Disney buying Pixar? Yes, it's true! About This Page:

[Dave Marx]

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Nice Deal for Disney. Interesting that Lasseter will also have some input into the themeparks!

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Lasseter has already had some input. Wasn't that his loud Hawaiian shirt I saw 15 feet away from me at the press opening for Buzz at DL on May 5? He had something to do with the development of Turtle Talk, I'm pretty sure he's got his mitts into the Nemo Sub Lagoon project at DL... But reading the tea leaves, I'd guess Lasseter's been wanting a bit more input than Imagineering has been willing to give, or otherwise he wouldn't have spent some of his bargaining chips on the title of "Principal Creative Advisor" to Walt Disney Imagineering.

"OK, John, what do we have to do to get you to stay a while?"

"I wanna be an Imagineer, Bob!"

Hmmm. About the only thing left for Lasseter is... Prototype Imaginative eXperimental And Really-Exciting Planned City of Tomorrow. (I don't have to spell it out, do I?) [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Anyway, Pixar President Ed Catmull gets to be president of both the Disney and Pixar animation studios, Lasseter gets to be Chief Creative Officer of the animation studios, and Jobs gets a garden-variety seat on the board.

Pixar stays up north in Emeryville for now. It's a 300 mile commute between the Disney and Pixar animation studios, so the commute for Ed and John is gonna be quite a pain. (Helicopter or private jet - you decide! You think they're gonna car pool, or use separate choppers?) I predict that Disney will be building a new studio campus for Pixar within three years. Location? Somewhere north of LA, near the Valencia campus of Cal Arts (Lasseter's alma mater and Walt Disney's own animation staff "incubator"). The excuse will be that the Pixar division will be producing more films than the Emeryville facility has space for, but it's really to save on gas. Either that, or they're gonna install a special version of Turtle Talk in Burbank. "Does anyone in the audience have a question for Ed?" "You there, sweating dude in the pinstripe shell!"

Now the pressure is really on. Eventually, some Pixar film is going to under-perform its biggest hits, or even :::gasp::: bomb. At that point, everyone will be complaining that Disney overpaid big time. There's no way this has a happy ending. Media mergers just never work that way.

One name missing from the story so far is Disney board member, former Chairman of Disney Animation and Chief Nephew to you-know-who, Roy Edward Disney. What role did he take in the Disney board's deliberations? Did he help with the deal-making or reapprochment between the companies following Eisner's departure? My recollection is that Roy and the Pixar folks are pretty chummy. Can the real result of "Save Disney" be the acquisition of Pixar?

Meantime, Pixar has about $1 billion cash in the bank, so the real cost to Disney is a bit over $6 billion. No big. All they have to do is up the price of popcorn. The company is getting ready to sell its radio networks (but not Radio Disney, ESPN radio, or the radio stations) for about $3 billion, so Disney will be in pretty fair shape financially.

Heck, I know some ships they could spend that billion on. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Here's the official press release from Disney & Pixar.

[MattUGA]

Good points. And frankly, Cars looks like the first film that might underperform. They did push it back 8 months. I don't know, the premise just isn't as endearing to me as the rest of the films. However, Pixar's name is attached so I'll watch it.

Dave, I wrote a news report for the movie website I help run. I made a comment that being allowed to wear crazy shirts like Lasseter does is a sign of genius. Only a genius can get away with that wardrobe. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/rofl2.gif[/img]

[mickeyfans]

As a long-time fan of both Apple's and Disney's products, this deal is intriguing. Apple always seems to be steps ahead of its competitors in innovation, even though its market share has been historically low. The user-friendliness of the Macintosh is now being seen in a different form via the iPod and iTunes. I always thought that EPCOT was what Apple is all about, whether at Innoventions or perhaps its own pavilion. Both Apple and Disney have always placed the highest emphasis on customer service--this is what keeps us returning for vacations, and what keeps us buying the Macintosh. Even though the deal was with Pixar rather than with Apple, it should be interesting to see the impact.

[Shell_of_the_South]

My DS brought up an interesting point: with Pixar people over Disney animation, is this the end of the traditionally animated films from Disney? Will everything be CG now?

[zacksmom_1993]

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I predict that Disney will be building a new studio campus for Pixar within three years. Location? Somewhere north of LA, near the Valencia campus of Cal Arts (Lasseter's alma mater and Walt Disney's own animation staff "incubator"). The excuse will be that the Pixar division will be producing more films than the Emeryville facility has space for, but it's really to save on gas.

