Disney buys Pixar

[ZooRocket]

The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it is buying longtime partner Pixar Animation Studios Inc. for $7.4 billion in stock in a deal that could restore Disney's clout in animation while vaulting Pixar CEO Steve Jobs into a powerful role at the media conglomerate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060124/ap_en_mo/disney_pixar

[TeviH]

:shock:

Yea..this sure is news!! I didn't think it would happen, but I guess even Steve Jobs can be bought off if the price is right! What do you think this will do to disney and pixar?! Will Disney get better, will Pixar get worse, or will nothing change for the public's eye...?!

How ya doin' Jakal? :)

[Mathias]

I didnt think this would happend. Or.. deep from my heart I really wished it wouldnt. But its all about the money I guess. Disney have showed that in their productions the last 10 years and since Disney bought Pixar now.. I think that there is not much good coming out of it. Thinking back on the Disney buying Miramax deal. Not that Pixar is anything close what Miramax was. But now it probadly will be Disney calling the shots about what movies will be made and my personal opinion is that Disney haven made any really good movies since The Lionking (1994).

[AnimWatch]

The only thing that gives me hope in this situation is that Lasseter will be an extremely high-ranking member of the team. I think they're putting him in charge of animation studio wide. So, that's positive...

I really liked my Disney and my Pixar separate, though.

[RebelHill]

Everyone seems to be taking this things the wrong way round if ya ask me. Steve Jobs now becomes the main stockholder in Disney from this deal (basically a controlling share, meaning Disney is basically HIS now). Also lets not forget Jobs' record as a businessman, where he has "sold" before, an apparently upcoming company, to an apparently "downhill" company. Looked at in hindsight, people will eventually say that pixar was in fact paid 7bn to shovel disney off to the dump and keep the brand for their own uses.

Alleilujah!

[AnimWatch]

I hope you're right, RebelHill. But where corporations are concerned, I take a punishingly pessimistic view and yet they still usually find a way to disappoint.

[TeviH]

I was thinking that, too, RebelHill - thought maybe it was sort of hoping rather than thinking. I never would have thought Jobs would sell, yet he did. Jobs is a power-hungry person yet he relinquished his power - possibly for more power of something bigger - but who knows? I hope this is a good thing.

I doubt it will be an invisible transition, that's for sure.

[Roachford]

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/archives/happyday.jpg

I think this image from a former Disney Feature Animation artist says it all.

Cartoon Brew (http://www.cartoonbrew.com) has some interesting things to say, as well as links to other articles on the 'Net.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/archives/2006_01.html

[Roachford]

Another link:
http://pixaranimation.blogspot.com/

[Roachford]

.....and these two stories from yesterday's IMBd news page:
Disney: The Pixar Era
Disney CEO Robert Iger said Tuesday that his decision to buy Pixar Animation for $7.4 billion was based on his desire to reinvigorate "the heart and soul of the company." In an interview with Bloomberg News, Iger said, "For the company to be healthy, I truly felt that animation had to be healthy." (In a separate interview with the New York Times, Iger said, "I want to return Disney to greatness in this area ... and this was the way to do it fastest.") He said that Pixar President Ed Catmull and Pixar cofounder and creative chief John Lasseter will manage Disney animation -- "everything from how pictures are chosen, how they are developed. It's everything." David Stainton will step down as head of Disney Feature Animation but remain with the company, Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said Tuesday. Analysts generally reacted enthusiastically to the deal. Tom Adams, head of Adams Media Research, told the Washington Post: "Disney built the company on animation, and its hand went cold just as Pixar's went hot. This is big, big stuff for Disney." But some analysts worried whether Disney's conservative, corporate culture and Pixar's free-wheeling, independent one can effectively be fused. As Marla Backer, an analyst at Research associates, told today's New York Daily News: "Disney is bureaucratic. People roller-blade down the halls of Pixar. ... I don't think Pixar needs Disney looking over its shoulders."

