Pete Docter to Take Over Pixar

[Patricier21]

All of Pixar stories have always truly being “personal” as they’ve always stated that “they always come from the heart”. How is this any different here?

[Kyle]

A movie we know is personal is Turning Red. They didnt just set out to make a movie about everyones journey to being a daughter growing into a woman or whatever, it was about the director's personal journey of being asian growing up in canada in the 90s/2000s.

Something like nemo, Up, the incredibles, toy story, may be inspired initially by some vague idea someone had, but they always get filtered through the rest of the brain trust so by the end its very much a collaboration of the best story tellers at the studio.

[Disney's Divinity]

I didn't think Turning Red was about Mei being Asian in Canada? There was little comment on the characters' race in that film. The school drama felt no different than anything else in a school with the typical dramas, no focus on her being Asian making her different or whatever? The film does go into the family's religion and history, but as setup for the "curse" of her becoming a panda (the conceit of the whole movie). It was a general coming of age story to me.

[Patricier21]

I didn't think Turning Red was about Mei being Asian in Canada? There was little comment on the characters' race in that film. The school drama felt no different than anything else in a school with the typical dramas, no focus on her being Asian making her different or whatever? The film does go into the family's religion and history, but as setup for the "curse" of her becoming a panda (the conceit of the whole movie). It was a general coming of age story to me.

Just to let you know, what’s your overall saying is how I feel about how they portrayed Elemental They didn’t over and force anything to do with the race, even though that is part of the movie but that’s no more than what you’re saying they did with turning red here. I think you’ll find it definitely feels more like you’ve been liking about Pixar lately than they’re earlier movies overall

[UmbrellaFish]

I think what’s really happening is Pixar is becoming more auteur driven as opposed to producer/executive driven.

[PatrickvD]

I think what’s really happening is Pixar is becoming more auteur driven as opposed to producer/executive driven.

Something they used to claim they were back in Lasseter’s days.

Not a bad thing. Pixar needs some quirky, risky films to salvage its reputation.

[Avaitor]

Personally, I strongly prefer Pixar's more "personal" works like Luca and Turning Red to their recent returns to the Lasseter formula like Onward and Soul.

[PatchofBlue]

Yeah, feeling "personal" is a common current in a lot of powerful films, whether or not the director's personal life is leveraged during the film's marketing. Good stories appeal to universal truths that transcend an individual's unique life events--making a person's individual experiences feel accessible. I believe this is true whether the filmmaker is using their own history as inspiration or whether they are drawing upon a shared bank of human knowledge, and I think something similar happens with the audience. Even if the audience hasn't lived the exact experiences of a film, good storytelling, like the kind that runs through Pixar films old and new, can make them engaging. I was very much a kid Pixar's golden age, but I still related in my own way to the parent-centric struggles of characters like Marlin and Sully.

So these reporters rolling their eyes about how Pixar's box office woes can all be attributed to this very general tenant of filmmaking just because it's been a common feature in how their recent films have been promoted (particularly when there are more prominent market factors to consider, like the way that most non-franchise animated films are struggling at the box office, or the way that Disney+ is uniquely crippling Disney's animated offerings) just feels like a bunch of writers trying to sound smarter than they actually are.

[Sotiris]

Trailers and TV spots focused more on "unlikely friends" going on an adventure, the Pixar source added, which didn't resonate. It was obvious that marketing the movie was a "challenge" for the studio, said the same source, because "kids don't care about love stories." Several industry sources and some within Pixar believe the slump at the company goes beyond the bad marketing of "Elemental."

They said Pixar's troubles are because of the loss of its longtime leader John Lasseter, who had a reputation for never settling and demanding excellence. The director of the first two "Toy Story" and "Cars" movies, as well as the CCO of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Lasseter never shied away from tough love if something on a project wasn't good enough, sources said. Pixar sources said the studio's current CCO, "Soul" director Pete Docter, lacks that intense drive for a higher quality of work that Lasseter possessed. "That didn't help 'Lightyear,'" said a Pixar source regarding Docter's kinder and gentler leadership, which they said resulted in the lackluster box office. "I don't think John would have ever let 'Lightyear' happen."

