Pixar Drops Disney To Find a New Studio Partner 581
da_anarchist writes "After much speculation, Pixar has announced that it will end its distribution agreement with Disney. This comes after much bitterness at Pixar over the terms of their current deal with Disney, where Disney took a sizable (and some would say unfair) portion of the $2.5 billion in revenue generated by Pixar's films. Pixar is best known as the studio behind the Toy Story series and the more recent movie Finding Nemo."
Steve Jobs runs Pixar? (Score:4, Funny)
Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney may have been good, long ago, but after the success of Toy Story I don't think Pixar needed Disney for distribution. Worse, I've felt, is a Disney influence on characters in the films, certain attitudes and stereotypes which are pretty tired and one reason Disney's animated offerings don't impress.
Sadly, this will also mean any sequels to the Disney-associated films will be done by Disney, which as I've said, employs some pretty tired ideas about character development. Hopefully the well at Pixar is far from dry and fresh new ideas continue to emerge.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
How to respond to competition. Disney used ot be the only game in town when it came to animated features, and that just isn't the case anymore. They're definitely hurting.
It's gotta be bad there for Roy Disney to just pack up his bags and leave.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 1903, you mean? That's when the Pepsi-Cola name was trademarked.
Or are you referring to their big "Nickel Nickel" radio ad campaign of 1940?
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
But thats a whole nother' thread...
Anyways, I'm sure one could easily argue that sometimes people benafit from pirating. I'm sure if college kids didn't rampantly pirate MS Office and Windows, Microsoft wouldn't have the market share that it currently does, and these same kids wouldn't be "locked" into Office and other such software as adults.
Heck, in college I had a cracked version of Warcraft II that I played all the time. I loved that game so much what did I do later on? I bought StarCraft and WarCraft III.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Interesting)
But will they be able to say From the makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo or does Disney have a clause stating they don't have the rights to those title?
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Interesting)
They also hold it for lunch boxes, to
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Informative)
It's the title of a movie, you can't control how people refer to your products. George Lucas has a trademark on everything from Alderaan to wookie but he still can't sue Kevin Smith for having his characters talk about Star Wars.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like "Atlantis" or "Emperors New Groove" or "Dinosaur" or "Treasure Planet" (biggest flop of the last 10 years). Lilo & Stitch was a moderate success, and the first real one they've had in 10 years.
Disney was must-see 50 years ago (their hayday) or 15 years ago (Lion King, Beauty & The Beast etc). Now they are only producing steaming piles of shite and don't have a new idea among them.
I mean - Cinderella2? PeterPan2 LionKing2 Aladdin2&3.
For christs sakes.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Informative)
I did bring my kids to see Treasure Planet and Lilo & Stitch. L&S was great because it was supposed to be a low budget summer release that would tide us over until Treasure Planet, yet ended up being a really well done movie, whereas Treasure Planet was a butchered classic that they tried to soupe up with expensive CG. It wasn't *bad*, it just wasn't particularly notable.
Lilo and Stitch has become a Disney classic, at least to us, and must have been a pretty good success seeing as how it got a spin off series and a lot more merchandising than Treasure Planet.
And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear, not to mention some of the stupid live action films they've done (like "Country Bear").
I don't know what the hell they're thinking with all the sequels, though, it really is pathetic.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of the stuff they're putting out does seem pretty dumb though. Atlantis was OK. Treasure Planet blew.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Interesting)
This was something of a bastard stepchild at the Disney studios. It started out following the standard Disney formula but took a different turn somewhere along the road and became something extremely enjoyable. I think it flopped because Disney plumb didn't know what to do with it, and they were already pouring all their resources into promoting Treasure Planet (ugh) which came out around the same time.
Think an hour-and-a-half of classic Loony Toons, and that's pretty much The Emperor's New Groove.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Funny)
> It started out following the standard Disney formula but took a different turn somewhere along the road
You mean they didn't kill off any parents?
