There is a God after all!



And I can just hear Steve in the background going "Fuck you, Eisner!"




news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article341627.ece

Pixar chief asserts his authority over Disney by axing 'Toy Story 3'
To infinity but not beyond as merger brings successful series to an end

By Jason Nissé
Published: 29 January 2006

John Lasseter, the creative chief of Pixar Animation Studios, has wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar's takeover by Walt Disney - by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films.

The original Toy Story, completed in 1995, was the first major collaboration between Pixar and Disney. Thehighly lucrative partnership went on to produce the hits Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles.

However, the joint venture became strained, partly because of personality clashes between the then Disney chief executive, Michael Eisner, and Pixar's chief executive, Steve Jobs, and partly because of Disney's desire to keep the Toy Story franchise running with a third and forth movie.

Mr Lasseter was deeply opposed to the idea but Disney went ahead, as it owns the intellectual property, putting 100 scriptwriters, animators and other creative staff to work on Toy Story 3 at its own Walt Disney Studios animation complex in Burbank, California.

On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Mr Jobs and Disney's new chief executive, Bob Iger, unveiled the merger, Mr Lasseter went to Burbank with Pixar's president, Ed Catmull. He announced that Toy Story 3 would now be scrapped, without a word about the fate of the animation team.

According to talk in Hollywood, Disney was struggling with a script in which Buzz Lightyear, one of the two stars, developed a fault and had to be recalled to Taiwan for repairs.

According to regulatory filings in the US, the Disney-Pixar deal gives Mr Lasseter creative control over all of the two studios' animated film output, while still maintaining Pixar's independence. He also has a contract running to 2011 paying him a salary of $2.5m (£1.4m) a year.

Pixar's latest movie, Cars, will shortly be released, while Disney is apparently relieved at the success of its own new animated film, Chicken Little, which comes out in the UK next month.

Chicken Little has already made more than $250m at the box office.

Im sure someone will sue someone in all of this. It's the American way.

interesting.

I wasn't planning to see 3 & 4 anyway.

Go straight to video and die.

And after Disney is in complete control, it will become nothing less than a another multi-million dollar cashcow for Eisner.

There is nothing that has been developed by Pixar that I didn't like (so far).

So this one was going to be made by a non-Pixar team?

Glad to hear it was scrapped.

Pixar is a class act.  They are one of the few production houses that realized that eye candy and cool special effects can't save a film with a week story or dialog.  (Lucasfilm take note.)

Quoted: Pixar is a class act.  They are one of the few production houses that realized that eye candy and cool special effects can't save a film with a week story or dialog.  (Lucasfilm take note.)

plus they are the only ones that have come up with an original story line for the big screen in the past 5 years.


unless you call 2 homo cowboys original

Lassiter is also a Anime evangalist.  He actually hosted Turner Classic Movies month long showing of the Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli films this past month.

Supposedly he has been dissatisfied with his OWN COMPANY's product as of late.  He has been very impressed- and perhaps slightly embarrased- by recent Japanese product from people like Studio Gonzo and by independants like Makoto Shinkai that have a tiny fraction of his budget and staff.

Shinkai's self-prduced 25 minute art film Voices From a Distant Star, the principal animation for which was made on a PowerMac G4 in the artists apartment living room, just EMBARRASES anything Pixar has yet made with their millions of dollars in Silicon Graphics machines...