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Out here, in the Bay Area, this prediction is exactly what has folks freaking out. Pixar is a real feather in the cap for Northern California. (See not only do we have engineers in Silicon Valley, we're creative too!) Most of the execs at Pixar have made comments about loving their current location and the very unique culture of the Bay Area workplace. Someone commented yesterday that Disney has done very well letting ESPN maintain control at a separate CT facility. But given that you'll have two separate animation facilities, I agree that a merger will be likely. Thus, all the panic in this neck of the woods! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Karen

[MattUGA]

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My DS brought up an interesting point: with Pixar people over Disney animation, is this the end of the traditionally animated films from Disney? Will everything be CG now?

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Disney has already announced that 2D is dead for theatrical releases. They did that last year.

[Dave Marx]

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My DS brought up an interesting point: with Pixar people over Disney animation, is this the end of the traditionally animated films from Disney? Will everything be CG now?

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Actually, I see more hope for support for traditional animation from the Pixar people than the folks at Disney. While Disney has announced that the future of feature animation is all-CG and only has CG animated films in the production pipeline (it really is hard to argue with the economics of CG), I have the feeling that the Pixar folks are at least open to the notion of doing the right project in the right style. Features? Maybe not, but I could see them backing hand-drawn short subjects that push the envelope in some way.

Lasseter and others at Pixar have said many times that CG isn't what matters, it's about great story. That "story is king" attitude is what makes the Pixar films what they are, and is what Walt's films were about. Pixar's story development process is still very much what Walt's was - hand-drawn storyboarding, with a strong team honing the story until it sings.

Still, the Pixar team also knows what it takes to bring a conventional animator into the CG world with great results. Look at what Brad Bird (traditional animator) did with The Incredibles, or Ed Luckey did with the short, "Boundin'." Over the years Pixar filmmakers have collaborated with a number of Disney Legends, at a time when Disney's own producers seemed to have consigned them to the coffee table books. Clearly, Pixar deeply respects the Disney legacy and finds ways to apply it to today's technology.

One issue we can't escape, though, is the notion of "contemporary aesthetic." Each era has its favored methods and styles of artistic expression. There was a time when black and white photography was "it" - whether we're talking about the photos of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, or the Film Noir style of cinematography. The visual world got boiled down into light and shadow, and it took artistry to make that 2D world without color "speak" eloquently. The availability of high quality, cost-effective color film changed that forever, and today a relatively small group still appreciates that abstract art form for what it is. 2D animation is going through a similar transition. CG offers kinds of visual expression that weren't availble to hand-drawn animators, and the audience is clearly embracing that new aesthetic. There are still great photographers working in black and white, and there will be animators working in the hand-drawn medium for many years to come, but the popular aesthetic has moved on, and it's really tough to make an audience sit through "art" when they're looking for entertainment.

[Dave Marx]

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Someone commented yesterday that Disney has done very well letting ESPN maintain control at a separate CT facility.

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I agree with the lifestyle/creativity sentiments. Many places are effected by their environment, and Bay Area filmmaking of all sorts (Lucasfilm, Coppola, etc.) reflects that. My observation is that the desire to move (if a move occurs) will come from within the Pixar camp more likely than the other way around.

Now, I worked for a time at ABC TV in the '80s, back when ESPN was fairly new. The geography is different. Stamford, CT is much closer to Manhattan than Emeryville is to Burbank. There certainly isn't the rivalry that exists between the Bay Area and LA - Connecticut is roughly equivalent to Orange County, rather than Marin.

Disney/ABC has had a very different, strong motive for keeping ESPN where it is, and it isn't necessarily creative. ABC TV is a union shop (well, many unions), and ABC wanted ESPN to remain non-union (I don't know if it still is). There was all sorts of grumbling among the staff in NY over ESPN's non-union existence. Had ABC moved ESPN into Manhattan, the non-union shop would have gone out the window.

[boosmom96]

We have been following this pretty closely. I have a couple of friends that work at Pixar and they are "cautiously optimistic" about the merger. (read: "I REALLY don't want to move to LA and I think I may be okay!!!) We'll just have to wait it out. Steve Jobs is highly invested in the Bay Area, so, we've got our fingers crossed. I know it's a great move for Disney, I'm just concerned that it may not be the best LONG TERM move for Pixar. Like Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, the campus at Pixar has a great creative vibe.