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Interesting)
Possibly we'd have seen the dead parents in "Empire of the Sun", which is what the project was originally called. By the time it had metamorphosed into "The Emperor's New Groove" they'd been pushed offstage. Kuzco is 18 and the reigning emperor. No visible mother or father, and his advisor Yzma mentions at one point that she "practically raised him." So yeah, mommy and daddy are dead, but we don't see them croak here. The one happily married couple we do see survives unscathed.
I meant that it wasn't a mucical; there was no romantic storyline; no comic-relief sidekick like the monkey in Aladdin, that stupid dragon in Mulan or the gargoyles in Hunchback; no hopeless climactic fight against impossible odds that were overcome by courage/innate goodness/magic/semi-divine intervention; and nothing notable in the way of marketing tie-ins. They decided to do characterization and plot instead.
And it turned out to be a good movie! Who knew?
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Interesting)
At first the whole concept of Treasure Planet revolted me (I'm a fan of the book, and have seen several different adaptations of it including "Muppet Treasure Island" (which is a hoot, and Tim Curry does a great John Silver) and even as a stage play). Once I got past that and suspended a ton of disbelief over the whole
Emperor's new groove (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Emperor's new groove (Score:5, Funny)
> It had a very good message about the pointlessness of materialism
So, Disney won't complain if people download it without paying?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Adios, Disney (Score:5, Funny)
> I mean - Cinderella2? PeterPan2 LionKing2 Aladdin2&3.
If you think those are bad, wait until they start making prequels!
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Funny)
The Lion King 1 1/2
Yep! One and a half. 1.5.
What's next, Sleeping Beauty 1.666666666... ? How about The Little Mermaid 2 + (3pi * x^2)y + 1 ?
Or maybe they can start numbering them like Linux kernels...
"Hey, wanna go see Mulan 2.4.24? I heard they fixed some of the animation bugs..."
But I digress. }:)
-Z
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Funny)
'From the people who brought you Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo comes a story about [insert heartfelt adjectives] in the [big/distant/unknown] [insert populace reference]. Pixar in conjunction with [insert pushover distro company] brings you [insert title; three words max; prefer two].'
Throw in the merchandising that was setup nine months before the first press release...and you're good to go!
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Informative)
'nuff said.
D
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
You let her be exposed to Disney so she will buy their crap, but you don't let he watch a show that helps her learn.
Great parenting!!! Start saving now for her bail.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey world, I'm a parent. I didn't always manage to keep my kid from being exposed to commercial crap when she was growing up, though I tried. Please feel free to cr
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just a 30 minute TV show!
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking as the parent of a three-year-old also, I'm not especially impressed with the "learning" they supposedly do on Barney.
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm (reasonably) sure he doesn't know the name, but my three-year-old certainly recognizes Luxor Jr. hopping out during the credits, and has made the connection between Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo as a result. So yeah, I'd expect kids old enough to read probably know the name.
(Then again, my son's the offspring of two geeks, so he may have gotten the reading-the-credits gene a little stronger than the average...)
Re:Adios, Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it sadly ironic that Disney was one of the studios pushing congress to extend copyright protection ("The Mickey Mouse Protection Act") while nearly all of their films used material plundered from the public domain. Hans Christian Anderson, Bros. Grimm., Dafoe, etc....
Toy Story and Finding Nemo are among the very few Disney offerings that aren't blatant rip-offs of off-copyright "classics". And Disney didn't produce them.
Them as can, do. Them as can't... (Score:4, Funny)
So where does this leave Disney? (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way, go Pixar!
Re:So where does this leave Disney? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So where does this leave Disney? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pixar at first needed Disney to promote them, but now the tables have turned and its Disney that needed Pixar. The talent and ideas at Pixar are a lot better than anything Disney has produces. All of the latest block-buster releases that have held the Disney name were made by Pixar.
But one thing to note is that this decision will not have an immediate impact. "The Incredibles" due this year and "Cars", expected in 2005, will still be distributed by Disney.
Re:So where does this leave Disney? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirates of the Caribbean was made by Pixar? huh. Learn something new every day.
