Anybody remember the short lived animation division Circle-7? If you don’t, it was basically an animation division that Disney had made when they were going to split with Pixar. They had sequels in the works for TS3 and Monsters Inc 2. I thought that their TS3 was practically the same thing as Pixar’s TS2 and I thought that their Monster’s Inc 2 looked pretty decent. I’m sure you could probably find an artwork trailer for it on google. Those films were cancelled when Disney bought Pixar back in 2006.
Ohh yes, I remember this. Thank God it was shut down! I can’t help but be curious about the outcome; although, there’s a chance we wouldn’t have the Pixar films Cars-onward if it wasn’t.
I don’t remember it from expirience, but I learned about it a couple years ago when I read The Pixar Touch. I’m glad it got closed!
I knew about this. I was always curious as to how their films would’ve turned out. The Monsters Inc one sounded like it might’ve been good. But it’s great that Pixar ended up making Toy Story 3 (instead of Circle-7) because that turned out to be a brilliant film.
I’m glad it didn’t go though too, MI2 sounded alright though.
Also found this.
blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/09/mo … r-concept/
Yeah, I’m glad that Circle-7 never went through. Their TS3 was a rehash of TS2 which I wouldn’t want to see. Their version of MI2 had me very interested.
Wow, that’s interesting seein their concept art.
Wonder what their Toy Story 3 was about.
It was about Buzz Lightyear being recalled to Taiwan because of a malfunction and they toys go to Taiwan to save him. It would of basically been a rehash of TS2.
Oh Yeah, I remember that.
It’s funny because when I first read the plot for the real Toy Story 3, I had a very different image of how it was going to be, than how it actually was in the end. What I do wonder (for Circle-7’s Toy Story 3) is what Buzz’s malfunction would’ve been (he seemed fine in the first two).
I always wondered that to. Maybe some of the newer Buzz Lightyear toys wern’t working properly which made them all get recalled.
Could be.
There was actually someone on imdb who felt that it would have been better if Circle 7 had stayed active, and done all those sequels they were planning. I guess their assumption was that if such a thing had come to pass, Cars 2 would never come into being (why is that the lynchpin in so many people’s thinking?).
I was glad that C7 was disbanded/shut down. John Lasseter and his friends felt these characters deserved respect and decent films…while Disney’s management just saw them as a cow to milk dry.
The Steve Jobs bio has a chapter telling of the negotiations (along with the Bug’s Life/Antz debacle) that Jobs had with Disney. At one point, Michael Eisner (who was no longer CEO), wanted to attend a board meeting and tell them they were making a big mistake to be making a billion-dollar purchase like that.
One funny part came when he called Bob Iger, and said that Disney would be fine without Pixar, and that Iger could fix Disney Animation. “Michael,” replied Iger, “If you couldn’t fix Disney Animation, what makes you think I can?”
The board meeting that Eisner attended, he claimed that due to the contract for 5 films, Disney already ‘owned’ 85% of Pixar (referring to the characters from Toy Story through Nemo, and the ability to exploit them and make numerous sequels). He felt that paying for the remaining ‘15%’ as he called it, was a bad move. His feeling was that in order for the deal they were planning to be profitable, each of the upcoming films would need to each make over a billion dollars to be profitable.
I recommend the jobs bio, btw. While he’s a stubborn, almost petulant ‘genius,’ Pixar was one of the few areas where he seemed more like a lamb than a lion.
Here’s an interview with interesting details about Circle 7 and the Pixar-sequel features that were in work there:
So Glad that circle 7 was shut down!
Ooh, interesting.I hadn’t seen some of that concept art before. Also they talk about a cars ‘slate’… 
I found this an interesting article, thanks for posting it.
Wow, great article! I only read some of it but I’ve never seen a lot of those images before, nor did I know the Monsters Inc. sequel they proposed had a name or a plot. Interesting. Notice how that rendering of Woody and Bullseye doesn’t look anywhere near as good as what Pixar could’ve made. 
I think the rendering is actually concept art, so it wouldn’t have to be feature-quality.
The article supported the idea that any animation outfit employs talented folks; the difference comes down to how the leadership uses those talents. Personally, the MI2 concept as described seems more interesting than the official MU concept. Also, having recently seen Cars 2, it’s hard to feel that Pixar’s artists did a much better job than Circle 7 artists would have done on Pixar sequels…but we’ll never know for sure. Bottom line, it’s too bad that talented folks at Circle 7 suffered for business reasons.
I only recently learned of the Circle-7 story when I read The Toy Story Films: An Animated Journey. I remember when I first heard the plot for TS3, and it was the C7 one… I only realized a few years later that they had mentioned this company in that brief summary. Now, I am glad that Disney and Pixar stuck together. The sequels they came up with sounded decent, but they weren’t… well, Pixar-feeling! Pixar films always have a feel and look to them, and it would’ve stunk if someone else attempted to do that without Pixar. I’m not saying I’m glad they shut down, because they probably had some good original ideas somewhere. What I’m glad for is that Disney let Pixar handle the further adventures of their characters from now on. Say what you want about the Toy Story sequels, or Cars 2, or Monsters University, or Finding Dory, but I love the films already made and have high hopes for the upcoming ones, and I don’t think that C7 could ever achieve the Pixar Effect the way Pixar does. The Circle-7 stories were merely fanfiction!