Jobs Expected To Shake Things Up at Disney
In the wake of the Disney-Pixar merger, many analysts speculated about the role of Steve Jobs at Disney. Jobs, who instantaneously became Disney's largest individual stockholder, owning $3.56 billion in Disney shares, as a result of the deal, immediately dismissed speculation that he would become Disney chairman. (He remains chairman of Apple Computer.) "That's not on my radar," he said during a conference call Tuesday. "Being chairman of a public company is an awful lot of work." Nevertheless, Jobs will take a seat on Disney's board, and as Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter observed in an interview with today's (Wednesday) Wall Street Journal, "They're going to have to install seat belts in that board room because when Steve gets in there, he'll be a ball of fire." Commented Harris Nesbitt analyst Jeffrey Logsdon in an interview with Reuters: "There's no second guessing how valuable he is. Putting him in a new context ups his ability to influence things." On the other hand Alan Deutschman, author of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Jobs is adept at playing two roles. At Apple, he noted, he would obsess "about every curve on the plastic container of the iPod," while at Pixar, the creative "people succeeded in keeping him at arm's length ... [playing] the role of owner and chairman, rather than day-to-day micro-manager." And Jeffrey Young, co-author of iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, noted that Apple shares fell $1.63 after the announcement of the merger. "I think this is bad news for Apple," Young told the Chronicle. "How can you not take your eye off the ball and wander around La-La Land chasing Mickey Mouse?"

[Roachford]

Here's an article about the Disney-Pixar merger written from the perspective of Apple, that other company affected by this deal

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/01/pixarreax/index.php

[Roachford]

I just love this picture, posted over at the Cartoon Brew (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/) blog:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1674/2133/1600/mike.jpg

They've posted links to a number articles on the Disney-Pixar deal, including a quote from this NY Times article by Neal Gabler:

...the seeming conflict between Disney and Pixar was never about old technology bowing to new. It was about aesthetics and how technology best served them. ...it isn't C.G.I. itself that has made their films so wildly successful. Rather, it is the narrative craft with which those films were made. ...Disney is doing something that perhaps no other corporation of this size has ever done: actively de-corporatizing itself. It is reassigning authority from the bureaucracy to a small group of creative individuals. It is, in short, trying to resurrect Walt Disney and his early hands-on management style.

[AnimWatch]

Great picture, and even better quote.

And man, I wanna believe. I wanna believe...

[qinm8r]

I was thinking that, too, RebelHill - thought maybe it was sort of hoping rather than thinking. I never would have thought Jobs would sell, yet he did. Jobs is a power-hungry person yet he relinquished his power - possibly for more power of something bigger - but who knows? I hope this is a good thing.

I doubt it will be an invisible transition, that's for sure.

Steve Jobs is quite power hungry, yet very innovative, not only when it comes to products and services, but very much so when it comes to gaining power. After much sleight of hand, I am sure we will see Steve fully in command of the mouse house in the next few years. When Jobs was let go as CEO of Apple, the company started to slide. Apple then bought a company that was headed by Jobs, called Next, then magically Steve was transported to the wonderful position of CEO once again. The man does inspire innovation among his companies regardless of the nodding yes-folk he surrounds himself with. Perhaps this innovative spirit will be what sparks the creative fire that once fueled Disney animation, rather than the dime chasing, oscar-buzz glory hogging, formulaic fluff that has been the mainstay at the studio for the past decade, except for Lilo and Stitch (I love that movie).

[AnimWatch]

This courtesy of Jim Hill Media (http://www.jimhillmedia.com/article.php?id=1829):

John Lasseter to Disney middle management: "If you don't draw for a living, then you really don't belong in this building."

Hallelujiah. The good news continues. The suits need their noses out of the art side of the business. I hope the tone that Lasseter sets will keep that in everyone's minds.

[TeviH]

It aint over, folks.. :(

Iger said Disney would release about two Pixar films each year, an increase over Pixar's earlier goal of about one per year. Pixar will take over production of ``Toy Story 3,'' a sequel that Disney's in-house animators had been working on, Iger said.

That has to push production values down, doubling the speed at which they put out a movie.. and now they are going ahead with TS3?! :(

Whole article here: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=ayU.muv60T4o&refer=home

[AnimWatch]

It's like quoting the Bible. You can always find a verse to support your point of view.

But HERE (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060202.html)'s an interesting take from Cringley Frog. What if Disney wanted Jobs all along, and the Pixar deal was just a way to get him?

My favorite quote, actually, is a wakeup call for all us would-be small time animated film creatores: "...smaller is really better. How else can Apple compete with Microsoft AND Dell and HP, and still have $8 billion in the bank? Because smaller is better and cheaper, too, when it comes to creative development."

Thanks to Jemel for the link.

[TeviH]

I don't really have a POV on this... just hopes and fears. I hope my fears are wrong.

:?

If they can keep production values as they were, heck, gimme 5 movies a year!! :D I'd be giddy with glee!