Found this juicy nugget in an article about Eisner... "One film executive suggested that Mr. Jobs (the founder of Pixar!) could now be considered a candidate to run Disney if indeed Mr. Eisner ever left."
I agree...Think about it Lion King 1 1/2...Sleeping Beauty 2, Lady and the Tramp 2, what crap... Without Pixar, they'd be crap...They should be doing everything to keep them, as they'll be hurting after 2006...
As far as Pixar, that's just dumb. Pixar is so hot it's ridiculous. Huge success after huge Success. But if Disney was even remotely intelligent they would have been taking notes and should be able to duplicate what Pixar has been able to accomplish. I'm sure this is the plan.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where they go from here. There's no way they DONT try and get into the computer animated movies. The people demand it practically.
Maybe the traditional type movies that Disney will do now won't suck. I mean the animation and detail in movies like Brother Bear is shameful compared to the old Disney favorites. Jungle Book 2 etc. All of the recent ones don't have near the same depth and detail in the animation that the old ones have had.
Miramax is trying to get out, too, though. There's been talk that the Weinsteins will be allowed to buy back their studio and sever their ties with Disney. Plus, I don't know how you can call "Cold Mountain" a successful movie. It cost $80 million to make and $25 million to market, and has, thus far, only earned $43 million at the box office. Even Kill Bill has yet to even break even. Touchstone has some hits from time to time. "Bringing Down the House" was their big one last year, and they've got "The Alamo" coming up. And while the Walt Disney Company does own ABC, ESPN and many other cable networks, they do not own E! or Lifetime, and only own a piece of A&E.
My point was that Disney makes more movies than animated features like Brother Bear. I didn't do research to find Disney's most successful movies. I just listed the first three movies I found on the Mirimax site which were Chicago, Cold Mountain and Kill Bill. Chicago won best picture last year, Cold Mountain is nominated for several Oscars this year and Kill Bill...well I'm planning on seeing it when volume 2 comes out. Not that it matters but Disney owns 34.4% of E!. E! Online site confirms that Disney acquired part of E! in 1997. Disney also owns 50% of Lifetime and 37.5% of A&E.
I don't think this is nearly as bad for Disney as people seem to think. Smart business buys low, sells high. Disney got a lot out of Pixar at cheap prices because no one knew who the hell Pixar was. Now that people do, it's time to let go. What Pixar does is great, but not necessarily unique. There are likely other independent studios out there doing similar work - Disney should just latch on to one of those and repeat what they did with Pixar. When that company is well-known, cut loose and find the next company. Disney brings value in its name. These companies bring value in their quality. Both Disney and Pixar benefitted from the relationship. However, once Pixar has the name itself, there's no mutual benefit to that relationship - Disney has to find someone else that it can offer its name to. That's how to make profits. It keeps Disney at the cutting edge at minimal costs.
To extend on that, this is the Oakland A's philosophy to success. Develop the talent and then when they are stars and demanding high salaries, let them go and repeat the process. Similar number of wins as high-market teams, far lower costs.
I coulda sworn I read that Disney divested of their piece of Lifetime. As for the movies, Oscars are nice, but if you spend $105 million and get back less than $40 million, you aren't going to have enough money to make Oscar-worthy pictures for very long. Disney, the company, had a good year at the movies in 2003. They grossed over $1.5 billion domestically and had a 17.2% market share. But nearly half of that was two movies, Pixar's Finding Nemo ($340 million domestically) and Jerry Bruckheimer's Pirates of the Carribean ($305 million domestically). And for the last decade, Disney's bread and butter has been family and children's films. When they aim at the adult market (even through their Touchstone label), they very often fail (though they have had some successes here and there). The Company also rarely employs "name" directors, or if they do, the relationship usually ends quickly and often badly.
That's great if it works, but the question is whether Disney is capable of repeating the process. I don't know of any other company Disney has had a Pixar-like relationship with. And certainly their other big hit of the year was not that sort of arrangement. I guarantee that Jerry Bruckheimer had a big piece of Pirates of the Carribean, and he's certainly a big-name, well-paid producer. And it fails to account for in-house projects, which were once the staple of the Disney empire. Since Katzenberg left, the animation division has had several very expensive failures, and has yet to put up a legitimate hit.
