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> Do people think companies really behave this way? An interesting anecdote from the Steve Jobs biography: Finding Nemo had just been released to critical acc

> Do people think companies really behave this way? An interesting anecdote from the Steve Jobs biography: Finding Nemo had just been released to critical acclaim and Pixar were in renegotiation talks about their deal with Disney. (Disney's) Michael Eisner had one powerful trump card. Even if Pixar didn't renew, Disney had the right to make sequels of Toy Story and the other movies Pixar had made, and it owned all the characters from Woody to Nemo. Eisner was already planning -- or threatening -- to have Disney's own animation studio do a Toy Story 3, which Pixar had declined to do. The threat had teeth not because Pixar would lose control of some of their characters, but because Disney's animation studio had been releasing flop after flop. After ten years of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, there were ten years of rubbish. As a company, Disney had been creatively brain-dead for a decade. (Pixar's) John Lasseter was aghast at the prospect of breaking up with Disney. "I was worried about my children, what they would do with the characters we'd created," he recalled. "It's like you have these dear children and you have to give them up to be adopted by convicted child molesters." Effectively, Disney's negotiation tactic was "re-sign with us, or else we'll spin up a shitty division to make shitty sequels of your movies!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_7_Animation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_7_Animation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_3#Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_3#Production

nl 15y ago
Effectively, Disney's negotiation tactic was "re-sign with us, or else we'll spin up a shitty division to make shitty sequels of your movies!" That's from Pixar's perspective. From Disney, it was more like this: "re-sign with us or we will utilise out right to produce sequels, for which you won't be paid" ie, It wasn't a threat to do a bad job - as the parent comment says, companies (almost never) deliberately do bad work.
- sjwright 15y ago
  Deciding to do work within a limited budget is tantamount to deliberately doing bad work in many instances. For example, look at Disney's history with direct-to-video sequels -- they exist purely to make money, and contain little of the magic or refinement of their fully budgeted forebears. Eisner might not have been thinking 'shitty', but I bet he was thinking similar things when approving The Return of Jafar. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107952/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107952/)
- sjwright 15y ago
  Furthermore look at the promotional poster for Toy Story 3. It's quite clearly a slap-dash effort made by a third rate hack. I mean, who recalls a product and leaves it on the store shelf, with a strategically placed sticker that could well be saying "NEW!"? That poster could only have been made to intimidate Pixar.

nl 15y ago

Effectively, Disney's negotiation tactic was "re-sign with us, or else we'll spin up a shitty division to make shitty sequels of your movies!" That's from Pixar's perspective. From Disney, it was more like this: "re-sign with us or we will utilise out right to produce sequels, for which you won't be paid" ie, It wasn't a threat to do a bad job - as the parent comment says, companies (almost never) deliberately do bad work.

sjwright 15y ago
Deciding to do work within a limited budget is tantamount to deliberately doing bad work in many instances. For example, look at Disney's history with direct-to-video sequels -- they exist purely to make money, and contain little of the magic or refinement of their fully budgeted forebears. Eisner might not have been thinking 'shitty', but I bet he was thinking similar things when approving The Return of Jafar. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107952/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107952/)
sjwright 15y ago
Furthermore look at the promotional poster for Toy Story 3. It's quite clearly a slap-dash effort made by a third rate hack. I mean, who recalls a product and leaves it on the store shelf, with a strategically placed sticker that could well be saying "NEW!"? That poster could only have been made to intimidate Pixar.