's) TRON that John Lasseter wanted to make?

The script will need a little updating; i.e.,

• I/O Tower has become Hardware Abstraction Layer;
• MCP has become The Executive; and
• Sark will now read nt.dll.

The Kraftwerk style luminous outfits are to be replaced with turtle-necks with blue LED epaulets. It shall be render'd verily on a Super Scrumpy S-1, the fastest Apple iPod ever built.

Re:does this mean we'll see Pixar's TRON 2?

[jonwil]

Personally, I think that they should make TRON in the style of the Tron 2.0 first person game.

It's also worth mentioning...

[mikeisme77]

that Steve Jobs has also officially been given a seat on the board of directors. This means that he POTENTIALLY has more clout in persuading Disney to release more of their content to become iTunes exclusive downloads. It would also be interesting to see if he can convince them to release movies in iTunes music store AT THE SAME time as the theatrical release. I'm not saying it's very likely, but it would be nice (as long as they up the resolution of the videos they sell on iTunes...)

At least...

[Anonymous Coward]

... At least any Toy Story sequels will now not suck.

Pixar trailers

[xusr]

Pixar trailers have never been very good, at least not in the 'traditional' way. Some movies (star wars ep. i-iii, matrix rev and reloaded...) pack every decent shot into a 59 second trailer. Pixar actually concentrates more on the movie than the trailer. That says something about them as a company.

p.s. the Incredibles? Incredible.

Re:Pixar trailers

[jarnot]

I agree. I remember seeing the first Finding Nemo trailer and thinking "Phew - that movie's going to suck". Thankfully that was far from the truth.

A definition of Pixar

[ghettofinger]

I saw this on http://encyclopediadramatica.com/ a while back and couldn't resist the urge to post it. http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Pix ar

"Eaten" a bit extreme.

[Syberghost]

The deal wasn't exactly "here's some money now eff off we own you." It was more like "here, you can have my living room if you'll take the 'Pixar' sign down and replace it with this 'Disney' sign". Disney has been bankrolling all their films for years anyway, and Steve Jobs is now the largest single Disney stockholder.

Dammit!!

[no reason to be here]

I was hoping that I could begin watching Pixar films again seeing as how they had freed themselves from Disney's grasp, but alas, 'tis not meant to be.

Shame, too, as Cars sounded pretty good.

Re:Dammit!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could always illegally download their films, then you wouldn't be putting cash into their pockets. According to the MPAA, you'd be stealing from them...

iRich

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. According to MSNBC, Steve Jobs has just become 3.6 BILLION dollars richer today. I can't wait till he has enough money to buy Microsoft ;)

I don't understand

[Funakoshi]

I must be slow (I know, I'm opening myself up with that one, so take your shots :P).

Why is everyone slamming this? And since when the hell did Disney become evil? I for one think it's great. The minds from Disney and Pixar have given us some of the best animated work in years. The Toy Story movies, Monsters Inc., and recently, the Incredibles. They all rocked, and I was dismayed when I originally heard that the two companies had ended their contract together. I think the potential here is great. Disney has a system for writing good storys, and Pixar's people have a system for making them look really frickin cool.

The more posts I read on Slashdot slamming these major corporations for the sake of slamming them, the fewer times I update the page every day. It's getting quite ridiculous.

Re:I don't understand

[mccalli]

The minds from Disney and Pixar have given us some of the best animated work in years. The Toy Story movies, Monsters Inc., and recently, the Incredibles.

Those would be 'the minds from Pixar'. Disney merely distributed.

Disney has a system for writing good storys, and Pixar's people have a system for making them look really frickin cool.

Disney has written one good story in the last ten or fifteen years - Lilo and Stitch. The Lion King is good, but there's rather strong evidence it was just lifted from Kimba The White Lion. Even Lilo and Stitch wasn't the company's main focus at the time, I believe that was meant to be The Emporer's New Groove or something equally horrific.

Despite the above, I still think this is good news. However I see it as a potential improvement in Disney, not as anything great for Pixar per se.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:I don't understand

[Fross]

when did disney write a good story, as opposed to taking something from history and paraphrasing it in a PC-way?

anything vaguely original they've ever tried to write has been ridiculously bad quality.

Re:I don't understand

[AgNO3]

the only input disney had on the pixar movies was the check. The stories where all pixar(well chosen by pixar) Disney did not write any of those movies they just distributed them.

Re:I don't understand

[Funakoshi]

"The Emporer's New Groove or something equally horrific."

Gear down, big trucker! That movie was hilarious...Kronk was brilliant!

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a story of a group of workers being paid peanuts for work in china (iirc) and they made it known to the disney execs.

what did disney do? cancel the orders.

Re:I don't understand

[rcongdon]

Sorry to disagree here, but the Pixar films are exactly that: Pixar's. The writing and production were not done by Disney, but Lassiter, Stanton, etc. Disney's part was mostly marketing and distribution. This was a major reason for the former fallout as Disney(i.e. Eisner) wanted way too big a cut given that they weren't really making the movie.

Re:I don't understand

[Tim Browse]

Prepare to eat your words! :-)

Re:I don't understand

[scottennis]

And since when the hell did Disney become evil? Obviously you've never had to sit with your six year old through the Disney On Ice version of Monsters, Inc.

Who ate whom here?

[pla]

Pixar has been sold to Disney.

I keep hearing this, but the details strike me as an entirely different story...

Disney "bought" Pixar for stock. Steve Jobs owned Pixar. Steve Jobs now owns more Disney stock than anyone else. This would seem to mean that Steve Jobs now "owns" Disney, no?

I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney.


So, considering that, would it sound more accurate to say "Apple has Borgified both Disney and Pixar"?

Re:Who ate whom here?

[FidelCatsro]

10 years down the line I could speculate about Apple taking over Disney .. if I were Dvorak I would at least . Since I am not , it sounds just silly.
Though Steve Jobs has definitely done this to bolster iTunes and the iPod , at least in part .. so perhaps it is not that far fetch to see Disney becoming Apple Entreatment

Re:Who ate whom here?

[iainl]

I wouldn't say that Apple have Borgified Pixar. Pixar wasn't even Pixar when Jobs bought it off Lucas (who, amusingly, sold it because he didn't see any future in CG-based film-making) around the time he was originally kicked out of Apple.

So, you might say that it's really NeXT/Pixar who Borgified Apple before moving onto Disney.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[doughrama]

" keep hearing this, but the details strike me as an entirely different story...

Disney "bought" Pixar for stock. Steve Jobs owned Pixar. Steve Jobs now owns more Disney stock than anyone else. This would seem to mean that Steve Jobs now "owns" Disney, no?

I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney.

So, considering that, would it sound more accurate to say "Apple has Borgified both Disney and Pixar"?"

Regarding ownership and control. Steve Jobs owned 51% of Pixar, which meant he had complete control of the company, though he didn't own it out right. Now that he has sold Pixar he has given up control. Pixar sold to Disney for 7.4 billion in stock, after the math Steve Jobs now (or will soon) owns right around 7% of Disney. Steve owning 7% makes him the single largest shareholder, but it in no way puts him in control of Disney, the way he was at Pixar. The people in control of Disney are the executives and the board of directors (often the same people.) Steve also happened to buy his way on to the board of directors. Steve has done as good a job as one can expect, his vote counts more than any other single groups, and he's in a position to directly argue for are against ideas to the board. Bottom line, Steve can and will be a powerfull force within Disney, but he is no way the owner, or controller of Disney.

That all said, I believe Disney will do just about everything Jobs tells them.

I think it would be more appropriate to say that Steve has Borgified both Apple and Disney. (using Next and Pixar respectively)

Re:Who ate whom here?

[Mercano]

Which will probably spark off round 27 of Apple Computer vs. Apple Records.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[atomm1024]

Steve Jobs now owns about 7% of Disney, if I remember correctly. That makes him the single largest shareholder, but not the majority shareholder. So he doesn't "own" Disney, technically. But then again, this is Steve Jobs we're talking about, so I expect to see him work his way to the top in due time.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[UnknowingFool]

I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney.

The deal leaves Jobs as the largest single stockholder of Disney; however, his total ownership is about 3%. I don't how much stock constitutes control.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[jratcliffe]

"I mean, the rest of the stockholders could outvote him collectively, but in general Jobs now more-or-less controls the future of Disney."

He has some weight, but he only owns about 3-4% of the combined Disney-Pixar, so he's not that big a deal from a voting point of view. He will wield power based on his board seat, though.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[Cutting_Crew]

so is the Pixar name now gone? or will it just be the Disney logo on the movies and no mention of Pixar? will it be Disney Animation Studios, since the studios wont be moved or will the building now read Pixar?