I think people tend to forget Disney has it's fingers in a helluva lot more than animation. Pixar is a great asset, but they won't be dead without it (unfortunately).
Re:So where does this leave Disney? (Score:4, Interesting)
To do a bit of math: Finding Nemo took in $340 million in its theatrical run. Disney's cut of that was between 10 and 15 percent, which means that just for distributing Nemo, they took 40+ million to the bank. That's a decent take for any movie, and all they did was distribute it.
And that's only theatrical revenues, mind you. IIRC Finding Nemo broke some home video records too, and since home video generally makes more than theatrical runs these days, you can bet Disney pocketed at least that much again thanks to all those marvelous DVD sales (although I have no numbers to back that up).
So anyway... for 80 million, Disney isn't gonna skimp on Pixar films, no matter how pissed Eisner might be. Pixar has produced 5 (I think) monster hits in a row... the odds of making a lot of money are too good.
Licensing! (Score:5, Funny)
It will use its last bit of influence to convince Congress to make image piracy punishable by death or five years janatorial duties in the Disney[world|land] Outlet Malls.
Stefan
Re:Licensing! (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, the owner of the Pooh copyrights claims Disney is behind or didn't calculate royalties properly. Disney says that Pooh is their distinct thing now that they've had control for XX years. Oh, and it's not your copyright anyway, it belongs to the granddaughter of AA Milne. Well, AA Milne sued for the copyrights, but lost. The legal owner of the Pooh copyrights is the literary agent of AA Milne, who sold or
Re:So where does this leave Disney? (Score:3, Informative)
They won't have a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
They have to do something to pay for Eisners new Bel Air Home thats just down the street from his current one.
Re:They won't have a problem (Score:5, Informative)
Roy is Walt's nephew. Walt didn't have any sons.
Re:They won't have a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
As a part-time employee of a certain large mouse-oriented theme park in Central Florida, let me say that Eisner is looked upon as the Antichrist by the majority of employees of said theme park, and Roy has almost total support. They're also pissed as hell at the way Feature Animation FL was treated, especially given that they created three solid mov
Disney's next move.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Disney's next move.... (Score:5, Funny)
Save Disney (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Save Disney (Score:5, Interesting)
What principle? Exploiting the workers? What's little-known is that in the "golden age" of 1940's and 1950's hand-drawn animation, the overwhelming majority of the work was done by Walt (and his managers) slave-driving minimum-wage immigrants, largely post-WWII European displaced persons, who were lucky just to have a job and a roof. If Walt were alive today, he'd fill the studios with Guatemalans and pay them just as little as legally possible.
Re:Save Disney (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, he'd just subcontract the inbetween work to cheaper studios in Korea and China. That's what most of the Japanese studios have been doing for the past 10 years or so. Just take a look at the credits for any recent theatrical Anime and you'll see a lot of non-Japanese names and studios listed in the credits.
Re:Save Disney (Score:5, Informative)
Animation is a tough career to pursue.
Re:Save Disney (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do people pick on Disney (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Sat morning-esque cartoons - Much better IMO than the competition (FOX, etc). Kim Possible (I hate to admit it, although the art looks a lot like penny arcade), Proud Family, etc are actually funny while kid centered.
2. Feature films. Like Pirates of the C. and Freaky Friday (surprisingly good as well). A few other flops, but they are trying.
3. They distributed pixar. I realize it was the creative genious of someone else, but that is the way *all* big studios work. Pixar was theirs to keep and they shouldn't have let them go.
4. Anime. Say what you will about burying studio ghibli films. They bought them and brought them to the US and played a big part in popularizing anime to the general public.
5. Other things. Like Broadway musicals. Bringing back sunday night disney movies. etc
That is a lot better in my opinion than Disney has been since its golden age. There are few things disney puts out that are *worse* than watching another episode of pokemon.
-Sean
A Round Of Applause Is Needed Methinks? (Score:5, Interesting)
...and fsck Disney!
