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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.
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!