Regurgitator

I think New Line Studios should pick up Pixar. Since New Line Studios was willing to put so much money up front for the making of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy why not give Pixar what they want?

Hokeyboy

Pixar's first non-Disney release will most likely make less money than their Disney-associated films, but Pixar will earn more from them. I'd rather have 90% of $150 million than 50% (minus distribution fees) of $237 million (the average domestic gross of a Disney/Pixar film).

Where Pixar will stumble is in marketing and merchandising. Say whatever evil nasty things you want about Disney, but their marketing/branding/merchandising abilities are second to none. Pixars films, characters, and merchandise were pushed in their parks, their stores, their TV and radio broadcasts, everywhere. Could Warners or Fox give them the same type of exposure? Not likely.

It will take Pixar time to regain footing without the associated Disney omnipresence. However, if they continue delivering quality films, and if the public has truly come to differentiate Pixar as an entity from Disney (which I have doubts about; sure, we here know the difference, but we are obsessive Internet nerds Most families I know think Disney released Shrek), then their longterm prospects look great.

After all, Disney was able to break off from RKO distribution and thrive. Then again, RKO in the 40s/50s is no Walt Disney Corp. of the 90s/00s.

tanman

As much as I hate Disney as of late, I really don't want them to be taken over.

Seriously, the best thing would be for Eisner and his cronies to be kicked out and Roy to become CEO. But we all knew that already.

Hokeyboy

Because the New Line regime that put up "so much money" for LOTR was promptly booted out and replaced by a governing body that sold off much of LOTR's foreign distribution rights, fearing a financial disaster.

Whoops. New Line made bucketloads of $$$ from the domestic returns of the films, but could have made even more if they hadn't gotten cold feet at the last minute.

Anyways, Warner Bros. would snatch up Pixar long before their corporate little brother had the opportunity.

PalmerJoss

Ditto. If Disney got taken over, I can almost picture Walt rolling over in his grave. It would truly be a sad day IMO.

Breakfast with Girls

Fixed.

grip

From an article in the LA Times:

For some in the Pixar family, a split with Disney would have significance beyond dollars and cents. Pixar's creative guru, director John Lasseter, is a former Disney animator.

Roy Disney said it was Lasseter who told him about the collapse of negotiations during a phone call Thursday from Pixar's headquarters.

"He feels as awful as I do about this," Disney said. "He said he's a Disney man, as are so many of the guys up there. Disney blood flows through their veins."

[conspiracy theory]Roy and his group along with lasseter and his group making eisner out to be the bad guy with the idea that eisner will get booted and Roy rides in on white horse to save the day.[/conspiracy theory]

Breakfast with Girls

And work out a new deal with Pixar. It's smart. I wouldn't be surprised.

jayson1017

The smartest move of the year.

Rogue588

THAT...would SO rock

Chrisedge

As much as I dislike that the deal went south (And will be voting against Eisner in the proxy vote), I read on Yahoo this morning what Pixar wanted, and can't blame Disney for not doing a deal.

I don't blame Disney for not wanting to sign over the copyrights to their 5 best Animated Pictures in the last 10 years. They can cut ties and move forward. They just need the creativity of Pixar, not the technology.

Iron_Giant

But you must admit, the deal was much better for Disney than it was for Pixar - as far as $$$ goes.

Which would you rather do:

Pixar:
Did all the work to create the animation which took about 3 years per picture.

Disney:
Got the voices together
Did the advertising
Distributed the movie/DVD

Granted that Disney took a risk on Pixar in the beginning, but it is like having Jordon on your basketball team. The 1st few years of his contract he made only a few million, but after he won 3 champion ships in a row, you have to pay to him what he is worth. Could you imagine if the Bulls had traded him because they were not willing to pay him the money he was worth. They Bulls team increased in 10 times in value over the 15 years the MJ and they made a ton of money.

Disney is foolish to cut MJ (Pixar) from their team after 5 championship rings. They could win another if they allowed Pixar to do one more movie - "Toy Story 3".

mookiemeister

I think in the long run it might be good for Disney to not rely too much on Pixar movies. Right now, traditional Disney animation is suffering. Probably Disney is focusing too much on promoting 3D animation stuff. The dissolve of their relationship with Pixar will allow Disney to go back to making good 2D animated movies.

jough

What's more likely is that Disney will strike a relationship with one of the other many 3D animation studios. Eventually every major studio will have a deal with an independent 3D animation studio, just like Columbia Tri-Star and Dreamworks do.

shaun3000

Yeah, it was a great movie, right up until the animals started talking!

tanman

I seriously doubt this will happen. At least not while Eisner is still around....hint hint....nudge nudge.....wink wink....

Traditional animation is suffering because Eisner has sucked all the life from this artform and has turned it into nothing more than all the Kangaroo Jacks and Cat in the Hats out there. But at least they are not stupid enough to come out with sequels...are they? I'm scared.

Gatsby

I hope you're right. I'm really upset about this split, I think both companies brought something to the table that made these films so good. The marketing power of Disney matched up with the creative genius of Pixar...

Regarding the negotiation and the copyrights to the five films Pixar produced with Disney.. Pixar did create every aspect of these films and deserve them, but I am not surprised that Disney denied the deal, however, the loss of Pixar could crush them in the future and I think that's where they'll need to sit down and consider what's best for the company. The 2D films have been mediocre or direct to video films that have not generated a lot of revenue. They need Pixar!

I think Pixar will continue to create great animation films, I also believe it'll feel a little different not having that Disney label connected with them.

Terrell

Well, everyone likes to piss on Disney, but here's the deal.

