it's "very unlikely" Pixar and Disney will resume talks

[BRERALEX]

CEO Jobs says Pixar in demand, jabs Disney over breakup
Thu Feb 5, 7:53 AM ET

By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY

Steve Jobs (news - web sites), chairman and chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios, said Wednesday that at least four studios are seeking to replace Walt Disney as Pixar's distribution partner. Jobs last week broke off talks to extend their current deal, which runs to 2006.


Jobs said the maker of animated films such as 2003 box office champ Finding Nemo is in demand because, in his view, it has supplanted Disney as the No. 1 name in animation. And he said it's "very unlikely" Pixar and Disney will resume talks.


Pixar will begin talks with suitors in March and hopes to have a deal in place by fall. He would not name the interested studios.


Pixar is Hollywood's most-wanted free agent, said Paul Kim, media analyst at Tradition Asiel Securities. "Every major studio is dying for this business."


During the call with analysts, Jobs went out of his way to tweak Disney and its chairman and chief executive officer, Michael Eisner:


• Jobs described Disney's last few animated efforts as "bombs." He downplayed Disney's vaunted marketing expertise, saying no amount of skillful marketing can "turn a dud into a hit."


• With Disney controlling the rights to make sequels for the five films they made together and two still to come, Jobs said he's "sick" about the prospect. The quality of Disney sequels, such as for its blockbuster The Lion King is "pretty embarrassing," Jobs said.


• Jobs said Pixar is now the "most powerful and trusted brand in animation." For evidence, he said to compare Pixar's last three films with recent Disney films.


• As one reason for the breakup, Jobs quoted a press article in which Eisner allegedly predicted Nemo would flop and that the failure would give him leverage over Jobs in renegotiating their deal.


• Jobs seemed to side with former Disney board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, saying that he and Pixar creative chief John Lasseter, a former Disney animator, admire the "original" spirit of Disney rather than its current spirit. Gold said Wednesday: "The creativity that Steve Jobs and John Lasseter have produced at Pixar is clearly what is missing and needed at Disney."


In a statement, Zenia Mucha, Disney senior vice president, took exception to Jobs' remarks. "It is unfortunate that Steve Jobs has grossly mischaracterized good faith negotiations to reach agreement on an extension of the present, successful partnership that has been beneficial to shareholders of both Pixar and Disney. It's also sad and unfortunate that he has resorted to insults and name-calling in the wake of the disagreement. We expected better of him."


Jobs made his remarks in a conference call following Pixar's earnings release after the market close. Fueled by DVD sales of Nemo, net income in the fourth quarter rose to $83.9 million, or $1.44 per share, from $17 million, or 31 cents, in the period a year ago.


After dropping 66 cents to close at $63.54, Pixar shares rose $1.20 to $64.74 in after-hours trading.

 

[BRERALEX]

and has anyone noticed how much better savedisney.com looks

 

[WDWHound]

This pretty much says it all:

"Jobs said the maker of animated films such as 2003 box office champ Finding Nemo is in demand because, in his view, it has supplanted Disney as the No. 1 name in animation. "

I have to agree with this accessment. Disney stopped leading and decided to have someone else do their animation for them for them. Now they are paying the price. Pixar is in demand and Disney continues laying off aninmators and farming out work.

 

[KNWVIKING]

***"LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) - Shares of Pixar plummeted in morning trading Thursday, a day after Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Jobs issued harsh words toward departing partner Walt Disney Co."***

Maybe the money changers think Pixar needs Disney also.

 

[YoHo]

More likly thye would just prefer less harsh words from Pixar.
Or, they suspect that this is all a play for Disney. Which it probably is.

 

[KNWVIKING]

What strikes me odd about this whole scenerio is that Roy & Stan are making some very strong, somewhat unprofessional comments towards ME and now Jobs is turning up hi rhetoric, but I have yet to hear anything from ME or Disney that isn't profesional as well a complimentory towards Pixar & Jobs.

 

[Nink]

And Pixar was who before Disney got a hold of them??

