Pixar Animation Studios – Part Two
We finished the last article explaining how Pixar was on the lookout for new markets following the relatively poor sales of it’s computers. John Lasseter, in charge of the new animation department, began to produce work for several outside projects, including Terminator 2, Tropicana and Listerine and gradually Pixar began to make a name for itself as a producer of high quality animation.
Pixar was still travelling a rocky financial road though, and in 1990 the hardware division was sold off to Vicom Systems, splitting the medical imaging side from the animation side. The animation branch, still under the control and ownership of Steve Jobs, did retain their relationship with Walt Disney and it was this partnership which saved it in the end. Still losing money despite contract work, it wasn’t until Disney undertook to distribute Pixar’s Toy Story at Christmas 1995 that Jobs decided to stick with Pixar rather than sell it. The enormous box-office success of Toy Story ensured that Pixar had turned the corner.
The relationship with Disney has not always been a happy one and Pixar appears to have felt that the relationship was a little one-sided. Throughout the production of Toy Story 2, and The Incredibles, among others, the two companies continually tried to come to contractual agreements suitable to both parties but repeatedly failed, although they seem to have managed to release films on a movie by movie basis.
Ultimately, in 2006, Disney bought Pixar for an incredible $7.4 billion in an all-stock deal. This meant that Jobs, a 50.1% shareholder in Pixar, suddenly became Disney’s largest individual shareholder. The terms of the takeover ensured that Pixar retained its name and staff and became a separate entity within the Disney corporation.
Pixar’s future is therefore assured and the quality of it’s animation ensures it is something of a money-making machine. Awards have been numerous, including 26 Oscars, 7 Golden Globes and 3 Grammies. All of Pixar’s films are among the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time and Toy Story 3 alone has raked in more than $1 billion worldwide.