Being Steve Jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, I know...too flaky, mod away. =)
Re:Being Steve Jobs (Score:3, Interesting)
The financial news I've been reading indicates the divorce isn't completely final. Might just be a negotiating tactic by Jobs.
This is kind of off topic, but I wonder if Apple/Pixar are more dependent on Jobs' brilliance than is good for business. Has he built a managment team that could carry on in the same way? Or are Apple and Pixar all about Jobs? (Think Wang Labs here. Great while the founder was around, not much good after he left.)
Re:Being Steve Jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
Been Waitin' Fer This! (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney, meanwhile, decided to scrap all 2D animation recently. They did this because, apparently, they think Pixar's success is because they work in 3D. While this may have had a lot to do with the buzz behind TS1, it just ain't the case. The reason Pixar movies make mad money is because they are good movies. Finding Nemo could have been made with a dull pencil on notebook paper, and those guys still would have made something worth seeing!
Re:Been Waitin' Fer This! (Score:3, Insightful)
To a large degree, they are right. You may love Pixar's movies, but look at Ice Age, which is at best a mediocre movie with mediocre animation. Disney's 2D animation is about as good as it gets, yet it couldn't compete with even a sub-par 3D movie. Disney has made some good 2D films targetted at a more adult nature, but they just don't do well. Emperor
Re:Been Waitin' Fer This! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is BS. The Toy story porject was floundering after three years in production and not getting any closer to a decent product. The problem was that pixar focused on the animation and ignored the script.
Disney sent a bunch of professionals who threw away well over half of the rendered images and rewrote the script.
Hooray, now I can watch their movies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hooray, now I can watch their movies (Score:3, Informative)
Walt was known to "denounce" gays and communists..
I'm glad they employ people, but know what, 1000s of smaller shop, with higher value, could do just the same.
Pixar needs to find a good distributor (Score:3, Informative)
But as good as Pixar is at making great movies, financial success doesn't come from that. You need good marketing and distribution. I hope Pixar finds a good partner that won't take the lion's share of the profits. They will also need to scramble a little bit more to find funding, but with their reputation, capital should be no problem.
Good and bad (Score:4, Funny)
Disney needs to pull out of its slump. They make the whole industry look bad right now.
Pixar will go on to bigger and better things, which will help the industry.
They are big enough now, they could probably handle self distribution, although they probably don't want to get into that role yet.
Best of luck to the both of them. The better they become, the better we all become, the more secure my job is
I imagine the Pixar boys are out celebrating tonight... (if deadlines aren't killing them...) maybe I should head over across the bay and buy them a round.
-Tim
Blame Eisner! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame Eisner! (Score:3, Interesting)
A number of people have criticized Atlantis as a swipe from Nadia [animefu.com], which was directed by Hideaki Anno (later famous for Evangelion) and based on an original concept by Miyazaki. I'm not sure if the criticism is entirely fair- I've seen Nadia but not Atlantis- but it has been made. In both cases, Disney has claimed with a straight face not to have been familiar with the Japanese work they were alleged to have been stealing from. That seems especially hard to believe in the case of Jungle Emperor Leo, sinc
Re:Blame Eisner! (Score:5, Informative)
A good thing for all involved (and us too!) (Score:5, Insightful)
With _Nemo_, the bar got raised too high for Disney again (although you could argue that Disney didn't do much in the way of making it.) Now that Disney isn't hooked up with Pixar, I hope that the bar is set appropriately for future Disney animation.
Not that I didn't like _Nemo_, I thought it was great, wonderful, funny, my kids loved it and I loved it too. But that's a once-in-a-generation thing; it's great it happened, but we shouldn't let _Nemo_'s success stop us from appreciating good work. If Disney had stuck with Pixar, they'd be afraid to release anything that wasn't going to gross more than _Nemo_; now that they've broken up I hope we can look forward to seeing three or four good animated features a year, with some of them being really original.
I'm glad to hear this. (Score:3, Funny)
You know in Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.russiananimation.com
Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm, Pixar does all the work, Disney gets the copyrights. I guess this might have been beneficial years ago when nobody knew who Pixar was, but these days they've made a big enough name for themselves that they don't need to be exploited by a megacorp to be noticed. In fact, Pixar has been responsible for the only good stuff coming out of Disney in the past few years.