Re:Who ate whom here?

[ericspinder]

Regarding ownership and control...

I agree completely with your assessment. In fact, I believe that the best general comparison is Ted Turner selling Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, where he went from being 'the big guy' to being just one of the executives. However, as you also point out, the mitigating factor is Steve Jobs himself. He has already shown in his second tenure at Apple that he can come in 'on top' and with a few well placed changes successfully change the company with out the 'blood bath' typically associated with 'redirecting the focus' or 'change management'

Re:Who ate whom here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good observation, but I don't think that is exactly right. Pixar was/is a public company. Disney offered 7% of its stock (plus a half billion dollar gratuity for Steve) for all of Pixar and Jobs owned 51% of Pixar so that gives Jobs about 3.5% of Disney. A big chunk to be sure, but far from controlling interest.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[doughrama]

Disney offered $7.4 Billion in stock. I may be misunderstanding something, but 7.4 billion is around 14% of Disney's value, Steve Job's owning half of Pixar translates into about 7% ownership of Disney. (not 3.5%)

Re:Who ate whom here?

[doughrama]

Where is this 3-4% number coming from, I keep seeing people quote it?

Please correct me if/where I am wrong. Disney is a $50 billion dollar company which traded $7.4 billion worth of stock for ownership of Pixar. 7.4 is around 14% (closer to 15 actually.) Steve, owning half of of Pixar, walks away with about 7% ownership of Disney, not 3-4%.

Re:Who ate whom here?

[jratcliffe]

You're right (or almost right). I did my math wrong. Disney had 2.0 billion shares outstanding before this deal. They're issuing about 280MM shares to buy Pixar, of which about 140MM go to Jobs. Hence, he'll own 140/(2000+280)= 6% of the business, not 3-4%. Good catch, mea culpa.

Itchy & Scratchy infringement

[digitaldc]

First Samba eats the cat, then Mickey eats Pixar...
Is this an indication that companies are getting so desperate that they are starting to copy the collected works of Itchy & Scratchy?

Apple computer on the phone for you Mr. Jobs.

[mrshowtime]

Jobs should have waited a few more years and maybe could have acquired Disney :) However, I seriously doubt Jobs will let any of the idiots running Disney or any "middle management" types even on Pixar's Holy Ground, let alone put -any- suggestions on anything creatively. Why attempt to break what is "money in the bank" for Disney by letter Pixar do what Pixar does best. Remember, Jobs is now "Mr. Disney" he owns the most stock out of any shareholders and is on the board of directors. Do not be surprised if you do not see Jobs as CEO in a few years of Disney. Apple who?

Re:Apple computer on the phone for you Mr. Jobs.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Iger (Disney's CEO) will discover soon enough that Jobs bought his company. Jobs will end up with his job.

Re:Apple computer on the phone for you Mr. Jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not be surprised if you do not see Jobs as CEO in a few years of Disney

A few years? I won't be surprised if I do not see Jobs as the CEO of Disney TODAY! ....... I just checked, and not surprisingly, he's not.

P.S. Perhaps you shouldn't not learn about double negatives.

Re:Apple computer on the phone for you Mr. Jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this Jobsian fantasy get modded up? Lasseter and Catmull have been given important positions in Disney's animation division, but Jobs is (for now) just a 7 percent shareholder. Even when Jobs gets a seat on the board, it's unlikely he'll be worshipped by the other 93 percent of the shareholders to "take over" a corporation that's much more than animation.

Yes, the folks at Pixar (released one movie every 1-2 years) will have a large influence on Disney's animation division. But animation is just a tiny slice of Disney's business. Some of Disney's other businesses:

• Touchtone Pictures
• Hollywood Pictures
• Miramax Films
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
• Buena Vista Records
• Walt Disney Records
• Hollywood Records
• Lyric Street Records
• Disneyland Resort
• Walt Disney World Resort
• Tokyo Disney Resort
• Disneyland Resort Paris
• Hong Kong Disneyland
• Disney Cruise Line
• Disney Vacation Club (7 resorts, 90,000 members)
• ESPN Zone
• Disney Toys
• Disney Press
• Hyperion Books
• Disney Adventures Magazine
• Buena Vista Games
• Baby Einstein Company
• Disney Stores
• ABC Television Network
• Touchtone Television
• Radio Disney
• ESPN Radio
• ABC News Radio
• ESPN cable network
• Disney Channel
• ABC Family
• Toon Disney
• SOAPnet
• Buena Vista Televion

Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[Shihar]

Guys, what happened is GOOD. Disney just made anyone holding stock in Pixar a millionaire. I once consulted at a company where this has happened. You pull up into the parking lot and no one has a car worth under $40,000. Everyone shows up to work because they want to and like working there, not for the salary. If the company goes down the shitter, they just leave.

IP and equipment didn't make Pixar great. The people made Pixar great. If Disney fucks it up, everyone just ups, leaves, and forms a new company leaving Disney with nothing but a name. Disney shelled out a few billion for the SHOT at using Pixar to do something good. If they blow it, the real 'assets' of Pixar can simply leave and go make another few million each.

I saw good for Pixar. Way to make yourself horrifically rich and still leave a dozen escape hatches to bail from Disney. Those people deserved a big steaming pile of money. I hope they go out and enjoy it.

Pixar's movies created on Windows?

[OwlWhacker]

does this mean that Disney's movies will improve, or that Pixar's will become worse?

Probably the latter.

I would guess that Microsoft will make a deal and persuade Disney to use Windows for Pixar movies rather than Linux.

Har har.

[kiehlster]

I think Disney's desire to be politically correct and to taylor to all ethnic groups in their movie making will result in a decline in Pixar's quality of humor.

Becuse Disney buys laws

[backslashdot]

Disney bought a law extending copyrights for 25 more years so they can hold on to Mickey Mouse until 2020. I don't care about a stupid mouse .. but it's unacceptible to have perpetually lasting copyrights. Disney made money from stories like Snow White and Beauty and the Beast without having to py the original authors .. and now they are trying to make perpetual copyrights for themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extens ion_Act

Hope this clears things up?

Re:Becuse Disney buys laws

[Funakoshi]

Ok, so I do stand corrected, Disney has nothing to do with the stories. This was not my understand previous to the first 6 responses to my post. Let's see if I have the whole story straight now:

- Disney has nothing to do with the Pixar films, and has perhaps once or twice in it's existance made quality original films (which would lead to the conclusion that at best, there will be no change in the quality of Pixar's films, and at worst a decrease in quality).
- Disney is horribly evil because it has manipulated copyright law that is just plain "wrong" (even though the American courts don't seem to think so), and they have used older material, writen by others, which is also "wrong" (though they have never been successfully prosecuted for such a thing?)

- Microsoft sucks.

Do I have it right now?

Re:Becuse Disney buys laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Objection. Objection. BUYING LAWS is by DEFINITION wrong. What the court thinks is irrelevant. They might be the law, but the law is not always right.

Elaborating on this:
Disney takes from others that which no longer has a copyright attached. It then earns money which is later on used to bribe politicians into lengthening copyrights thereby giving Disney greater control over the material they produced by relying on other peoples' work.

Re:Becuse Disney buys laws

[10Ghz]

Disney is horribly evil because it has manipulated copyright law that is just plain "wrong" (even though the American courts don't seem to think so)

Just because something is legal does not mean that it's right. There is a loophole in copyrights, namely: they only last for a "limited time". If you keep on extending the time those copyrights last, it's still "limited time", when in reality it's something different. It might be legal and OK according to the letter of the law, but it's still morally wrong and it goes against the spirit of the law.

and they have used older material, writen by others, which is also "wrong" (though they have never been successfully prosecuted for such a thing?)

The problem is that they took content that was in public domain for free, and used them to earn big bucks. Now that they were about to face a situation where THEIR content was about to enter public domain, they started to whine and got copyrights extended. They want to take advantage of content created by others, but they refuse to return the favour.

There is a case of Disney using content which copyright was not in public domain: Winnie the Pooh for example. The copyright belongs to heirs of A. A. Milne. Of course Disney owns the rights to their version of Pooh, but not to Pooh itself or the original stories. As it happened, A. A. Milne's hometown wanted to erect a statue honoring Milne. The statue would have had Pooh in it (the original, not the Disney-version). Disney sued, claiming that Pooh is their property. IIRC, the town capitulated when faced with Disney's army of lawyers.

I think that Disney was at it's worst during the Eisner-era. I have hopes that post-Eisner Disney will be "better".

