Is Pixar ditching Disney?
July 14, 2002

Computer-animated movies are all the rage these days, so a growing number of studios looking to cash in are ditching the traditional format.

DreamWorks has cemented itself as a bigwig in the animation industry with digital movies, first with Antz, then with the blockbuster Shrek. DreamWorks head Jeff Katzenberg stated in the past that CGI is the way to fly, and traditional animation should only serve as a distant memory of times past. While Disney’s recent hand-drawn hit, Lilo & Stitch, bucks the trend with its continued success ($112.71 million gross to date), it seems to be the exception, rather the rule.

But even with DreamWorks’ formidable offense in the upcoming Shrek sequel and Sharkslayer, Disney isn’t ready to relinquish its crown as top animation studio in the world without a fight. The studio arrived with its own CGI hit, A Bug’s Life, around the same time that DreamWorks came out with Antz. Since then, Disney gave the world both Toy Story movies and Monsters Inc.
The studio has more upcoming CGI movies in the works as well, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo among them.

But with DreamWorks offering Disney its first real competition in the movie world and constantly dealing further blows to its once impervious armor (see last week's story), one has to wonder what’s to come. Pixar was an unknown when Toy Story released, but it’s a household name after being attached to every Disney CGI hit to date. The Disney-Pixar partnership might seem like Sonny and Cher, Nintendo and Rare or the WWF and Hulk Hogan, but as everyone knows, nothing lasts forever (even cold November rain).

Pixar is only contracted to work on three more films for Disney. As early as 2006, after its final film, Finding Nemo, is delivered to Disney, Pixar can release its own independent projects. In January at Pixar’s 15th anniversary celebration, it was inadvertently revealed that Jan Pinkava is directing a feature-length film. And it isn’t part of a deal to be released in conjunction with Disney. Although it’s a possibility that the project will be the first released under a new Disney-Pixar contract, it seems doubtful.

Disney animation execs typically have major input on Pixar’s projects. Never has a movie released in the partnership without Disney’s fingerprints all over it. For example, production on Toy Story stopped for five months in 1993 when Disney didn’t think the Woody character was up to snuff. It doesn’t seem likely that Disney would distribute and market someone else’s animated movie over which it had no influence.

The president of Disney’s animation division, Thomas Schumacher, said, "With or without Pixar, I'm making movies that are CG."

One could argue that without Disney’s direction, Pixar won’t be able to mold its movies into masterpieces because the studio remains untested. But for that reason, Disney could be in trouble. If the studio can’t negotiate a new deal—Pixar will definitely have to be paid more money—Pixar might become another big adversary like DreamWorks. Or even worse for Disney, a DreamWorks-Pixar relationship could develop, where Pixar has the freedom to work on its own films and DreamWorks does the marketing and distribution. That could be a public relations disaster that Disney can ill afford at a time when DreamWorks is nipping at its heels.

Whatever the case, it seems almost certain that Pixar is preparing itself for life after Mickey Mouse.

E-mail me at: chrisdouvalas@aol.com