Steve Jobs expected to remain on Disney Board

[milojthatch]

In case anyone was wondering...


http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11 ... board.html

[blackcauldron85]

I've been trying to not read all of the leaks from Bob Iger's book, since it's waiting for me at my parents' house, but this was too "wow" to not read:

Steve Jobs Wanted Bob Iger To Shut Down Disney Animation After Pixar Acquisition
https://www.slashfilm.com/walt-disney-a ... shut-down/

Back in the day, we were worried about John Lasseter not caring about Disney, but it was Steve Jobs we needed to worry about!

[Farerb]

I've been trying to not read all of the leaks from Bob Iger's book, since it's waiting for me at my parents' house, but this was too "wow" to not read:

Steve Jobs Wanted Bob Iger To Shut Down Disney Animation After Pixar Acquisition
https://www.slashfilm.com/walt-disney-a ... shut-down/

Back in the day, we were worried about John Lasseter not caring about Disney, but it was Steve Jobs we needed to worry about!

He would never have gotten away with it. Unlike when Eisner wanted to shut down Disney Animation in 1984 when a long time has passed since Disney Animation produced a really successful film, this time the Renaissance was still fresh in people's mind, people still remember Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, etc... This move would have gotten them only backlash. Not that it matters cause they turned WDFA into Pixar 2.0 anyway.

[Sotiris]

This move would have gotten them only backlash.

True. There was a huge backlash when they announced they wouldn't make any more fairy tale films after Tangled. I can't imagine the amount of outrage there would be if they tried to shut the studio down.

Not that it matters cause they turned WDFA into Pixar 2.0 anyway.

That's what I was thinking too. I'm glad WDAS didn't get shut down but in a way it did die.

Step 1. Abandon hand-drawn animation and go full CG.
Step 2. Import storytelling formula, tropes, stock characters from Pixar.
Step 3. The transformation is complete!

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Bob Iger says in his new book, “I didn’t yet have a complete sense of just how broken Disney Animation was.” That’s largely thanks to a series of “expensive failures” like the 2D animated Hercules and the computer animated Chicken Little.

Weird choice of examples. Why not mention Home on the Range or Treasure Planet instead?
Hercules had a $85 million budget and made $252,7 million in box office. Chicken Little had a $150 million budget and made $314,4 million in box office. That's not including merchandise and video sales and rentals, which was a much bigger business back then that it is today.
The CGI movie from Disney that have done worse at the box office, happened in the middle of the Disney and Pixar merger. Meet the Robinsons had an estimated budget on $150 million, and only made $169.3 million.

The fact that Jobs wanted to close the Disney studios tell me that animation was not amongst his major interests in life. Animation is not just animation.
Catmull and Lasseter had the right intentions when they wanted to prevent the studio from being shut down. The problem is that having the same persons run both studios had the effect of them slowly merging into each other, but with some differences. When Pixar made the first Toy Story, they had a list of all the things from Disney they did not want to use, to make it stand out. But over time Pixar have ended up with their own and not unpredictable formula.
Especially now when the two studios are finally run by two different presidents and CCOs, in addition to the third studio Blue Sky, we will have features that feels like they are coming from different studios. With only Pixar, the animated movies from Disney would logically all feel like Pixar films. Which would make the world of animation poorer, not matter how unconventional ideas their features are based on.

[estefan]

I remember someone proposing on here not too long ago that Walt Disney Animation should be shut down, just because of Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen 2 (which didn't make sense to me, but okay). Shutting down or selling a company are the least imaginative ways to reverse its fortunes. Sometimes, all it takes is a change in leadership. Even Apple wasn't doing so hot in the '90s and it took bringing Steve Jobs back to turn it into the massive tech company it is today.

I think Walt Disney Animation has been on an incredible winning streak since, at least, Bolt. I have been impressed with all of the movies they have made since then (with Princess and the Frog, Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled being my favourites), so I'm glad Bob Iger didn't agree with the suggestion to close the studio down. Has there been a bit of a new formula established? Sure. It didn't take me long to realise the use of story tropes like the road trip, the two characters who don't initially get along but eventually become friends/partners and the surprise villain. However, what matters more to me is the execution and the directors and artists at WDAS have done a beautiful job of telling these stories. Raya and the Last Dragon is one of my most anticipated animated films of 2020 (next to Mitchells vs. the Machines and Vivo) and looks to continue WDAS's tradition of funny and heartwarming stories with incredible animation and likeable characters.