Source: https://www.insider.com/pixar-elemental ... ces-2023-6

[PatchofBlue]

Docter may have let "Lightyear" happen, but Lasseter let "The Good Dinosaur" happen, so ... it kinda evens out for me.

And Lasseter had a *cough* reputation for a lot of other things as well. If these mysterious "insiders" had their scruples in place, they'd show a little more class than jumping to his defense.

[Disney's Divinity]

He also approved garbage like Cars.

And anyway, they already went back to Lasseter's formula--to the extreme--with Elemental and it just flopped. The irony of Disney claiming they stand for anything at all while wanting to bring a sexual predator back into the fold. The headlines write themselves, I can imagine all the little cartoons to go along with them of Lasseter with his hand on Elsa's or Mirabel's knee.

[Farerb]

‘Significant’ Layoffs To Hit Pixar In 2024 – Report
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-righ ... 36683.html

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

‘Significant’ Layoffs To Hit Pixar In 2024 – Report
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-righ ... 36683.html

From what I understand, they're more on the side of Disney+ business than on the movie side, and this won't happen until all current productions (Win Or Lose, which is already finished, Inside Out 2, and Elio) are done.

[Farerb]

Major Pixar Layoffs, Long-Expected, Now Underway In Restructuring
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235904847/

[Sotiris]

It is the biggest restructuring in Pixar’s history, although top leadership isn’t impacted.

Maybe it should have been.

[UmbrellaFish]

Major Pixar Layoffs, Long-Expected, Now Underway In Restructuring
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235904847/

I feel bad for all the laid off employees.

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

I understand why people may be saddened by this.

However, since the layoffs are related to Disney+ and no longer doing anymore series for Disney+, with the exception of the already-finished Win or Lose due out later in the year, maybe this, down the line, will be a good thing in order to make Pixar more strong and viable for the big screen again, in my opinion.

I know many of you won’t see it my way, but that’s how I feel and believe this will go.

[Kyle]

It was more than just the disney plus crew though, one of those that got targeted was light lead Phil Shoebottom, this dude seemed to know light better than most, its a shame he had to go. I loved how he lit those toy story posters in particular. And I think he had a big influence on the lighting in Toy Story 4, plus he had 14 other movies to his credit, 5 shorts.

https://www.instagram.com/philshoe/

[D23ExpoVisitor25]

It was more than just the disney plus crew though, one of those that got targeted was light lead Phil Shoebottom, this dude seemed to know light better than most, its a shame he had to go. I loved how he lit those toy story posters in particular. And I think he had a big influence on the lighting in Toy Story 4, plus he had 14 other movies to his credit, 5 shorts.

https://www.instagram.com/philshoe/

Eh… I don’t think it was THAT MUCH more than Disney+ to be frank.

[Sotiris]

After Lightyear lost millions of dollars in 2022 and Elemental had Pixar’s worst-ever opening-weekend performance the following year, “there was a real and intense period of self-scrutiny and feeling like we messed up in some way,” Docter says. Executives hosted postmortems to determine how to revitalize the studio, he recalls. They arrived at mentoring Pixar’s upcoming directors to focus less on autobiographical tales—Luca had been inspired by its director’s childhood in Italy; Turning Red, by its director’s relationship with her mother; and Elemental (which did gain some momentum overseas and online), by its director’s immigrant family. Pixar would instead develop concepts with clear mass appeal, many of which—in the case of sequels and spinoffs—had already been proven. The studio’s movies should be less a pursuit of any director’s catharsis and instead speak to a commonality of experience, Docter says. “I don’t think we can ever let ourselves off the hook of making sure that we deliver the best possible and most relatable films.”

When Pixar determined it needed to return to its roots in 2022, it appointed Lindsey Collins to be senior vice president for development. Part of her job was to help Morris and Docter establish which Pixar stories were worth revisiting. Collins, who’s been at the company since 1997 and produced award-winning titles such as Wall-E, is advising on development for movies to be released in 2027 and beyond. That means her projects are, for now, commercially sensitive secrets, though she sometimes runs hypotheticals by her teenage children.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... ovie-magic