Bad news for Disney. I for one won't miss 'em.
Eisner is an Idiot! (Score:3, Insightful)
Disney's fault (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
Roy Disney and ally Stanley Gold, who both resigned from the Disney board late last year and called for Chief Executive and Chairman Michael Eisner to step down, placed the blame on Eisner.
"More than a year ago, we warned the Disney board that we believed Michael Eisner was mismanaging the Pixar partnership and expressed our concern that the relationship was in jeopardy," they said.
Pixar & Florida: Disney misplayed this badly (Score:3)
While this could concievably just be a negotiating tactic by Pixar, it's more likely to be a simple case of Disney needing Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney.
Pixar Shorts Online (mildly OT) (Score:4, Informative)
Not updated regularly for obvious reasons, but one of my favorite hidden gems on the web nevertheless.
I wanna see Jenna get the Pixar treatment (Score:3, Funny)
The single worst line in the article (Score:4, Funny)
NO NO DAMMIT NO!
I will make it a personal mission to urinate on Eisner's grave if Disney rapes a single one of Pixar's excellent films. I am so f'ing sick of Disney executives walking around the park trying to figure out what movie, series even RIDE they can milk for another buck. Every time I see an advertisement for (classic movie) 2, 3 etc I want to scream.
Steve Jobs is the biggest ass in the world for allowing Disney this option. Give it a year or two after Pixar profits are gone, and get ready for
* Toy Story 3 - Buzz and Woody go to Camp
* Monsters, Inc. 2 - Giggles, Inc.
* Finding Nemo 2 - Doria's Quest for Paxil
Like how "spam" came to mean "unsolicited email" I propose we make "disney" as a synonym for cancer, as in "my grandfather's prostate got disneyed" or perhaps as synonym for necrophilia.
- JoeShmoe
.
Re:The single worst line in the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Disney owns all the rights to the characters in Toy Story, so Toy Story 3 is not something Pixar can do outside of Disney even if they wanted to. However, Pixar owns the rights to all of
Re:The single worst line in the article (Score:4, Funny)
Roy Disney was right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Eisner and the other souless robots on the board countered by justifying Pixar and digital animation shopped out to other studios as the future.
Guess what? Pixar is gone, at best, Disney can only do cheesy straight-to-video sequels from now on. They have no decent feature animation left to speak of. It's all regurtitation of old ideas from here on out.
Roy will be back in about a year, when Disney's stock drops by $5. That should be enough to bring Roy back just like last time he did this. Eisner is a dead man walking. Perhaps Disney will be able to right the ship after he's gone. No more Mighty Ducks, Haunted Mansion, or Miracle movies unless they actually release actual animated flicks.
Eisner could be gone by March 2004! (Score:4, Insightful)
This turn of events is not surprising, given that Roy E. Disney is a close friend of Jobs. I believe that Jobs did this out of his friendship with Roy E. Disney.
Given what has happened with Disney's 2-D animation department lately in addition to losing Pixar, I would not be surprised that we will see a shareholder revolt that forces Eisner and his cronies from the Disney Board of Directors. In Eisner's place, Roy E. Disney becomes the new head of the Board of Directors, and Steve Jobs will be offered (and accepts!) a Disney Board of Directors position.
Hooray for Pixar! Disney went one step too far... (Score:5, Interesting)
A few quotes from other film distributors... (Score:5, Funny)
mine Mine mine MINE mine Mine
Who writes these things? (Score:3, Insightful)
Were the movies written at disney and animated at Pixar, or is the whole thing done at Pixar (and Disney takes care of the marketing)?
I just wonder, because, while Pixar does indeed produce some of the highest quality animation in the world, it's the story and the creativity which make the movie (anyone remember the Final Fantasy movie? blah).
That being said, I wish all of Pixar the best of luck, and hope their last two Disney films are as great as the last few. (It would be tragic if disney significantly cut funding to pixar for these films as a result of this announcement).
