I'm not sure if people here follow this sort of news (or care :)), but it was announced today that Disney will buy Pixar for US$7.4 billion in stock. Yes, that's billion with a "b". :D

It is expected that Disney will maintain Pixar as a separate studio from Disney's own Feature Animation division. Steve Jobs, CEO of Pixar (and Apple), will get a seat on the Disney board of directors, which is not surprising since the deal makes him the largest individual Disney shareholder. John Lasseter will stay on as chief creative officer for Pixar. It's not clear what will happen to Disney's own feature animated movies, especially seeing as none of them have done well in years.

Full story in the Hollywood Reporter can be found here.

I was reading this in the paper today as well. Our local paper said now 75% of all animated fetures are now and will be owned by one company. Talk about monopalization of the market. Lets hope this will not affect pricing and quality.

Yeah, it's always hard to tell how these things will go.

On the one hand, Disney and Pixar clearly have worked well together creatively. With them being one company now, they can stop arguing over money and get on with things.

On the other hand, Disney hasn't had a blockbuster animated feature in a very long time. There's clearly something not quite right in that division. When a big company in that situation buys a smaller company, there's always the danger that they'll infect the smaller company with the same problem. On the plus side, the fact that Jobs gets a seat on the board and is the largest individual Disney shareholder should allow him to shield Pixar from any negative influence. Hopefully, things will work out for the best for both companies.

I'm particularly encouraged about the possibility of a successful "Toy Story 3" movie now. Because of their contract squabbles, Pixar refused to participate in making that movie and Disney started it on their own. Giving Disney's dismal CGI features, I've been dreading how the movie might turn out without Pixar doing it. But now that Pixar is back in the picture and given how good "Toy Story 2" was, I feel a lot better about how a third movie could turn out.

Let's keep our fingers crossed. :)

I heard about this as well. Well...I didn't hear much cause my aunt was talking at the time. :lol:

Anyways, I hope this doesn't mean that their animated pictures will just dissappear. I mean, CGI is great and all, but I love animated movies better with just a little CGI to help out with backgrounds or something...like in Treasure Planet.

If you're referring to hand drawn animation, then unfortunately this has already happened. Disney announced a little over two years ago that they're not going to produce movies with hand drawn animation anymore. "Home on the Range" was their last hand drawn feature.

They made the decision after the poor, and sometimes downright dismal, box office results for "Emperor's New Groove," "Atlantis," "Treasure Planet," and "Brother Bear." They basically pulled the plug after "Brother Bear" in 2003 but "Home on the Range" was close enough to completion by then that they finished it and put it out anyway (with dismal box office sales, of course).

Based on the success of the "Shrek" and Pixar movies, Disney argued that audiences only want CGI animation these days. This, of course, is silly. What audiences want are good movies with good stories. Shrek and the Pixar movies are popular because they're witty and have stories that appeal to a very wide audience, something none of the recent Disney animated features do.

This is typical Hollywood: rather than take the blame for putting out weak movies and fixing that problem, they try to blame it on the audience by saying that tastes have changed. And of course, since they wouldn't acknowledge the fact that their recent scripts have been weak, their first all CGI feature "Chicken Little" was dismal as well.

It's a shame really. I really like the look of the 2D hand drawn animated features with the really saturated colors. "The Lion King" is still one of my favorite movies. But for the time being at least, neither Disney nor anyone else in the west is producing any hand drawn features. They are now a thing of the past. Sad really.

Au contraire, Furox. The most recent 2D animated film I've heard about is Asterix and The Vikings. It might come to the US of A (considering thy're using American voice actors for the English version of a movie adapted from a French comic, this is likely).

In my opinon, I'd go along because I'm an Asterix fan. The only bad thing is, the stories of the animated Asterix features are usually very silly. Gaah. And American voice actors. Just becuase the characters live in Amorica doesn't being they have American accents!

Though that's not a Disney film. Goddesstears and I were talking about Disney's plans. At this point in time, neither Disney nor any other US studio is producing hand drawn animated features anymore. Dreamworks gave up after the failures of "Road to El Dorado" and "Sinbad" and Don Bluth is history now as well after "Titan A.E." failed. Japan and other places are still producing hand drawn animation of course, but here it's presently dead.

I hope there's a resurgence again as happened in the late 80's, but when that might happen I have no idea.

Whoops.

Just letting you know 2D animated movies are not ENTIRELY dead in the West.

What about Bambi 2 which is coming out in February? That's hand drawn isn't it? So they're at least doing animated features on DVD and of course their TV shows like the new Emperor's New School. So not all of it's going to CGI.

Number one: The first time Disney used CGI was in the Rescuers Down Under. You remember that scene with the kid flying on the dragon? That's it, so don't think CGI equals Shrek and DragonBooster type stuff. In a few years Disney's entire 2-D animation studio will be no more.

Number Two: Do. Not. Talk. To. Me. About. Bambi. Two. Just don't. Disney makes horrible sequels and with this new one it is bending my childhood over a desk and being really really mean to it.

Number Three: Though Disney bought Pixar, Pixar is now the largest shareholder of Disney stock. This means that Disney will do as Pixar says, bwahahahahha.

There was a dragon in Rescuers? I think you mean the eagle.

I never said the sequels were good and I believe I was talking with Furox about that...

yeah....

Sure is. They're still using overseas studios to produce hand-drawn animation for most of their direct video releases, but none of their big budget feature animated movies are hand drawn anymore. And unfortunately, no other US studio has plans to make a hand-drawn feature movie either at present.

They don't quite get that much power. Steve Jobs will become the largest individual shareholder (not Pixar itself), but even so, Steve will only control about 6% of the Disney stock. That's a good sized chunk, but not enough to control the company by a long shot.

D'oh! You are correct. But then, I'm on this Dragon board, of course I have dragons on the brain. Big+flying+someone on it=dragons in my head apprently.

A friend of mine just sent me this link. It's a gossip level article about how John Lasseter is shaking things up at Disney Feature Animation and Imagineering:

John Lasseter's Initial Impact on Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney Imagineering

It's of course uncertain how accurate this article is, but I hope most of it is true. Disney needs this after the mess Eisner's made in the last few years. I particularly hope the part about how he immediately shut down Disney's solo production of "Toy Story 3" is true. Given Disney's dismal track record with sequels, it probably would have sucked. With Pixar now involved with the project, it could be as good as the first two movies.

Wow! I never knew about this althoug I suppose here in England we only get boring news. It would be great if they did a feature length dragon film a bit like Dragonheart. I cried in that film though Draco died. I need a hug *starts weeping* :(

DRACO! *cries and hugs*

Butbutbut! Remember! he didn't DIE, he went up and became a star and there are 12 other dragon stars up there. So they could come back someday! At least that's what I told myself so I wouldn't cry.

I wonder how how Dragon Heart would interact with Dragon Booster. *brain hurts a bit, dragons crossed.*

Yeah, theoretically Draco could come back in spirit form a la Obi Wan Kenobi. Did you two see the Dragonheart direct video sequel? If you haven't, Draco wasn't necessarily the last dragon after all.

Well, it's big news here because this is where Pixar is located. I doubt it made the news in places like Muck City, Alabama. :) (Yes, there really is such a place.)

I did! It takes forever and a day for dragon eggs to hatch. And Obi wan Draco, hehehe.

I liked the comments that were made that Drake should be the human (and what's his name human) should be the dragon since he knows more about flying.

Remeber the time Drake 'turned to stone' and he was quietly freaking out?

Oh, and because I suck I started doing a mild crossover in the fanfic section, shoot me

Wow they bought it amazing