The way I saw it

[MickDownUnder]

Well.... Steve Jobs is not just on the board of Disney... he's now the largest stock holder. I saw a TV interview with disney's CEO Robert Iger and Steve Jobs, if that interview is anything to go by Jobs is going to have a major input on how Disney is going to be run from this day forward, Mr Iger actually looked quite uncomfortable in the interview when jobs began to speak... and speak.... and then speak some more.

You are underestimating the NASCAR crowd.

[jocknerd]

Cars will be a HUGE hit, maybe the biggest Pixar movie to date. My soon to be 3 year old son is already asking to go see it. It will be his first movie in a theater. I personally can't wait.

Re:You are underestimating the NASCAR crowd.

[Kirth]

I predict that Cars will totally flop in Europe.

Re:You are underestimating the NASCAR crowd.

[MouseR]

I predict it will flop in Americas too.

The movie's previews make it look totally uninteresting and targeted at pre-schoolers.

Frickin cars with large eye balls. Uh-hu. No thanks.

Powerful

[Brass Cannon]

I like this. On the surface this sounds like Disney is aquiring Pixar. But it's really Jobs aquiring Disney.

Now Jobs controls pixar - Height of digital movie content, Disney - very large store of movie content and and general great reputation for entertainment, and Apple - the new distribution channel in i pod.

Jobs will own the living room in a short time.

It's about time..

[seven of five]

... Steve Jobs finally 'made it'. After all that hard work and risk taking... I sincerely hope he kicks ass and offends people in the Disney board room, and has not mellowed out overmuch the past few years...

Re:It's about time..

[hcdejong]

finally 'made it'
For what definition of 'made it' would that be? He's been a billionaire for a while now, made his first $100M about 20 years ago, and helped create two of the most recognizable companies in the world.
Selling Pixar isn't that big a deal compared to the rest of his accomplishments.

Re:It's about time..

[seven of five]

errr.. that was meant tongue in cheek....

Re:It's about time..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehehehehehe .... I just got a picture in my head of Steve twirling around and tossing a hat into the air with the Mary Tyler Moore show theme song playing in the background. "He's gonna make it after alllllllllll!!!"

Heheheheheh

The Emperor's New Groove

[Anonymous Coward]

The odd thing about The Emperor's New Groove is that Disney actually made it twice. Once in was a serious film titled something like "The Land of the Sun." They almost finished the movie, shelved it for a few years, and then remade it as a screwball comedy.

It's a pretty funny movie, if you can accept that it doesn't make any sense in a traditional Disney semi-epic way. The conflict doesn't matter, the characters are powerless, it's a farce.

Lilo and Stitch is indeed the best traditional animation made in North America in fifteen years, and maybe the only time Disney has really hit it out of the park on an original story. Pixar, on the other hand, does nothing but original stories. This is the real secret of Pixar's success. Everyone's tired of repackaged folk tales.

SORRY, BILL...

[djupedal]

...another Gates desire bites the digital dust. Apple owns the living room, Bill - you own the, umm...oh, DOS, that's right - get used to it.

I can see Bill roaming around his oversized domicile in Seattle, having to see Apple in charge of the content on every tv/monitor in the house :)

Re:SORRY, BILL...

[16K Ram Pack]

And what if Microsoft offered to buy say, Michael Eisner's shareholding, which isn't that much smaller?

Microsoft could easily spend out say, $10 billion on Disney shares.

Its actually the other way around

[rogerborn]

Jobs will soon run and own Disney, and then make it a subsidiary of Apple.

Just wait and see.

Jobs already did this with Apple, selling them Next, didn't he?

Whose OS does Apple use now? Who runs and owns Apple now?

Regards,
Roger Born
rogerborn.com
"Sorry, No Refunds"

Disney has no influence over Pixar?

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Someone said that Disney has no creative control over Pixar. Or that Apple probably could have bought Disney.

It just goes to show you how the mythology of Steve Jobs continues, however unfounded it is.

Disney makes about 8 billion in sales, A QUARTER! They make nearly a Billion in net profit A QUARTER.

So yeah, Disney is going to have an effect on Pixar movies. Look, when Pixar finished their 6.5 movie contract with Disney, Disney simply went ahead and created a new computer animation division. The fact that the movie created sucked big time pales in comparison to the fact that Disney could setup an animation studio at the drop of a hat and have a movie out in 2 years, and still earn a billions in profit.

While Pixar may have more creativity in its little finger compared to the whole Disney Empire, Disney still has final say on whether a movie gets release or not. If Toy Story didn't conform to Disney's values, it would have been redone or not released, period. Steve Jobs isn't going to have a say in it (but Steve Jobs has no creative input at Pixar at all, he is just a figure head).

The fact is, Pixar could easily make movies that don't simply target children and the adults that take their kids to the movies. Pixar could become the leading computer special effects studio in Hollywood, or make movies that target an older audience, this will never happen under Disney's umbrella. As long as Disney is at the wheel, Pixar will churn out cutesy kids movie that may have some appeal to adults, but will never reach their full potential. Also expect Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo Again, Monsters Inc 2, A Newts Life, The Incredibles Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I mean, Disney will milk the creativity out of Pixar and leave them a dried up husk of their former selves.

I do agree that its the people that make Pixar shine, and if Disney decides to suck the life out of this company, those people will up and leave and form a new company (unless Disney imposes some contract conditions on them, then they are stuck). However, Steve Jobs will be the figurehead for a company that he ruined by whoring itself to Disney. His motiviation are based purely on profit. 7 billion from the sale of Pixar will go into Apple. Apple will become the provider of computer technology for the Disney Empire ensuring billions in sales.

In the end, while there may be a few excellent movies that will come out of this partnership, once the Disney marketing engine kicks in, and Disney's and Steve Jobs greed overwhelms Pixar, Disney will ruin another great animation house.

Pixar 1986 - 2006. You made us laugh, and then you made us cry out why! RIP.

Re:Disney has no influence over Pixar?

[Anim8me2]

SO, you are right in the abstract but you are missing the details.

Disney makes most of that money in marketing and licensing. NOT from box office.

in this case Disney has final say like a hen-pecked husband has final say in his house... "Yes dear, whatever you say." The fact that Jobs has no creative input is moot, what he does have is a seat on the board and controlling interest. As such if Lasseter and Catmull call him up and say they need his backing on an issue, he will do it. He is very aware of what makes Pixar great.

You seem to think that Disney just snapped their fingers and created a CG division. Actually what they did was consolidate their assets from several location (Orlando, LA, New York). Remember there were at the very least 400 animators/modelers/TDs working on "Dinosaur" and many of them remained or were hired back over the years. 2 years is about right for a studio to produce a CG feature. Pixar has that number cut down and Animal Logic are trying to do it in 9 months for "Happy Feet", but the idea is the same. The pipelines have been in place for a while so this is no great feat.

Will we see more marketing of Pixar movies (toys, games, etc.)... sure. That is one of Disney's strengths right now. That doesn't make them bad. THey are just leveraging their content in the only way they know. That will even out over time as the Pixar mentality spreads to the right people at Disney.

Lasseter is in charge of story, so don't expect a slew of sequels. DO watch for a live action feature written and directed by Brad Bird. And ya know what... it will kick ass!

Zero dollars

[1u3hr]

"Also the price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollars."

No, it wasn't. Zero with a z dollars. From TFA: "in an all-stock transaction, expected to be completed by this summer. Under terms of the agreement, 2.3 Disney shares will be issued for each Pixar share."

Re:Zero dollars

[Korben Dallas]

No, the price was $7.4 billion. The medium of exchange was in stock worth $7.4 billion, not 7.4 billion dollars or $7.4 billion worth of gold or 7.4 million moose pelts, but just because hard currency didn't change hands, that doesn't mean the price was zero.

Re:Zero dollars

[1u3hr]

that doesn't mean the price was zero.

OF COURSE NOT.

Read what I wrote.

Re:Zero dollars

[1u3hr]

A postscript; I was distracted by your wilful misinterpretation of my post. My point is that if you simply state "the price was $7.4 billion dollars"; this means money in the sense of numbers on a cheque. If you mean moosepelts or anything else, you say so; or at least use the word "value". This is important in stock transactions, as the value is aften quite notional; as any attempt to liquidate will drive the price down; or if the deal was made at a peak of the market, the value can be tiny before anyone can cash out. Though in the case of Disney and Pixar a crash seems unlikely, Disney has been on a slide and Jobs has presided over some disasters in his time. Lots of people were stock-option millionaires in 1999 and broke a year later without having a chance to spend it.

Re:Zero dollars

[Korben Dallas]

Please update your definition of the word 'price', as you are apparently using a deprecated version that fails a critical dependency in this conversation.