 

[YoHo]

Vike, My assumption is that it doesn't benefit Jobs, Roy and Stan to play nice whereas it DOES benfit Eisner to play nice.

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by KNWVIKING
What strikes me odd about this whole scenerio is that Roy & Stan are making some very strong, somewhat unprofessional comments towards ME and now Jobs is turning up hi rhetoric, but I have yet to hear anything from ME or Disney that isn't profesional as well a complimentory towards Pixar & Jobs.

Even the Disney spokesperson's comment about Jobs wasn't really harsh: "It's also sad and unfortunate that [Jobs] has resorted to insults and name-calling in the wake of the disagreement," Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha said. "We expected better of him."

I kind of thought the "Emperor Eisner" comments by Roy with the SEC filing were a bit much. It's almost like he and Jobs are going overboard to bait ME -- trying to get him to make one of his infamous "I hate the little midget" comments so that they can make the battle of words public. But so far, all the attacks have come from Roy's side. Michael's been quite silent.

The shareholder's meeting should be interesting....

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by YoHo
Vike, My assumption is that it doesn't benefit Jobs, Roy and Stan to play nice whereas it DOES benfit Eisner to play nice.

But it doesn't benefit Jobs, Roy and Stan to come off so negative either. That's only going to play for so long before people wonder why they're the only ones shouting.

 

[KNWVIKING]

.... WDSearcher beat me to the reply but I'll add that when I hear politicians, athletes, ceo's or just about anyone else resort to name calling, I lose repect for them and their cause.

 

[YoHo]

Well, noboyd said Jobs was perfect. He's been known to name call in the past.

My point was, it is in Stan And Roy's best interest to paint asunflattering a picture as possible and it is in Eisner's best interest to just keep his mouth shut.

 

[Another Voice]

"but I have yet to hear anything from ME or Disney that isn't profesional as well a complimentory towards Pixar & Jobs."

It's because Eisner learned 250,000,000 lessons that shoving a knife in the back is better than shouting at someone in the face.

Some might say that "name-calling" is unprofessional, others would consider having company exectutives spread rumors about Pixar films and requiring others to inform on Roy's doing goes well beyond "unprofessional".

And we won't even get into the people they hire to "direct" Internet discussion boards...

 

[DVC-Landbaron]

And we won't even get into the people they hire to "direct" Internet discussion boards...

Anyone in particular, Lord Voice? I mean, can you give us a... ah... what's the right word... Ah! I know... Can you give us the scoop!?!?

 

[mickey1010]

And we won't even get into the people they hire to "direct" Internet discussion boards...

Can you give us the scoop!?!?

Really??!!??

Baron- Is what you are alluding to a "friendly" jab or a valid statement?

 

[daannzzz]

Originally posted by Another Voice
And we won't even get into the people they hire to "direct" Internet discussion boards... [/B]

Must be Marcie at Mouseinfo.com. Well maybe not. i guess there are people out there that are really like that.

 

[DVC-Landbaron]

Friendly jab....

But it kinda makes ya wonder, don't it?

 

[airlarry!]

To consider that Roy & Stanley are 'unprofessional' and Eisner is not in this case, one would have to discount Roy's version of recent events.

Please raise your hand if you know enough about this subject to definitively call Mr. Disney a liar.




Okay, that's out of the way. Roy may not be the guardian angel we would like him to be, but the point of the matter is that he is taking on a CEO that even professional money magazines have called one of the worst in decades, calling him everything from a dictator to commenting upon his salary and practices with the board.

So Michael is silent right here? And Roy is calling him names? Read what Roy has to say about how he got to this position, how he was prohibited from speaking to Pixar directly (and he's the titular head of Animation no less), how the board endeavored to rewrite the rules to 'retire' him.

How is that any different from what Roy is doing? If any one of us on this board were treated in that manner, would you not call a spade a spade?

Cou$in Mikey can't fight back in public. And that's worse. I'm not the first to say it, but I'll answer Vike's charge of not believing athletes who shout names at people.

What I hate worse is when someone is charged with wrongdoing and they hide behind a p.r. machine making statements instead of answering the questions. That's a cop out. Get on the microphone, Mikey, and tell us that you did not try and boot Roy from the board, or cut out his involvement with Pixar.