Strictly from a business point of view, why did Pixar suddenly want to change the arrangements of a contract that they signed with Disney. The previous contract they signed was to deliver two more films with Disney. Those two films are "The Incredibles" and "Cars"! Disney has already spent a great deal of money on both of these films and Pixar suddenly in mid-production wants to renegotiate the contract and substantially reduce Disney's share of the profits. That's bad form, pure and simple. Honor your contract Pixar, which is binding. The fact that Disney funds half the production costs of your films, and is working under a binding contract that you signed and agreed to, is grounds enough for Disney to not give in.

All Pixar had to do was honor their contract, then try and sign a new deal with Disney, under their own terms. If they couldn't succeed, they could go elsewhere. This all happened because Pixar did not honor their contract.

I believe this was planned by both Jobs and Roy Disney, to try and get Eisner fired. I don't believe Pixar wants to leave Disney. They've had so much success together. Leaving to go with another company is risky business. If this is what they planned, what if Eisner is not fired? They they screwed themselves, that is if they really don't want to leave Disney. If they do want to leave Disney, then it won't matter what happens with Eisner.

Frank S

Pixar is trying to re-negociate their current contract but was negociating a contract after the current one expires. Contracts of this magnitude don't get negociated days before the current ones are up but takes years in most cases.

The negociations for the new contract did want re-nogtiations of terms from the previous one in regards to film ownership etc. but that has nothing to do with the not honoring the current contract. Pixar did ALL the work on these films and Disney got the better of them when they were starting out so Pixar smartly wants a bigger piece of the profit pie since all the sucess from their films is due to them not Disney. Pixar doesn't need Disney's marketing any more since they have such an outstanding reputation with their many animated films that have been so sucessful.

Pixar now will simply fulfill their current obligations (2 films) under the current contract and then have nothing to do with Disney any more. I applaud them for having the balls to break away from a company that has a long track record (under Eisner) of taking advantage of other companies they do business with.

Michael Corvin

Frank is right. Not only that but since each of these films takes about 3 years to make production is ramping up on the next two pictures AFTER cars, which there is no deal for right now. Hence the negotiating.

I have to side with Pixar though wanting their property back to prevent the desacration of classics with straight to video crud that Disney WILL eventually pull while Eisner is around.

jough

Pixar *is* honouring their current contract. But the contract term expires in less than 2 years and they're already preparing the next film(s) that are *not* part of their contract.

Disney has been making a lot of money by exploiting Pixar for years. Pixar is a publically traded company, and their stock has gone UP in response to this news.

I see Pixar having a future like LucasFilm, who would enter into an agreement with a studio who would do little more than manufacture and distribute the finished product for a cut of the profits - but not HALF of the profits, as Disney gets.

Here's a basic analogy of Disney and Pixar's current relationship:

Pixy owns a lemonade stand. He works really hard at it and it takes him six weeks to make the lemonade just right. It is the best lemonade in the world and people come from all over to drink it (there is another stand that is equally as good, but they make cream soda instead).

Pixy's friend Dizzy says hey, for half of the money you make I'll buy you some lemons, and tell people about your lemonade. I'll even help you sell it.

So Dizzy buys Pixy some lemons (but not sugar, water, or cups) and Pixy gets the rest of the stuff. Pixy whips up his batch of lemonade for six weeks, and the day before it's ready, Dizzy spends an hour in the morning telling people about the lemonade. Dizzy makes it sound so delicious that people are eagerly anticipating the lemonade.

The next day, Pixy is given new lemons and starts to work on his next batch. Dizzy sells the lemonade for an hour and pockets half of the money. He also sells t-shirts and other stuff that says "Pixy's Lemonade" on it.

The following Fall, Dizzy sells apple cider made from rotten apples (which tastes awful) and tells people it's Pixy's Apple Cider. People remember how good Pixy's lemonade was, so they buy up lots of the cider. But the next year, those same people don't even buy the lemonade because they figure Pixy doesn't make good stuff anymore.

Dizzy keeps all of the money made from the Apple Cider.

Jay G.

The Pixar/Disney deal wasn't evil. It was advantageous in Disney's favor, but Pixar did plenty good for an originally unproven studio in an unproven field (CGI animated films). Disney forked over half the dough for each film, so they got half the profits, just like any other investor would. Then Disney got 10% because it was distributed through them, but again any other disributor would've gotten a similar cut. Disney even helped Pixar in their development of a motion picture, which was entirely new to Pixar, but which Disney has a little bit of experience with.

The main problem was that Pixar created nearly all the creative work, yet Disney got all the rights. Again, when they first started out, this was probably a reasonable concession to get such a powerhouse to support their work. However, now that Pixar has proven itself it deserves to own the fruits of their labors.

The main problem is that Pixar wants to renegotiate with Disney about it's past works. While renogotiation allows for this, to walk away from Disney because they refuse to budge on this issue seems silly, since no other studio offer will deal with these rights either. I think this is a case of Pixar walking away to force Disney's hand and get Disney to offer a better deal.

Michael Corvin

methinks this all started going south the day Disney(lawyers? Eisner?) decided to find a loop hole and not include Toy Story 2 in the contract(after it had made Disney a buttload of money) of 5 films. So they actually got 6 films for the price of 5. Eisner is the devil the more I think about it.

moocher

I think most people here forget this key fact. It is the Disney name and marketing juggernaut that helped these films become mega-blockbusters. Of course if they weren't any good, they would have bombed anyway so both players bring something to the table that make it a great partnership. Neither company will benefit from this breakup.

I, for one, am not clammering for more "edgy" stuff from Pixar. The innocense of their films is part of the charm.

PixyJunket

I'ma kick Dizzy's ass when I find him.