Toy Story 3 Scrapped

Snap E Tom writes "The Independent Online is reporting that Toy Story 3 has been scrapped. This is a strong clue that the Pixar guys are firmly in control at Disney. The ground-breaking films were being milked into almost as many movies as The Sims has expansion packs. John Lasseter, Pixar's creative head, was strongly against the idea of third and forth movies, while the old Disney regime pushed forward with it. Now with Pixar and Steve Jobs on the board, Lasseter has taken the necessary steps to prevent the franchise from being diluted."

Comments

What a shame

[cameronjdavis]

I think they should have released it and called it

Toy Story 3 : The cashening

Re:What a shame

[Ubergrendle]

I was in Futureshop here in Toronto the other day...came face to face with an advertisement for "Bambi 2"... BAMBI 2??!?!? They're making a sequel to a 50 year old movie for crying out loud...

We'll still see a Toy Story 3 one day, just not in the immediate future. Its as inevitable as the an american manufacturing job being outsourced to China...

Re:What a shame

[Dr. Evil]

The story on that one is quite good. A cyborg from the future is sent into the past to prevent Bambi from overthrowing the Matrix by killing his mother sooner so that he is never born. I know, it sounds a bit like the first one, but this time the robot is made of liquid metal.

Apparently there's a bullettime sequence of Thumper getting redmisted.

I can't wait for the videogame spinoff.

Too bad...

[avalys]

According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.

That sounds like a reasonably good premise, actually.

Good for them.

[arakon]

We do not need another sequal factory. My recommendation? Disney should leave Pixar alone. They seem to be doing just fine managing their own assets and continued box office success stories. Something disney can't claim with their own movies. So let pixar do what pixar does best and let the money flow without interference. Let disney start claiming more of that success and have stock prices go up.

I fear if they start meddling with it we're going to start ending up with a lot of straight to DVD releases that no one will really want to see.

Re:Good for them.

[cowscows]

I've never really had a problem with Disney or other companies running their franchises into the ground. I just accept that Aladdin 4 or whatever is not made for me, it's made for younger kids who don't need quite the same level of quality or sophistication to be entertained. I'm not one to advocate letting the TV babysit your kids all day, but I have no doubt that my parents enjoyed the occasional periods of relaxation when a movie would keep my brother and I occupied for an hour or so. It may not be award winning cinema, but it's probably a bit more predictable than regular TV cartoons, and less likely to contain violent or inappropriate content.

These tend to go straight to video because Disney isn't trying to pass it off as a high-quality feature film. So what's the problem with that? Nobody is forcing you to watch any of it. I guess some people feel that the cheaper commercialization somehow distracts from the quality of the originals, but that's really not the case, and if that sort of thing really bothers you, you need to get some perspective on the world.

I guess the one true complaint, at least in Disney's case, is that they've seemed to be so busy milking old franchises that they haven't bothered to create any new ones. But I really don't see any reason why those two have to be linked. It seems to me that it's tied to the vision and choices of the management. Really, this is a case where they can have their cake and eat it too. Put your best minds on the high-quality stuff, and everyone else on the franchises. Hire more people if you need to. There's definitely money to be made at both ends of the spectrum.

Re:Good for them.

[sgant]

Toy Story 2 was all Pixar...this wasn't Disney. No Pixar movie so far was Disney. They may have distributed it, but they were all written, produced and directed by Pixar.

Since John Lasseter co-wrote and co-directed Toy Story 2, it was hardly the "Pixar didn't want a part of it" deal. And arguably it was even better than the first one. Now, Toy Story 3 was different altogether. That WAS going to be only Disney doing it, not Pixar. That was going to just be to cash in on the characters etc etc.

For the most part, sequels really suck...only on very rare occasions are they good. So let's hope the new people taking over Disney Animation will come up with original ideas instead of recycling things over and over and over.

Re:Good for them.

[Bing Tsher E]

The Disney name should stand for quality.

