[b] FROM “FILM COMMENT” MAGAZINE - JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005
[/b]Pixar knows something! From the 1996 release of its debut effort, Toy Story, to last years’ smash hit, The Incredibles, Pixar Animation Studios is now an incredible six-for-six in its 10-year lifetime. All of its releases have been massive hits and major critical sucusses, and hugely profitable. This movie business version of the racetrack’s ultimate bet, the Pick-Six, has brought the company the equivalent of the Holy Grail: a brand name that resonates. The word “Pixar” is now synonymous with extraordinary production quality and more important, an ineffable spirit of fun, adventure, and true sophistication.
I believe Pixar’s success carries a larger message for the rest of the film industry: making something you can believe in can actually deliever the outsized profits Hollywood execs only dream of. The company’s fiscal success is the direct-indeed, almost inevitable-outgrowth of its passion for making movies, and only those it truly believes in. Today’s studios don’t make movies; they make deals. Pixar makes movies.
In the 8 years from Toy Story to Finding Nemo, its production costs have risen only modestly, due in part to the company’s policy of producing films with a permanent in-house techincal staff. The actors who voice the characters may be big names, but they work for a fraction of their usual fees because they know the story and the animation are the real stars. The P&A spent to launch a Pixar film, while substantial, remains well below the average for films with comparable grosses.
There’s something that separates Pixar from Dreamworks, Disney, and the others. Pixar has consciously turned its back on Hollywood and its intense competition and ever so finely tuned hierarchies. It has returned a long-lost spirit of collegiality and joy in the creative process to a business that has become driven solely by jealousy and greed. It will, I suspect, continue to spread that joy among audiences - and stockholders - for years to come.
ONE CAN ONLY HOPE!