Money or goods, m'man. Money or goods. Not just hard currency or cheques.

Re:Zero dollars

[1u3hr]

Money or goods

"OR". And when you state it in DOLLARS (without using "worth"), you imply MONEY.

Any of:
The price was X billion shares./ The price was Y billion dollars./ The price was Z billion dollars worth of shares.

Does this mean...

[PurpleButter]

Does this mean that Mickey Mouse will now only have 1 button?

Re:Does this mean...

[MS-06FZ]

Yes, but when they release the new Minnie Mouse her button will provide 4-way scrolling action.

Re:Does this mean...

[jchernia]

I submitted this joke to rec.humor.funny (with attribution) and it was accepted. Absolutely brilliant.

How does it work?

[ceeam]

7-odd billion dollars. Let's suppose that Pixar employees work for peanuts and every movie is a hit and they net $200mil with each one (I'm generous today). That would take 35+ titles to bring those 7-odd billions back. Seems unlikely. OTOH - maybe Disney _needs_ something to prevent their image going _completely_ through the floor... They need someone to go to Disneylands, for example, etc... Still... Looks like a bubble.

Re:How does it work?

[saboola]

The company itself is worth 7 billion. They don't need to "make it back". Buying a company who has actual market value is not the same as buying 7 billion dollars worth of cheeseburgers. The company can increase in value, and maybe sell later for an even greater amount (or vice versa, depending if pixar bucks the trend).

Re:How does it work?

[WebGangsta]

7-odd billion dollars. Let's suppose that Pixar employees work for peanuts and every movie is a hit and they net $200mil with each one.

Even if you go with $200m, you're still forgetting a few things:

(a) you're talking about US box office numbers, not international [see the box office breakdown here]. International BO numbers will bring that figure way up.

(b) DVD sales, licensed merchandise (plush, books, lunchboxes, tshirts, etc), and theme park attractions will all contribute to the bottom line on top of the BO numbers.

(c) Pixar was sitting on $1b in cash themselves, so the stock swap actually netted Disney a little bit of cash, making the quoted $7.4b number a bit of a misnomer.

Re:How does it work?

[GothChip]

You're forgetting the merchendising rights.

Re:How does it work?

[btpier]

Exactly. The US box office revenue ends up being something like less than 25% of the revenue generated by these movies. I can't find the exact percentage now but I found it doing some stock research a couple of years ago. Disney also just acquired all that great IP Pixar had which they can use in several ways. Granted, it'll still take a lot of movies to break even or profit from the purchase (but again, you're talking stock here not $$).

Re:How does it work?

[Pecisk]

No. They net MUCH more with every movie - $200mil is about domestic box office, it doesn't say ANYTHING about abroad, it doesn't say anything about DVD sales, etc.

For example, Incredibles propably has netted some 700$ milions for sure.

Re:How does it work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget international profits (so more along the lines of ~$500 per movie).

Also, Pixar doesn't do just movies only. I'm sure Disney will have much more uses for it. Not to mention, this just upped Disney's stock price.

Re:How does it work?

[robertjw]

you're talking about US box office numbers, not international [see the box office breakdown here]. International BO numbers will bring that figure way up.

According to your link, Pixar has only grossed $3.2bn since 1995. $7.4bn, or even $6.4bn considering the cash Pixar had on hand, still seems like a lot of money. Might take them 10 years to recoup their investment.

Re:How does it work?

[Traa]

7-odd billion dollars. Let's suppose that Pixar employees work for peanuts and every movie is a hit and they net $200mil with each one (I'm generous today). That would take 35+ titles to bring those 7-odd billions back.

You forget that Pixar as a company is actually worth a lot of money. The assets, employees and futute profit potential might well have been estimated at 7 billion making the deal look sensible. Though I would love to see it explained in detail by an exec of Disney.

Re:How does it work?

[dubl-u]

According to your link, Pixar has only grossed $3.2bn since 1995. $7.4bn, or even $6.4bn considering the cash Pixar had on hand, still seems like a lot of money. Might take them 10 years to recoup their investment.

You're thinking about it like a stockholder, not an acquirer.

The theory behind most acquisitions is that you are getting something beyond the existing income stream. The business buzzword for this is "synergy". I haven't followed the deal, but my guess it that they are expecting to be able extract a lot of money from Pixar properties through their parks, stores, media channels, distribution networks, and the brain implants they apparently have in every six year old.

Also, from the performance of recent Disney films, it's clear Disney needs a creative kick in the ass. Hopefully by swapping key people around they can make the Pixar mojo contagious. That would allow Disney to get a lot more money out of current assets, hopefully without harming the Pixar revenue stream. And of course, they keep Pixar out of the hands of a competitor, which is always appealing to budding monopolists.

Re:How does it work?

[afidel]

That's a Price/Revenue of only 10, which is a freaking phenominal buy for a healthy company in a non-cyclical industry! I think Disney got a steal even if it was only to make Pixar a wholely owned subsidiary with no Disney oversight. As it is they are getting something much more valuable, they are getting the personell that can turn the entire company around.

Re:How does it work?

[Zentac]

"Though I would love to see it explained in detail by an exec of Disney" Ok, what Disney exec whould you like to do just that? I call Jobs :x)

Re:How does it work?

[WebGangsta]

According to your link, Pixar has only grossed $3.2bn since 1995

Look at the whole picture: because Pixar were splitting profits with Disney 50% after Disney took their distribution fees, Disney got to keep the other $3.2b.

Yes, I'm making the assumption that Pixar's money is equal to 50% of whatever was split with Disney, which is probably not accurate at all, but has some basis in fact even if it ends up being a lower percentage. The fact is that some of what Pixar grossed was matched on the Disney bottom line. Can anybody run numbers to see what Disney's numbers would look like if all of Pixar's releases were 100% under the Disney umbrella to date?

Re:How does it work?

[imsabbel]

Well, a good rule of thump is to assume the name amount in dvd/vhs sale/rent, too.
Then add merchendizing and tv rights, and you should get 10Billion + easily

Re:How does it work?

[Trojan35]

Well, you were on the right track. Disney isn't just about movies. It's about Movies, Television, Theme Parks, Toys, Lunchboxes, Playing Cards, Mall Stores. If a movie, like Toy Story, nets you $200m at the box office, you have to know that's nothing compared to what it'll net from merchandise.

Re:How does it work?

[robertjw]

Yes, I'm making the assumption that Pixar's money is equal to 50% of whatever was split with Disney.

Wouldn't it be the other way around? Wouldn't the $3.2bn gross be before they paid Disney, at least that's how my concept of gross works. That would mean Disney made an even poorer deal than I thought if they were already getting half of Pixar's revenue.

Re:How does it work?

[robertjw]

Don't get me wrong. I think Disney is floundering. Their relationship with Pixar has been the only bright point in their rather dismal recent history. I don't think they could do anything but buy Pixar out, but it does seem like it was a hefty price.

Re:How does it work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent makes it obvious that it is probably best if slashdot posters give up trying to be valuation analysts.

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[digitaldc]

Those people deserved a big steaming pile of money.

And who says you can't just pull money out of your ass?

Its all good

[thunderpaws]

Eisner is gone. Creativity has returned to Disney, and Disney has made a fine aquisition.

Re:Its all good

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The problems in the Disney/Pixar realtionship before centered on Eisner. Now he's gone they can live "happily ever after." The other thing this really means is that now we can expect free downloads of every Disney trailer on iPod as the new way of marketing their movies. I see no problem with that!

Well I am happy about this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a small amount of Pixar shares (200) and today I am a happy guy - not a millionaire - but happy.

This will help the Disney franchise - saw the possibilities at WDW in an interactive show that is really cool at Epcot - called "Turtle Talk" - kids get to talk and ask questions with Crush from Finding Nemo - there was a huge line to get in - more of that and Disney parks are reborn.

Its very cool.

Re:Well I am happy about this!

[QunaLop]

Just have to agree about turtle talk - just about the coolest thing at epcot, especially for the smaller kids

Re:Well I am happy about this!

[btpier]

From what I see, you're not really getting much of a deal on your shares though. At the start of the year your shares of Pixar were worth $53.11 (assuming here that the run-up over this month is due to the buyout rumors), now you're going to get 2.3 Disney shares for each, which today are worth 26, so you're getting a total value of $59.8 for you Pixar shares but not in cash, in Disney stock. Now in the last 2 years Disney stock has gone absolutely no where whereas Pixar has increased 100%. Sounds like a raw deal for the shareholders to me.

Re:Well I am happy about this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Pixar in the $30's....