That also being said, I want to wish Roy Disney the best of luck in his quest to bring the company back to the way it used to be.
It made sense at the time. (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea that Pixar would crank out five consecutive blockbusters was simply not on the table in 1995. Pixar's output up to that date consisted of a couple of award-winning animated shorts; suggesting that Pixar would outshine Disney Animation by 2000 (with Disney releasing The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King in the five years prior) would have gotten you laughed out of the studio.
But then Jeff Katzenberg decided he'd had enough of Michael Eisner, and went off to Dreamworks to make Antz (and Shrek). Lion King turned out to be the high-water mark for Disney's 2D animation unit; their best effort since was Tarzan, which grossed $435 million worldwide -- a little more than half of Finding Nemo's leviathan take, which is currently at $844 million.
So, Pixar has ended up paying Disney about 10-20 times what Disney's contribution to the process is worth. Eisner was probably using these lucrative terms as the starting point in his negotiations, while Steve Jobs (who already has Sony and Warner on speed-dial) was starting from the idea that Pixar could snap its fingers and have five studios vying for the honor.
Eisner is unquestionably an idiot for failing to recognize this, because he desperately needs Pixar to feed quality product into the gaping maw of his marketing, distribution and merchandising empire -- he's not going to make as healthy of a living selling Brother Bear plush toys and video sequels, that's for sure. Pixar just needs a distributor, though, and they're big enough now that they can get one for the asking.
Disney needs the competition (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The comedic relief
2. The love interest
3. The complacent good natured affable hero
4. The easily-identifiable bad guy (always in black and smoking something)
4. The up-beat music song
5. The slow-dance music song
6. The Billboard song
7. The humorous evil sidekicks.
Put 'em all in a bag, add some celebrity voices, and presto-chango, we've got ourselves another cliche by-the-book Disney flick.
Now take a Pixar movie, not quite such an easy formula? AND NO STUPID SONGS. I hope they mop the flour with Disney.
PS. I must say though The Gummi Bears cartoon series was awesome.
Disney a victim of their own greed (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone hear about how Disney dropped out of Peter Pan because they didn't want to donate any money to a London children's hospital? The author of Peter Pan left the copyright to the hospital in his will. When the most recent movie was made, Disney believed it should be exempt from making any payment to the hospital from the sale of spin-off books, board games, soft toys and computer games, which are expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in their own right.
Read the full story here [smh.com.au]
So FUCK YOU Disney! Guess how much 50% of 0 is you bozos!
The sadly anonymous director of Finding Nemo. (Score:3, Insightful)
The big bucks are usually with the G to PG-13 crowd... For a film of a given quality, the broader it's potential audience is the better it's earnings will be
Re:The sadly anonymous director of Finding Nemo. (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit I had no idea (the answer is Andrew Stanton(story) & Lee Unkrich but I had to look it up)-- but poll a crowd of people and the answer will be 'Pixar'... not the director but that answer will still win.
How many people know (and care) who the distributor for Kill Bill is?
The names Pixar and Tarantino respectively draw the audiences and get the pay dirt - so they hold the power - the rest are all become negotiable contracts.
Maybe Re:Less watered down animation? (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, I think they've done a great job of making films that entertain adults as well as kids.
It would be interesting to see them take on other projects, though.
Re:Disney, your $5295 billion buddy! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:not surprising... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know what this is but it sound disgusting.
Re:Dreamworks/Pixar? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll take Shrek over "Finding Nemo" any day (not that I didn't love "Finding Nemo"). I'm not saying one house is better than the other, but PDI is real competition for Pixar, and thank goodness for competition if they keep putting out movies like Shrek and Finding Nemo!
Re:Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
Pixar is not bitching and moaning about the original deal, (three movies) which they actually extended (to five movies). They are just declining to enter a new deal.
Re:The decline of Disney as an animation studio? (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes pixar great is not the animation but the storytelling talent.
Re:wait wait wait... (Score:4, Interesting)