Agreed, but speaking as somebody who remembers watching the Walt Disney show on television on Sunday evenings, the show where Walt himself always spoke at the beginning to introduce that night's programming, it's been a LONG time since the Disney name stood for quality.

Some of us leapfrogged over the whole last two decades of film and television (too busy doing interesting things with electronics and computers to sit and watch TeeVee I guess,) and really can't understand what could possibly be sacred, or even respected, about the Disney company at this point in history.

Logical

[Saiyine]

It was too much, no film franchise could resist a fourth release without a big hit on quality. I hope this marks a trend on the industry.

I find also interesting the Cringely's take on the adquisition, as he says it's only a way for Jobs to diversify his income.

Me too

[zaphod8829]

I am likewise firmly against movies being created with FORTH.

Eventually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually this spells the end of Debian. They will run out of toys.

At the current release rate, we should be able to predict the date of Debian's demise.

A New Era in Cartoons?

[Morosoph]

Is Disney buying Pixar or is Pixar buying out Disney with Disney's own money?

It would be very cool if Pixar were to change Disney's ethos. Disney's got such a brand name that they don't need to hang on the brand of the specific production itself.

Does this herald the rise of creativity in Disney's output? If so, it'll be a difficult one to sell to the accountants and the more conservative shareholders: re-runs are provably successful; improving the brand is more nebulous. Ultimately, you can never know the real cause for higher sales across the board.

So.. lets get this right...

[91degrees]

Disney pays 7 billion for Pixar. As a result, Pixar is calling the shots at Disney.

Who owns who?

from BBC's The Young Ones, circa '84

[vain gloria]

[Neil is crying softly]

Rick: Shut up, Neil, shut up! What's the matter?

Neil: I'm sorry, everybody. I'm sorry, Bambi. I'm just remembering, like, that bit when you got lost in the snow, and the rabbit found you, it was so beautiful...

Vyvyan: Yeah, I liked the bit where you shoved the drill in the virgin otter's face.

Neil: That wasn't in "Bambi", Vyvyan!

Vyvyan: It was in the sequel, Neil. "Bambi Goes Crazy Ape Bonkers with His Drill and Set".

Neil: [gravely] Is that true, Bambi? Did you do a Disney nasty?

Bambi: So what if I did? I'm not apologizing. My life collapsed after "Bambi". I was a lovable fawn alright, unusable for anything else. I took the Babycham stuff, sure, thanks to Mike here, but I was finished. When the porn "Bambi" came along, well, I thought, this is where I get something back...If it hadn't been for the chance to present University Challenge and start a new life, I'd be giving executive relief to woodland creatures to this very day.

c&p source

ugh

[PollGuy]

It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of crap - since the movie was simply being done to fulfill a contractual obligation, Pixar would phoen it in, and Disney could choke on their contract. I wouldn't be surprised if "Cars" goes into turnaround now that there's a real reason to make it.

I can't believe nonsense like this gets to be modded to +5.

John Lasseter is directing this film, personally. Doing a bad job on a film just to fulfill a contractual obligation would do incredible damage to the Pixar brand. No one with any position of authority would tolerate any trash going out under the Pixar name at all, let alone deliberately out of spite for one's business partner. And it's not like ALL the profits from the 5 (or, rather 6) films went to Disney, there was a somewhat even split, so Pixar has a lot on the line with each title.

The teaser trailer for Cars wasn't that great, sure. To get a better idea of what the film will be, check out the little-circulated international trailer.

Only make a third if it has the same quality.

[MikeFM]

Toy Story 2 surprisingly managed to be even better than Toy Story 1. If they could make a third movie that was again even better then I say go for it. The reason Toy Story is so good isn't because of it's plot or how it's rendered - it's the personalities and relationships of the characters. The movies have a plot simple enough for children to follow but a depth that will keep adults interested. It's just good movie making. We really learned to care about the characters. That is really the important part about any movie.