Disney may not have had a rise in stock but Pixar plus Disney will - stocks are a crapshoot - let it ride.

BTW I know employees at Pixar - they like this deal a whole lot.

Gates' background Plan for Profit!

[eldavojohn]

1. Watch Steve Jobs buy Pixar.
2. Watch Steve work and toil to make it great.
3. Watch it be sold to the Reign of the Rat.
4. Watch Steve make chump change.
5. Watch Disney build it up to be corporately evil.
6. Wait until the right moment and buy Disney.
7. Gain board of director status and challenge Steve to a there-can-be-only-one style fight to the death in the thunderdome with employees from both companies jeering you on from the sidelines.
8. When Steve tries to use his iWin fighting style, destroy him with your "blue screen of death" move.
9. Pose for Playgirl after the world realizes how great of a man you are.
10. Ponder what will be the next industry that needs Microsoft to triumph in by unecessarily dumping unlimited funds into it.

Roy Disney

[theurge14]

Does this mean he's coming back? He's spent some time hanging out at the Pixar studio, and like Jobs, wanted Eisner out. They both got their wish.

Re:Roy Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Roy agreed to drop his lawsuit against Disney back in July. Roy has maintained that Feature Animation should be the core of Disney's product. It always was for Walt. I think think the intent has always been to buy Pixar and restore Disney's animation studios, which have been utterly destroyed by Eisner, who shut down the Paris, Florida and Burbank Feature Animation studios.

Much of the wait has apparently been to see how Chicken Little played out. Had Chicken Little done well in the box office, Disney would have had a lot more leverage in the deal. That's also what the creation of "Circle Seven" (Disney's "secret" 3D studio) was all about.

  As it was, the deal went more favorably with Apple. Ooops, I mean Pixar.

I don't know that Roy is "coming back", but I think those in power are aligned to his way of thinking.

Re:Roy Disney

[theurge14]

Thanks, that's what I was getting at with Roy.

Re:Roy Disney

[Rakarra]

It's uncertain whether Roy will be back, but he's ecstatic about the deal (no surprise). A quote from Roy from a recent Information Week article: "This clearly solidified the Walt Disney Company's position as the dominant leader in motion picture animation and we applaud and support Bob Iger's vision."

$3.5 **B**illion

[green pizza]

B de Burro

B as in Billion.

He bought the Lucasfilm computer graphics department for $10 Million. His share of the Pixar sale is $3.5 Billion.

Non-independent

[Morky]

Does anyone know what is meant by an independent vs. non-independent member of a board of directors?

Re:Non-independent

[afidel]

what incredibly stupid moderation.

Re:Non-independent

[Morky]

Amen to that, brother.

not impressed ...

[xdesk]

... both companies are on a downwards trend and the entire story is more about who tricked the other more ...

good news

[Danzigism]

my comment is a bit idealogical, so I'm certain a few of you will disagree with me.. despite the rumors about disney, and their increasing unpopularity over the past few years, think about when you were growing up as a kid.. some of those classic animated movies were absolutely incredible, and the magic of it all would leave you awe-struck.. this to me proves that they're still trying to bring the magic back.. providing us with fictional, and morally sound stories for entertainment and learning purposes, is something I think disney has done very well in the past..

i've never been a Apple fan.. i pretty much despise Macs and iPods, however, I will give Steve Jobs credit.. i appreciate his vision and perspective on the computing market.. he has helped push the standards of computing to the limit, and has forced companies to progress with their technology and art.. due to his extreme influence in the computer world, I can only imagine what great ideas he'll think of for Disney.. i really think he'll revive them, and bring the magic back..

Re:good news

[16K Ram Pack]

There's a new guy in charge of Disney (Robert Iger) and he's stated that he wants animation at the heart.

Disney have gone through a rough patch, making mostly so-so movies. But they've been successful in their early days, and then in the late 80s/early 90s (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King).

Plan for Loss!

[Comboman]

1. Spin off the digital animation section of ILM into Pixar. 2. Sell it to Steve Jobs for $10 Million. 3. Waste time making bad Star Wars prequels. 4. Cry when Jobs sells Pixar to Disney for $7 Billion. Poor George. :-(

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[dr_dank]

If they blow it, the real 'assets' of Pixar can simply leave and go make another few million each.

In this age of non-compete clauses and NDAs on IP, chances seem better that Disney could rake these guys over the coals in court for their insolence. They might have made a few million here, but that'll be gone fast once Disney launches a drawn out court battle over claims of stolen IP for a post-Pixar venture.

Not only characters and likenesses, but all of those nifty inhouse production tools would have to be reinvented.

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[cryfreedomlove]

How is working hard to build a product that people enjoy and want pulling 'money out of your ass'?

Good for Pixar, Good for Disney

[WebGangsta]

I read most of the comments for this article posted so far, and everyone seemed to be miss the important part of the story, because it's not all about Jobs:

John Lasseter is now Disney's Chief Creative Officer, working with the animators at Disney and Pixar as well as leading the Imagineers in designing and revamping attractions for the theme parks. Also, the current President of Pixar, Ed Catmull, is now the head of all Disney Animation.

All the news reports I've seen have said that Iger and Jobs main concern was keeping Pixar as intact and independent as possible. Lasseter is under contract until 2011, and is well respected in the animation field for his passion for storytelling and perfection. When asked about whether traditional 2D animation would be restored, John didn't rule it out.

Read the LA Times article about John for more insight.

With Ed and John running all animation at Disney, and Jobs sitting on the board to help them from the top, where's the possible downside?

Re:Good for Pixar, Good for Disney

[rjung2k]

Amen to that.

Despite all the pounding Jobs gets for his "mercurial" behavior and "elitist attitude", the guy has a talent for spotting truly talented people and letting them flourish. Just look at Jonathan Ive and Avie Tevanian for two examples at Apple.

Jobs is not an idiot; he knows Pixar kicks ass because the people there -- Lasseter being the most prominent, but also Catmull, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, Brad Bird, and countless others -- are damn good at what they do. Jobs' job at Pixar was to negotiate the deals and make sure the creatives got what they needed to grow.

The new positions for Jobs, Lasseter, and Catmull at Disney will help enforce that. Only instead of encouraging greatness at Pixar, Lasseter will now encourage greatness at Disney -- and Jobs and Catmull will watch his back...

Re:Good for Pixar, Good for Disney

[Rakarra]

where's the possible downside

Right now, the possible downsides are in the "What If?" department.

Basically.. what if Iger retires early, gets hit by a bus, or, if profits go south, gets kicked out, and someone with less of a mind to keep the Pixar creativity alive comes in? All the spectacular promises that have been made could come to nothing and Pixar could find itself shackled. That seems to be the biggest negative. It doesn't seem likely while Iger is there though.

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Confused...

[svindler]

So, who will we call Mickeysoft now?
Apple or Microsoft?

Pixar brand will remain

[Udo Schmitz]

" you can have my living room if you'll take the 'Pixar' sign down and replace it with this 'Disney' sign"."

It seams as if they won't even do that:

"Even with the buyout, Disney films produced by Pixar's animation studios and staff will continued to be marketed under the dual "Disney Pixar" brand. "It would be foolish to throw any of [the successful brand] away," the company said."

Says AppleInsider quoting a CNBC interview.

disney didn't buy pixar

[Anonymous Coward]

they paid pixar 7.4bil to come in and fix them

The Real Story

[Bill Hayden]

More like "Pixar buys Disney with Disney's money". This is very similar to how Steve Jobs got Apple to buy Next, and the Next people took over.

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[account_deleted]

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Cann't buy beer and weed with that

[JeepingNET]

Jobs was horrified to find out he had sold Pixar for 7.4 billion Disney dollars

Iger vs. Jobs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks to me the real meat in the story will be: how will Eixner and Jobs get along?!? Steve isn't known for being easy to get along with. This would be great soap material... high powered execs have at it ;-)

PS: On the original question: I trust the new Disney creative director to continue to do good movies we enjoy.

re:Pixar Eaten by Mickey Mouse

[MrBuild]

The Mouse has lost a lot of creativity in recent years. Re-telling another childs story has been their staple. Now Pixar has a more imaginative group that is telling new stories. I believe that creativity will win out over re-treading another old story, and the folks from Pixar will take over the creative positions in Disney. Disneys music biz on the other hand will likely stay as is...

this would add depth to kingdom hearts

[Falcon84]

imagine kingdom hearts with nemo !!! oh the possibilities!

History is on your parent poster's side

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if anyone can turn around disney, then Lasseter with Steve Jobs backing will be the ones to do it.

Go back about 10-15 years and change the names:
I think if anyone can turn around General Motors, then Ross Perot will be the one to do it.

