[Ben] Hey, brother!
J, a lot of people have confusion, and rightly so, when it comes to the difference between a Disney animated feature film
and a Disney/Pixar feature animated film.
I think—no,
I'm sure that the most common question that we got after releasing the Pixar Theory is,
"Where does Frozen fit in?"
And like any question you get over, and over, and over again,
it slowly drove me crazy, but really, it's a fair question.
Well, J, today we discuss the weird relationship between Disney and Pixar and how one
almost destroyed the other.
(Intro music)
[J and Ben] Hey, brother!
[Ben] Nowadays, Disney and Pixar coexist pretty nicely.
Well, considering Disney owns Pixar, that kind of makes sense, but that wasn't always the case.
To tell the story, we have to go way back in the early days of Pixar.
Like, pre-Toy Story days of Pixar, like before they were even a film company.
Now, that was always their goal - to eventually produce the first fully digitally animated feature film.
But while they were waiting for the technology to catch up with their ideas, they sold computers.
More specifically, a computer, known as the Pixar image computer.
And, as you might expect, they were high-end graphics computers
and they were mostly sold to hospitals and meteorologists or geophysicists,
really anybody who just needed super detailed imagery.
But they did not sell well, like, at all. Like, less than 300 sold — in total — ever.
But, they were used pretty effectively by Walt Disney Feature Animation,
who used dozens of these machines all the way up through "Pocahontas."
Now, it's pretty easy to imagine, but Pixar needed a way to demonstrate the abilities of these computers in order to sell them, so...
...enter John Lasseter.
Which in case you are unaware, John Lasseter basically is Pixar.
He directed "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2,"
and is now the executive producer on every film that comes out of the studio
and every film that comes out of Disney Animation Studios.
But before all of that, it was his job to show off the capabilities of the Pixar computer.
So, he created things like "Luxo Jr," "Knick Knack," and "Tin Toy."
Impressive as those shorts were, and they were,
they didn't really help sell computers, and eventually, Pixar had to let go of their entire hardware division,
which was about 60% of all the Pixar employees, which sounds bad...?
But they did help sell the idea of a feature-length digitally animated film to Disney
to the tune of a historic $26 million contract.
This agreement between Disney and Pixar was for seven original films and gave Disney the rights to all of Pixar's
feature films, their characters, and sequel rights.
And 'original films' is kind of the key word there, because
most of the way into the production of "Toy Story 2," they realized that it fit better as a feature film and went on to produce it for release in theaters.
Disney's then CEO, Michael Eisner, didn't think that this should count towards the 7 original films Pixar had slotted towards Disney because it was a sequel.
Steve Jobs, on the other hand, who at the time owned Pixar...
...disagreed.
Normally, he's such an agreeable guy!
This disagreement sparked enormous tension between Disney and Pixar, who
decided they were not going to renew the relationship with Disney following the "Cars" release in 2006.
But, again, according to the original agreement, Disney would have had the rights to all of the
films, characters, and sequel rights to those first seven films, which would mean Pixar would lose...
When you consider how much effort and love goes into the creation of these characters,
you can imagine just how heartbreaking it would be to lose them.
This is the actual quote from John Lasseter on the topic;
"It's like you have these dear children and you have to give them up to be adopted by convicted child molesters."
Disney!
Meanwhile, Disney was preparing for the feast of sequels they were going to now be able to create with their magnificent new lineup of characters.
And were doing so in the form of a brand new animation studio called Circle 7 Animation,
or better known within the industry...
...Pixaren't.
And while many viewed this studio as a bargaining chip, they got pretty far along in the process.
They even hired 168 employees and started working on concepts and scripts for sequels including
"Toy Story 3," "Monsters Inc. 2 - Lost in Scaradise," and "Finding Nemo 2."
Ugh, can you—can you even imagine like, "Lost in Scaradise?" That's just such a...
...straight to DVD pun. *groans* It's horrifying.
Just, I—c—can you even imagine those characters no longer belonging to Pixar, and their sequels being destined to like,
bargain bin cash grabs?
To be fair, if you worked for Circle 7, I'm sure you are extremely talented. I'm just a little defensive of Pixar.
Squad goals!
There would be no "Finding Dory" or "Monsters U" and I'm pretty sure "Toy Story 3" would have looked a lot different.
I'm pretty sure Buzz was supposed to die.
But in a rare turn of events, the shareholders are the like, shocking hero of this story, who
promptly pulled their support for Michael Eisner upon hearing that they were going to separate from the
Pixar film powerhouse.
Thankfully, Disney's new CEO, Bob Iger, reopened negotiations with Pixar and instead of divorcing them,
purchased them for $7.4 billion.
I think I personally would've gone for like a clean 7.5, but that's just me.
And this, as you may have guessed, spelled the end for Circle 7, who never ended up producing anything at all,
but the silver lining of the story is that 80% of their employees went on to be hired by Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Also, in case you were wondering, Pixar actively decided to not look at any of the scripts, ideas, concept drawings
for any of the production works under Circle 7 so that all of everything we've ever seen Pixar is purely Pixar.
But J, my question for you and everyone else is, what is your favorite of those first 7 Pixar films?
Be sure to leave your thoughts in the Towel Section down below.
But guys, as always, thanks for watching. Be sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
If you'd like more Pixar history type stuff from us,
you can click right here to find out how Pixar almost deleted itself,
or right here to find out the true backstory of Andy's dad and Woody's origins.
But J, that is all I've got for you today, man. I will see you on Tuesday.