http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/index.htm?cnn=yes

hopefully disney won't stifle the creative genius that's come out of that studio so far, this sems like it creates a virtual monopoly on the american animation scene

check out the graphic on the right, no pixar movie has ever brought in less than 360 mil, that's pretty strong

p.s. $7.4 billion is a lot to pay

1/24/2006 7:32:54 PM

^it's not a lot to pay if your company sucks

1/24/2006 7:34:12 PM

meaning disney sucks or pixar sucks? the latter certainly doesn't in my opinion, i think this is a somewhat desperate move by the folks at disney

1/24/2006 7:59:24 PM

One bomb by Pixar and this deal goes south very quickly.

1/24/2006 8:16:50 PM

has anyone heard any word about their next effort? it's called 'cars'... i vaguely remember a preview in theaters and i'm thinking i didn't come away that impressed by it

1/24/2006 8:18:30 PM

Hardly desperate. Steve Jobs wanted this more than anyone. This deal would have happened a long time ago had Eisner been more easy to work with.

As for Disney under the old contract, they owned the rights to all the movies from Toy Story to this summer's Cars. This provided substantial revenue in terms of related merchandise, attractions at the parks, etc. With this new deal, Pixar can definitely help out Disney's failing animation department. Besides, Pixar didnt really have any other deals on the table with any other media companies.

1/24/2006 8:23:06 PM

Yup supposed to come out on June 1st.

Looks okay but doesn't have any solid lead characters from what I have seen.

1/24/2006 8:24:12 PM

I thought Disney already owned Pixar.

1/25/2006 7:55:47 AM

nope, just a distribution/finacial backing deal...

Steve Jobs is now the biggest single shareholder in Disney... thats' kinda weird...

1/25/2006 8:02:34 AM

Pixar is a script-based film company. I have no doubt that the body of "Cars" is nothing like what we've seen in the trailers, and will have a damn fine story.

If anything, I think this move might get some good writers back in the hand animation unit at Disney.

1/25/2006 8:04:29 AM

i thought disney had announced a while back (after Lilo&Stitch) that they were closing down the hand animation unit

1/25/2006 8:25:32 AM

gg Disney

Your collaborations with Pixar are the best.

1/25/2006 8:40:50 AM

^^

a lot of hand-drawn animation isn't done in America anymore

Americans do the storyboarding and Koreans do the actual drawing (Simpsons has been doing this for years)

hopefully what this means is that john lasseter will put some thought and story back into disney

1/25/2006 9:02:24 AM

Simpsons uses computers to do the colors now .

1/25/2006 9:05:18 AM

Yeah they did lay off most of their hand-drawn animation department. They jumped on the bandwagon of computer animated films with Chicken Little. It was a commercial success but I dont believe it had positive reviews.

Lasseter will also hold a creative position with Imagineering which could be really really interesting for the theme parks.

1/25/2006 9:13:34 AM

1/25/2006 9:17:40 AM

From the previews Cars looks like it will be pretty lame. I can't stand NASCAR and the like so I can't imagine sitting through an animated version of it.

1/25/2006 9:31:13 AM

http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/cars/

there's a link to a teaser trailer

for the record, lightning mcqueen is a phenomenal name for a lead car-character

1/25/2006 9:49:07 AM

The trailor for Finding Nemo held in me no interest to see the movie, but it ended up being good, so I'm hoping for similar with Cars.

1/25/2006 10:53:18 AM

dixar's gonna be the best

1/25/2006 12:13:42 PM