That didn't work out well either.

Re:History is on your parent poster's side

[lahi]

Go back 9 years. Apple buys NeXT. If anyone could turn around Apple, Steve Jobs was the one who did it.

-Lasse

I can't wait for the new intro...

[cyberbian]

where the desklamp jumps on mickey!

boing, boing, boing, OH NO! splat, squeaky, squeak! I bet THAT'll leave a mark!

As a shareholder of Pixar

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome my new rodent lord and master.
(Pay no attention to Goofy pointing a cannon at my head.)

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[daviddennis]

They would, however, have enough money to sit on a beach for the duration of their non-compete agreement.

During that time I'm sure they'd cook up some killer movie ideas. They could work, quietly, on replacing the tools, too.

At the end of the non-compete period, I doubt they would have any difficulty getting financing.

I wonder how much John Lassater made out of the deal. Does he have a nice salary increase? I thought his 2.5m under Pixar was a shade low for the contribution he made.

D

It'll sort itself out.

[Randolpho]

I say, don't worry too much. Yes, Pixar was, by far, my favorite movie studio.

But what made them great? The folks that worked at Pixar, the directors, the animators, and the producers.

So what will happen if Disney starts forcing their particular outlook on things? Well, aside from the fact that they've already been doing that for every Pixar flick ever made, there will essentially be a choice for the Pixar folks. Do it Disney's way, or walk.

If they can't do quality stuff for Disney, I think the folks at Pixar will walk and form their own, new Pixar-ish company. Sure, the Pixar brand name will be gone, but the name isn't what's important, it's the folks making the movies.

So give it a movie or two. There may be kinks, but I think things will smooth out over time. With or without Disney, we'll still eventually get the movies we love again.

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[Apotsy]

Uh, they only paid a few % over the current trading value of Pixar's stock. In order to have been made a millionaire by this deal, you would have already had to have owned a million dollars worth of Pixar stock, or close to it.

Pixar stock did go up a double digit percentage over the past few months on speculation that this would happen, but that's still not going to make anyone rich unless they were already.

12 Years???

[doublem]

My GOD! It's really been twelve years since Disney came out with a decent cartoon???

That's depressing.

When I was a kid, Disney made some good movies. Now...

Cross Marketing

[tm2b]

I wonder how long it'll be before we start seeing Disney character themed iPods for kids.

RIP Pixar

[wardk]

I have enjoyed with my children all the Pixar movies to date.

On the other hand, I have been overly disappointed if not disgusted with the horseshit released by disney

my take is this means that pixar movies will be disney-culture morality tales, chock with lots of excessively policitcally correct nonsense.

well Pixar, it was fun while it lasted. R.I.P.

hey, but look at Steve Jobs, 10m into 7.4b. the mans owns money trees

MickeyMac

[foo fighter]

Later this year we'll see the release of the "MickeyMac".

It's case will be red and black with Mickey Mouse ears, similar to the TV/DVD combo you can find at Target.

Released at the same time will be the entire Disney animated feature catalog on iTunes Movie Store. I call first dibs on "Aristocats"!

What happens after the merger?

[simong]

Apple-Disney becomes Dapple.

Then it buys Sun, and becomes Snapple-Dapple.

It's a turning into a long afternoon.

Sadly,

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the 'toons will ever grow up on this side of the pond. The throttle seems to be stuck on 'cute'.

We'll have to rely on imports from Hayao Miyazaki et al. And DVDs or fansubs and Adult Swim for our cyberpunk fix.

No, but...

[TCQuad]

Does this mean new donald duck episodes may include luxo?

No, but all future Luxo Jr. shorts will have subliminal messages in the background.

Trojan Horse

[catdevnull]

I think Disney will become more Pixar like. If Jobs and Lasseter have any influence at all, the Disney shite that's been pumping out of their crap factory will start to improve.

This is actually a sneaky move by Steve to put the iTMS in a solid position to distribute content.

Let's not also forget that Disney distributes and produces under other brand names as well:

-Buena Vista
-Touchstone
-Dimension
-Miramax

So what kind of hook-up do you think "The Steve" is going to have for adding content to the iTMS?

Oh, also (if you, too, have read the wiki entry for Disney) Disney owns the rights to lots of music, too. Buena Vista Music Group--Disney Records, Mammoth, Lyric Street, and Hollywood.

Oh, and what else? Oh, let's see:

Disney's Media Networks:
-ABC
-Disney Channel
-ABC Family
-Toon Disney
-ESPN
-SOAPNet
-Holdings in A&E, Lifetime and E!

I think Steve was doing a sacrifice fly on this one....

No kidding!

[TCQuad]

Pixar isn't randomly greenlighting movie screenplays based on explosion/boob ratio.

And they're doing lots of other things wrong, too!

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[Shihar]

Non-compete clauses are paper thin. A non-compete clause can delay me from going from working on the catch of an Intel chip to working on the catch of an AMD chip. It can't prevent me from working on some other component of an AMD chip. Non-compete clauses are really only useful in stopping the most blatant corporate espionage. They are forbidden by law from preventing you from practicing your livelihood.

While I can't say with 100% certainty, I am pretty sure that in the case of everyone from Pixar jumping ship to form their company would be totally uncovered by a non-compete clause so long as they didn't bring any ideas from Pixar when they jumped ship. Preventing animators from animating is a pretty clearly interfering with their right to pursue their livelihood.

expect the worse, hope for the best

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney being the f-ing soulless blackhole has managed to screw up most companies it actively manages. I hope disney takes a hands-off approach and lets pixar run business as usual. I won't go as far as hope disney will learn from pixar. Chances are, the huge pile of crap that disney is will bring down pixar.

Win-win?

[Roadkills-R-Us]

This could be a win-win.

Disney has made several, very good non-animated films the last few years. If they have the sense to let Pixar do what it does best, we're in for a fun ride.

I expect the post-Eisner Disney to regain a little of its magic. If only Tinkerbell didn't die in that steenking bell jar Esiner kept her in...

Lawrence Lessig

[UCFFool]

I take it you've seen Lawrence Lessig's speak or watched/listened to a copy online? Excellent.

Yay Lasseter!!!

[Medievalist]

Remember, this is the guy who brought Hayao Miyazaki back to the US market.

It will get worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney has a history of mistreating its employees -- overworking them, treating them like crap, etc. This will only drive the best and brightest away from Pixar, and will result in poorer and poorer fare until the quality level returns to what Disney has now, which is unsustainable.

Is Apple a competitor or collaborator?

[Snorklefish]

Everyone thinks Apple and Pixar were joined at the hip. This wasn't a big deal because Pixar was a relatively minor player in the content business.

A Disney/Apple connection is different. Will GE play ball with iTMS if they think Apple is making backroom deals with Disney? More broadly, if Apple is seen to be cozying up with one content provider, don't they risk estrangement from other content providers.

This is a great deal for Pixar, but Jobs is saddling Apple with some real perception problems at the corporate to corporate level.

Lasseter has to break the writing culture there

[ianscot]

...there are differences, chief among them being that neither Jobs nor Lasseter is a former CEO of Disney, and as such are not necessarily as familiar with the culture and market as Jobs was with Apple.

The CEO title might mean something, but I think Lasseter has shown he knows "the market," at least for animated films, perfectly well.

It's the cultural problem that's going to be the big hurdle. Disney's treatment of its writers is a huge, conspicuous problem, and has been forever. This is the company whose writers refer to it as "Maushwitz." (I hate to repeat something that plays on the Holocaust, but there it is. You can't much like your place of employment to be thinking that way.)

Pixar has been a very, very different company in terms of its priority on story. Lasseter is going to have to bring that into the new culture. Big obstacle.

It sure seems like he'll have the Disney powers behind him at least at first, though. The other part of the comparison that you didn't make was: Michael Eisner and Gil Amelio, whose leadership created the void into which Jobs stepped. Eisner may already have broken the back of the beast, as far as resistant cultures go.

Did he win now?

[dzfoo]

>> the price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollar.

So, is this it? Did he finally win and gets to flip BillG now? Or does he still have a few more billions to go?

I lost track already... Is anybody else -- apart from Steve Jobs, that is -- keeping score?

    -dZ.

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Several programmers from Pixar left to launch a startup and promptly got sued out of existence. That was back around 2002. Google for "Exluna" if you want the public details.

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[kmo]

Disney just made anyone holding stock in Pixar a millionaire.

Hardly. Disney is offering 2.3 shares of Disney stock per share of Pixar stock. Depending on when you want to pick valuations, that's a 3% to 5% higher than the current value of a Pixar share. If Disney stock drops before the takeover, it could be even less.

