Bloomberg Businessweek (June 3, 2024)

Год выпуска: June 3, 2024

Автор: Bloomberg Businessweek

Жанр: Бизнес

Издательство: «Bloomberg Businessweek»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 72

Fixing Pixar

How the famed animation studio is getting past its duds and missteps

Across the bay from San Francisco, some 400 miles up the coast from Walt Disney Co.’s headquarters in Burbank, sits the Steve Jobs Building, an industrial amalgam of glass and red brick that’s home to Pixar Animation Studios. Between hulahoop classes, lengths in the outdoor heated pool, sword-fighting tutorials and seminars on drawing the perfect goose, the workforce of about 1,000 employees who created Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and Up is scrambling to restore Pixar’s status as the vanguard of computer animation technology and storytelling.

Starting with its first feature film, Toy Story, in 1995, Pixar enjoyed an uninterrupted run for almost three decades as a maker of movies that generated billions of dollars at the box office and won countless awards. Such was the threat from Pixar’s success to Disney’s animation business that, in 2006, Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger finalized a deal with Jobs, then Pixar’s majority owner, to buy the company for $7.4 billion.

It proved to be one of the smartest acquisitions in Hollywood history. Pixar franchises including The Incredibles and Cars became revenue powerhouses for Disney, driving sales of movie and theme park tickets as well as merchandise. And even as rivals gained on the company — DreamWorks with Shrek, Illumination with Despicable Me — Pixar occupied a unique position in the American imagination. It was renowned as a pioneer of software breakthroughs that made animation feel more lifelike and as a creative force behind films that expertly bridged childhood and adult concerns about family bonds, the pain of grief and the need to find one’s purpose.

That held true until 2018, when Pixar suffered a spectacular downturn. John Lasseter, who directed early hits such as A Bug’s Life and led much of the studio’s success as chief creative officer, was forced to resign under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. Then, in the wake of pandemic lockdowns, with people still largely stuck at home, Pixar made three original films—Soul, Luca and Turning Red — available to subscribers on the new Disney+ streaming service instead of holding them for release in theaters. The decision trained audiences to expect Pixar pictures to premiere on their phones and in their homes instead of in cinemas.

When Pixar finally returned to theaters in 2022 with Lightyear, a Toy Story spinoff, the film’s dour tone failed to impress critics and moviegoers, while a scene with a same-sex kiss resulted in its being banned in most countries with predominantly Muslim populations. In June 2023, Pixar’s Elemental, a film in which characters embodying fire and water fall in love, opened in cinemas to the worst box-office numbers in the company’s history. “We were all kind of gut-punched, and it was tough on morale,” says Jim Morris, Pixar’s president. “I thought it was a good film with a Pixar feel, so when it didn’t work, that was like, ‘Whoa.’ I was thinking, ‘Do people just not want to see the kind of film we make anymore? Is that done?’ ”

Sequels Come to Save the Day

• Pixar hopes titles like Inside Out 2 will end a run of disappointments

A Mighty Crab Kingdom

• Climate change and Russian actions help rescue a Norwegian village

Utopia Will Be Built Elsewhere

• Google’s often-quirky problem-solving X lab refocuses on core business

The State of the 2024 US Electorate

• How population trends could affect the Biden-Trump rematch

IN BRIEF

• Fighting in Rafah
• EV sales boom
• Pope apologizes

OPINION

• Let the carbon credit market lead to a greener way

AGENDA

• European Parliament election
• UN honors child victims

REMARKS

• Core inflation doesn’t worry voters. Higher grocery bills do

BUSINESS

• Walmart sweetens the pot for store managers
• Novo Nordisk needs a huge factory to meet GLP-1 demand

TECHNOLOGY

• Hop in, we’re racing to save American malls
• Tracking subatomic particles to map secret tunnels

FINANCE

• WallStreetBets started with a Reddit user who was in a rut, fed up with inequality and fascinated by irrational markets

ECONOMICS

• Mexico’s next president will stay the course
• The economic downside of Israel’s defense surge

PURSUITS / JEWELRY SPECIAL

• Understated is out. Now bold and playful is the way to go
• Designer Nikos Koulis digs into his Greek roots
• Brands bet that men are the next big thing in bling
• Colorful, patterned loafers are like jewelry for your feet
• Bejeweled watches take over the red carpet
• Two huge aquamarines drip from a standout necklace

ONES TO WATCH    

• Ten people making an impact in the investment industry

скачать журнал: Bloomberg Businessweek (June 3, 2024)