[Disney's Divinity]

Not that it matters cause they turned WDFA into Pixar 2.0 anyway.

That's what I was thinking too. I'm glad WDAS didn't get shut down but in a way it did die.

Yes, "Disney" is, in essence, dead and has been for a long time now. They just kept the name and turned it into something else entirely. These days you have to settle for crumbs, like "Let It Go" or Moana's intro, for example.

[D82]

He would never have gotten away with it. Unlike when Eisner wanted to shut down Disney Animation in 1984 when a long time has passed since Disney Animation produced a really successful film, this time the Renaissance was still fresh in people's mind, people still remember Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, etc... This move would have gotten them only backlash.

I agree, even if nobody had opposed to his idea, the backlash would've forced them to reconsider their decision.

I'm glad WDAS didn't get shut down but in a way it did die.

Step 1. Abandon hand-drawn animation and go full CG.
Step 2. Import storytelling formula, tropes, stock characters from Pixar.
Step 3. The transformation is complete!

To be fair, they had already abandoned hand-drawn animation before Lasseter came to the studio.

Bob Iger says in his new book, “I didn’t yet have a complete sense of just how broken Disney Animation was.” That’s largely thanks to a series of “expensive failures” like the 2D animated Hercules and the computer animated Chicken Little.

Weird choice of examples. Why not mention Home on the Range or Treasure Planet instead?

I also found it strange that he mentioned those movies as examples. Maybe they were more expensive than it was reported?

I think Walt Disney Animation has been on an incredible winning streak since, at least, Bolt. I have been impressed with all of the movies they have made since then (with Princess and the Frog, Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled being my favourites), so I'm glad Bob Iger didn't agree with the suggestion to close the studio down. Has there been a bit of a new formula established? Sure. It didn't take me long to realise the use of story tropes like the road trip, the two characters who don't initially get along but eventually become friends/partners and the surprise villain. However, what matters more to me is the execution and the directors and artists at WDAS have done a beautiful job of telling these stories.

I quite agree with you. To me it has been like a new Renaissance. At least the excitement for every new release. Not all have turned out as good as I expected, and I've started to get a bit tired of some of these tropes lately, but generally the films have maintained a good level of quality. And, in my opinion, though I don't deny the Pixar influence, I think they've managed to differentiate the styles of each studio enough and to keep the Disney magic alive.

[JeanGreyForever]

Weird choice of examples. Why not mention Home on the Range or Treasure Planet instead?

I also found it strange that he mentioned those movies as examples. Maybe they were more expensive than it was reported?

Wasn't Treasure Planet the biggest movie flop in history at the time of release until John Carter? Hercules might have been listed because it was the last time Disney went all-out for a movie marketing campaign until Frozen (and even that was after the film became a blockbuster hit). So it was a failure, not just in box office terms, but also when including marketing and merchandise.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I assume you mean most expensive Disney flop in history? The problem is that Disney and others are often unwilling to share information about the total costs and income beyond production and theatrical box office. Pixar's Cars is one of the exceptions, where Lasseter admitted that the franchise made most of its money from merchandise, which made the movies very profitable despite not always having impressive box office numbers.
The Princess and the Frog has also been called a flop, but Musker and Clements denies that, and calls it a modest success.

As for why Jobs wanted to make Pixar the only animation studio at Disney, maybe it was for self-centered reasons, for the lack of a better word. He had tried to sell Pixar for years, but shortly before Toy Story's premiere, he changed his mind. And when it turned out to be a huge hit, he paid a lot more attention to the company that had become an animation studio. He was the one who explained to the architects how he wanted the new buildings and campus at Emeryville to look like. Ever since its success, he had personally invested a lot in it, and not just financially. He probably liked the idea of having a successful animation studio on his CV, one that was even part of Disney and the first CGI studio in the world, which he expected would redefine the animation business. So perhaps as a board member he felt that Disney's traditional animation studio was just a thing of the past and in the way for his hopes that Pixar should leading the way in a new animation renaissance, a studio that had become a part of him and his part.
Just speculations, but if he had joined the Disney board under other circumstances and had never invested in Pixar in the first place, but it still ended up making Toy Story and the other films and being bought by Disney, would he still have wanted the original studio to shut down? Maybe, but if I should guess, also less likely.

[Farerb]

From what I know, not all the grossed money make its way to Disney. They take a half of North America gross and a quarter from the rest of the world. That should be taken into account cause Disney might have made more money from a film who had better North American numbers than one who outdid it outside North America.