I see what Disney gets out of it. I don't see what Pixar shareholders get out of it. They trade stock in a premier and focused media company with excellent growth prospects for stock in a huge, diverse company whose growth prospects are improved by Pixar, but are certainly less than those of Pixar alone.

Coming Attractions...

[mightymik2]

Treasure Planet 2. I think it's all downhill from here, as now everything must comply with the 'disney formula'.

Sequels, sequel, sequels

[phorm]

I was in the store just the other day, and saw "Bambi 2" being played on some of the TV's there. Given how long ago the original came out (and really, how unsequalable it was), I was rather surprised. It seems that only thing sacred to Disney is the bank balance, they'll milk everthing else to the last drop.

Read the Hollywood Reporter article

[Animats]

The Hollywood Reporter has a more detailed article.

Ed Catmull will head up the combined animation studio. Lassiter is higher up, responsible for not just the studio side but Imagineering (theme park rides), among other things.

"It wasn't clear Tuesday what role Walt Disney Feature Animation president David Stainton will play." Or, he's out, but may have a contract that gives him exit money anyway. Stainton was previously in charge of Disney's TV animation unit, DisneyToons, the unit that produced bad sequels (The Lion King 1 1/2, Lilo and Stitch 2), The Heffalump Movie, Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas).

Several films in the Disney pipeline ("American Dog," "Meet the Robinsons" and "Rapunzel Unbraided.") will probably be killed. Disney Animation, in beautiful downtown Burbank (once called "Mauschwitz" in the industry) will live on. Probably as a CGI shop, though; they'd already moved away from 2D animation.

Technically, one big question is whether Disney Animation will go with the Pixar "all Renderman, all the time" procedural texture approach. Pixar's house style, 100% procedural textures, is what gives that "Pixar look". Everybody else uses pictures of real objects as textures, at least some of the time.

Breakup

[Jerry Rivers]

In other news, Mickey has announced that he is breaking up with Minnie because she is fucking Goofy.

New future company name ??

[Fuzzball963]

DisnApple?? I know I know lame but someone had to say it.

And David Stainton leaves Disney Feature Anim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Often considered the killer of all things good in Disney feature animation, David Stainton gave up the reigns at the Disney studio 'Circle 7' yesterday (Tuesday). Circle 7 was was going to do Toy Story 3. Perhaps part of the purchase conditons was that he would not be in control of feature animation.

Disney Perversion of Classics

[SeanDuggan]

So, what's so evil about Disney again? I mean, other than the whole no-pants thing corrupting minds of youngsters, and the various "Donald Duck"-parties that have been inspired by this...
Have you seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Cinderella? The Little Mermaid? Disney takes public domain stories and utterly perverts them. Yes, they're in their rights to do so, but it's still evil in my eyes.

Re:Disney Perversion of Classics

[mwvdlee]

Or, to put it more simple; if the original authors would still be alive, they probably wouldn't have allowed the changes (the integrity of their work cannot be signed away by an author and lasts as long as they live).

Disney is more than animation

[The Famous Brett Wat]

The picture looks a little different when you consider things from the perspective of Buena Vista releases. Walt Disney Pictures isn't just animation (think "Narnia"), and The Walt Disney Company isn't just Walt Disney Pictures: think Touchstone and others. If your point was that Pixar animations do better than Walt Disney animations, then sure -- point made. My point is that "animation" is only a subset of Disney films.

options

[tacokill]

Unless you owned options. Normally, if you are an employee and options-holder and your company gets taken out, you get paid. Unless you are totally clueless and opt for MORE options of the marged company.

I have no idea if that's the case in this deal but it has been true for many others. And yes, I speak from experience (twice).

Re:News headlines eaten by trollishness

[C0rinthian]

Well, by FARK standards...

Incredibles II

[PMuse]

'Nuff said.

You're forgetting something.

[coyotecult]

And that's the young boy car crazed contingent. I have a four year old nephew absolutely obssessed with cars. It doesn't matter whether Cars is the worst movie of Disney and Pixar combined. He will go see it, because he has been waiting with baited breath now for a year ever since he's seen the first trailers, the ones that don't hold my interest, either. Maybe he will see it multiple times. And then his mother will buy the video for him when it comes out because he will de facto love it so much. And if any toy car merchandising comes out, I'm sure he'll pick up a few pieces of that.

All of this just because he loooooooooves cars. It's like a gold mine.

Will this affect Microsoft's plans??

[l0ron]

I really wonder with Jobs on Disney's board is it less likely that Disney will go along with Microsoft's plan to lock all computer based movie playback to windows...

Hrmm..

[Lithos]

Maybe I'm reading a little too far into this here.. but wasn't there speculation a while back that Steve Jobs wanted to get in on the cell phone industry? ESPN (owned by Disney) just started its own cell phone company with mobile video (sports highlights) and whatnot.. I don't know, but it seems to me like this is as much a play for Steve Jobs to get his hands into areas he's wanted to get into but hasn't had the appropriate gateway. If you look here at the list of companies Disney actually owns, Steve has access to more than you'd initially think: http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/disney.asp

Let's not forget Brad Bird

[elkweedo]

I'm interested to hear what role Brad Bird will be playing in terms of revitalizing / refreshing the creative side. Alongside Lasseter, I think Bird would serve the animation side well, having worked in Disney's animation dept. before (if I recall correctly). Having worked w/ Disney's "old men", I can imagine he has a good feel for the roots of what made Disney animation great in its time.

That is, if he isn't as big of a dick as he comes off as in some of the "behind the scenes" clips.

cheers.

Debian release code-names?

[psgalbraith]

Can Debian really keep using release code-names from Toy Story now?

Re:Nice deal -- yes, Disney evil

[wagadog]

For an historical perspective, recall that Walt Disney was much the same as Ronald Reagan in denouncing his colleagues in the entertainment industry to the Homeland Sec^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^HHouse Committee on Unamerican Activities after 9/11^h^h^h^h^h^h in the 1950's.

You also might want to check out Ariel Dorfman's take on Disney.

New iPod

[nullhero]

Does that mean that I can get a Mickey Mouse iPod? This can serve Apple very well but since I don't think that Pixar and Apple had a huge relationship, other than Steve Jobs, this might not help nor hurt Apple. Though, I would find it strange if SJ didn't capitalize on this with Apple.

Bye bye Pixar

[Avatar8]

I think Pixar content will suffer greatly. I believe that Disney will censor all of the films so we won't end up with the cheekiness that makes it enjoyable for children and adults.

"The Incredibles" was, well, incredible. The colors, action and story keep my girls interested. The inuendo and high-level humor keep my wife and I interested. There are very few Disney films that can hold my attention after the first viewing.

My major problem with Disney is their hypocrisy.

I remember the stink they raised in the 90's about their gay employees. I think it had something to do with the Southern Baptist convention choosing Disneyworld as their meeting site numerous times. So Disney goes through a "purification" phase where everything they touch will be pure and family oriented. Shortly afterwards they purchased ABC. For perhaps nine months, it could have been the Family channel. Then the numbers dropped and they resort to typical shock TV. "The Shield." Now ABC and Disney is anything but pure. Maybe that's why their animators slip almost invisible sexual graphics into their cartoons and movies.

What someone just posted here makes me think even less of Disney. It never occured to me that all those fairy tales they turned into movies were public domain. I always wondered who they paid to get the legal rights to all that material. Obviously, no one. Mouse ear wearing bastards.

Re:Bye bye Pixar

[Rakarra]

Shortly afterwards they purchased ABC. For perhaps nine months, it could have been the Family channel. Then the numbers dropped and they resort to typical shock TV. "The Shield."

Not that it derails your point at all, but "The Shield" is an FX production, which is owned by Fox. Maybe you're thinking of NYPD Blue?

Re:Bye bye Pixar

[Avatar8]

You're right, I was thinking of "NYPD Blue." Weren't they the first to show brief nudity on a non-cable channel?

However, upon checking ABC's website to validate my memory lapse, I was instantly reminded of another, horrible example of Disney's hypocritical attitude shift from goody-goody to shock TV: "Desparate Housewives"

I've never watched it myself because just the commercials turn me off so I cannot comment on it directly. I will say that I've never heard anything good about it from my co-workers who watch it.

Re:Bye bye Pixar

[Rakarra]

You're right, I was thinking of "NYPD Blue." Weren't they the first to show brief nudity on a non-cable channel?

I think so. And some cursing. South Park made some fun of them ("the show 'Cop Drama' will feature swearing.. on tv!") for the trumpeting of that sort of thing.