For crying out loud, Roy's only the single largest stockholder, a member of the board, a chairman of animation, and son of one of the namesakes. Maybe that entitles him to shout a little, eh?

Anyway, just my happy thoughts on a beautiful Friday.

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by airlarry! So Michael is silent right here? And Roy is calling him names? Read what Roy has to say about how he got to this position, how he was prohibited from speaking to Pixar directly (and he's the titular head of Animation no less), how the board endeavored to rewrite the rules to 'retire' him.

How was Roy prohibited from speaking to Pixar directly? He was told not to. He chose -- albiet reluctantly and with great prejudice -- to go with the guidelines from his CEO. But no one hogtied him or chained him to a wall. Nobody gagged him or rendered him unconcious. The man has free will. If he's now mad that he decided to listen to Michael and not talk to Pixar against ME's wishes, okay, I get that. But no one forced him to not speak. I mean, really .... what was going to happen? He'd get fired? It's not like he's working there now anyway. What did he have to lose?

As for the board endeavoring to rewrite the rules to retire him ... he's part of that board. He knew this was happening -- he saw it happening at meetings. It wasn't a surprise. Did Roy and Stan lobby the others on the board to not change those rules or amend that policy? Presumably they did, but they haven't talked about that at all. And they certainly didn't go to a grass-roots campaign with stockholders to keep the board in check back then, when it could have helped them more.

Roy has been wronged ... I get that. But the guy is a grown-up. If he chose to not step forward before, then he did so of his own volition. It's not like these troubles with Michael just came up in the last round of board meetings. Or that Roy just turned around one day and found out that his best friend Michael had been secretly plotting against him.

How is that any different from what Roy is doing? If any one of us on this board were treated in that manner, would you not call a spade a spade?

Probably. But I doubt that most of us would endure years of this, as Roy has said he's done, before speaking up. It's not like he could see ME's retirement on the horizon or that he expected a change in management, so let's wait around until that happens. If you read his words now, he knew years ago that ME needed to leave and that the board was ME's puppet. So ... why not speak up earlier?

Animation at Disney has been headed to the background for a while now, and the animation folks in Florida knew back in October that their building would be closing. Roy is the "titular head of Animation" ... where were his comments defending hand-drawn animation or the films like Atlantis and Treasure Planet that he was in charge of? Where were his comments about how sad it would be to close Animation back in October when it first hit the press? He didn't go on the record about FL Animation closing until the day it closed. What was he trying to do to keep it up and operational?

Cou$in Mikey can't fight back in public.

Sure he can. He's done it before. But presumably he's learned something from things like the "little midget" comments. Which is the difference here -- Michael's been in this position before, so he knows more about tactics than Roy. What Roy needs is a couple of advisors telling him to stop with the name-calling and to fight with the facts. It's not like Roy doesn't have facts, y'know?

Get on the microphone, Mikey, and tell us that you did not try and boot Roy from the board, or cut out his involvement with Pixar.

Why? No matter what he said no one would listen to him anyway. Those who already hate Eisner certainly aren't going to be swayed by him explaining his actions. And those who support ME are going to support him whether he talks or not. So ... why turn it into a public war of words when it's not going to lead to anything?

For crying out loud, Roy's only the single largest stockholder, a member of the board, a chairman of animation, and son of one of the namesakes. Maybe that entitles him to shout a little, eh?

Yes, he can shout. Of course he can shout. But if all he's shouting is insults, people will stop listening. Now, if he were to shout out what his strategy would be, should ME walk away, that would be one thing. But he hasn't even whispered that yet. So, to some, he's just a guy who's yelling at another guy.

I'm not decrying Roy's message, just his tactics.

 

[Goofyposter]

I'm not decrying Roy's message, just his tactics.

ok...I'll ask......WDSearcher.....taking that statement as a truth.....have you communicated your concerns to him? If so how? Have you recieved a response? Did you, or have you offered suggestions to alternative tactics? If so, what where/are they?