I've never watched it myself because just the commercials turn me off so I cannot comment on it directly. I will say that I've never heard anything good about it from my co-workers who watch it.

I have little use for most non-cable dramas anyway.

"Preserving the Pixar culture" is most important..

[javaxman]

It's very telling that Steve said

"Most of the time that Bob and I have spent talking about this hasn't been about economics," Jobs said. "It's been about preserving the Pixar culture--because we all know that's the thing that's going to determine the success here in the long run."

Get that? The big sticking point in negotiations wasn't how much money would change hands, but how much control Pixar would have over it's future operations within Disney. It's going to be NeXT and Apple all over again, with any luck. Jobs, Iger, and probably at least Roy Disney all see eye-to-eye here, so they'll run the board while Lasseter and the other Pixar folks whip creative operations into shape.

I'm going to guess it's a scary time for Pixar and an exciting time for Disney. Or is it the other way around ?

I beg to differ...

[fuzznutz]

Disney, like Apple in the mid-nineties, has lost its way. For the past 30 years, it's not really had any significant direction

Actually, the Disney brand under Eisner has had an all to obvious direction:

• Capitalize on past glory and acomplishments.
• Bribe congress to protect monopoly on said past accomplishments.
• Churn out crap directly to video.
• Use the Disney brand to push it.

My kids do not feel the same about Disney that my sisters and I felt when we were growing up. My older kids all cringe when we rent Disney direct to video crap for the younger ones.

And by the way, Miramax is effectively dead after Disney jettisoned the Weinsteins. I expect Pixar to decline into irrelevance as well.

Re:I beg to differ...

[nagora]

My older kids all cringe when we rent Disney direct to video crap for the younger ones.

Jeez, why would you do that to your kids? Were they a disappointment or something?

TWW

Re:I beg to differ...

[fuzznutz]

My older kids all cringe when we rent Disney direct to video crap for the younger ones.

Jeez, why would you do that to your kids? Were they a disappointment or something?

LOL... No, it's paybacks. I had to sit through Barney when they were little so it's only fair that they should suffer too.

Bad culture mix

[lohphat]

Disney is old-school unionized workforce and outsources whenever it can. Pixar is not that at all.

Can't miss.

Copyright term extension

[tepples]

I thought copyrights lasted until 70 years after the death of the author.

It's 95 years for works made for hire. When Walt Disney first published Plane Crazy, Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie, the term for all works was 28 years plus one 28-year renewal. This term was extended to a single 75-year term in 1978 and a single 95-year term in 1998.

14 years is patents.

14 years was also copyrights. The Copyright Act 1709 (UK, commonly called "Statute of Anne") provided for a 14-year term, and the Copyright Act of 1790 (USA) provided for a 14-year term with a 14-year renewal.

The bear, not the mouse

[tepples]

lobbying for copyright extentions to protect Mickey Mouse, arguably a brand that has fizzled out anyway over the last decade.

Many analysts have claimed that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was designed to protect Disney's exclusive right not to Mickey Mouse but to Winnie-the-Pooh, a brand that Disney had licensed for the life of the copyright before the Bono Act. This allowed Disney to buy a 25-year[1] exclusive license for the price of a 5-year exclusive license.

[1] Longer if Disney manages to buy the Chastity Bono Act in 2018.

Hahahaha. I know that business strategy.

[locoluis]

If you can't defeat them, BUY THEM. ;)

is this really THAT important?

[darmey]

Why is Slashdot posting articles about this junk every other day?

Disney Movies Now on iTunes

[hotsauce]

Nice comment. A ton of Disney "Short Films" appeared on the iTunes home screen yesterday.

Jobs has somehow managed to make his small companies rival the capabilities of Sony. Convergence and all that.

This guy is one hell of a CEO.

Missed out...

[Fishbulb]

Pfft. They could've bought The Bahamas and saved 2 billion!

horses legs

[tbird81]

Disney (and all the other movie companies really) used to be quite un-PC about their animal stunts.

They used to lay trip wires across the ground to cause a horse to fall over when filming their Westerns. This allegedly broke a few of the horses' legs.

According to Animal Liberation Front (and similar organisations) Clint Eastwood tried to stop the movie makers doing this in his films.

Re:Nice deal -- yes, Disney evil

[lahi]

Although I am not a card-carrying donaldist (though definitely donaldist), I find it appropriate to counter your Dorfman book with some sense. It's been some time since I read that book, but I believe that some of its arguments are quite far-fetched, to say the least. Further I believe some of it was related to locally (South America) produced material using Disney figures (just as we in Europe have a large production of Donald Duck comics, that is probably completely unknown in the United States.)

The ministry of culture in Denmark recently published a cultural "canon", cultural works that have a strong and integral relation to Danish culture. The canon consists of lists of items from the categories architecture, music, art, film, theater, design, literature, and children culture. The only item in the entire canon which is not of Danish origin is to be found on the last list, and it is a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks: The Golden Helmet.

Disney may have produced a lot of shit, and done a lot wrong, but they definitely also have produced lots of stuff that I happily enjoy together with my children. Disney may even be evil in some ways (in the past exemplified by such practices as keeping the actual artists in total anonymity, like Carl Barks was for a long time.) But some of Disney's production can definitely be counted as great and original art. An example could be "Dumbo", just to name one of my favorites.

I can only hope that maybe with Jobs on the board, the stupid Eisner policy of stopping the most creative cartoon series after a fixed amount of episodes will be changed, so we can get new episodes of KP and Buzz Lightyear!

-Lasse

disney

[Anonymous Coward]

it means no more Pixar movies for me. I hate that Disney crap. I hate RatWorld. MICKEY IS GAY.

The Lion King and Kimba

[typical]

It never occured to me that all those fairy tales they turned into movies were public domain. I always wondered who they paid to get the legal rights to all that material. Obviously, no one. Mouse ear wearing bastards.

Oh, it's much, much worse than that.

When Disney swipes content to make masses of money, it's just fine.

If you swipe Disney's content, it's a social-fabric-threatening disaster.

Disney's dirty laundry

[typical]

That film is great, and completely blows away most of their other recent films for sheer style, verve and originality --- I reckon it's better than The Lion King, which suffered rather from the Disney over-earnestness.

It's not very hard to improve on The Lion King for originality.

The sad thing is that it's "okay" for Disney to swipe someone's work to make hundreds of millions of dollars.

But if you swipe a copy of a Disney movie...well, then Disney needs every ounce of legislative support it can *get* from Congress to squash you. After all, you're preventing *creative artists from getting their dues*.

NNNOOO!

[sargosis]

The fact that pixar was seperate from disney was the only thing keeping it alive. Selling it to disney would force pixar to produce worthless movies like "Chicken Little."

Re:Hi! I am an animator. I am a millionaire.

[Shihar]

"The settlement resolves all pending litigation and any other disputes between the two companies. Exluna, a privately-held software company specializing in software development technology for film quality graphics rendering, was charged with the misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement and patent infringement."

This has nothing to do with non-compete clauses. They were accused of various levels of IP infringment. Further, they were not sued out of existance. The case was settled and NVIDIA bought them out.

Re:Don't kid yourselves (I hope you're right)

[Ken Erfourth]

• Disney, like Apple in the mid-nineties, has lost its way. For the past 30 years, it's not really had any significant direction, and has concentrated largely on media takeovers and lobbying for copyright extentions to protect Mickey Mouse, arguably a brand that has fizzled out anyway over the last decade. There's still a lot of good coming out of it, clearly there are good people in parts that are trying to find good things and pump Disney money into them, whether it's Pixar or Miramax (Pulp Fiction.) While I'm not necessarily going to argue that Jobs or Lasseter are the right people for the job, it certainly needs a fresh approach, and Jobs and Lasseter may, ultimately, be the right people to do that.

This is a good summing up, and I hope you're right. Disney is indeed lost. I've got two kids, one 7 and one 9 years old, prime Disney fodder. I won't let them watch any Disney shit after Beauty and the Beast (and I shut that off before the needlessly savage ending). Disney movies have completely turned into a attention-deficit inducers--wham! bam! flash! repeat--with a constant thread of product and lifestyle commercialism. John Lasseter is an amazing guy, and I hope he gets a chance to turn Disney around, but as someone else said, Disney is currently like a supertanker when it comes to maneuvering.

Pixar has been a beam of light in the current swamp of brain-dead pap that passes for children's entertainment. Maybe this buyout will turn into a new new dawn for Disney, but I'm afraid it's more likely to be a twilight for Pixar. Maybe we can get a couple of decent movies out of them before the rot sets in permanently, but I don't hold out much hope for the long term.

I really hope I'm wrong on this one.