All posts containing the tag: "pixar"
Posted Jun 12th 2006 2:34PM by TMZ Staff
Call it car-ma: 'Cars' has met an 'An Inconvenient Truth.' It won't be the panacea for Hollywood's box office malaise. The Pixar film's $62.8 million opening weekend was less than Hollywood was expecting (maybe because it failed to feature any hybrids?) but it's paltry only when compared with what the last two Pixar movies have done.
Of course, that won't stop a few snarky comments from being uttered about the movie's slightly-under-expectations opening, as you can see in the Los Angeles Times today: "Pixar is like the parent who has a straight-A student: One day the child comes home with a B-plus," said Anthony Valencia, an analyst at money management firm TCW in Los Angeles.
But what's really vexing Hollywood isn't opening weekend -- it's the weekend after that.
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Filed under: Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry
Tags: box office, BoxOffice, cars, disney, pixar, reelz
Posted Feb 19th 2006 4:13PM by TMZ Staff
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS -- One of Walt Disney's top theme park designers is stepping down after decades of service, signaling the end of an era for the Magic Kingdom.
Marty Sklar is one of the last remaining employees who once worked closely with the company's co-founder, Walt Disney.
The 72-year-old said he would leave his executive job at Walt Disney Imagineering to serve as its "ambassador," according to a memo to colleagues Thursday.
He helped to design such park attractions as "The Enchanted Tiki Room," "It's a Small World" and "Space Mountain."
"He understands the Disney way because he learned it at Walt's knee," said Jim Cora, a former chairman of Disneyland International. "He is the keeper of the keys, the conscience, the Jiminy Cricket for the organization."
Sklar said he had long planned to step down after reaching two milestones the 50th anniversary of Disneyland and his own half-century at the company. Last year he reached the first mark, and this June he will hit the other.
The move follows Disney's recent announcement that after its planned acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios this summer, Pixar's creative chief, John Lasseter, will help design rides for Disney's theme parks. Lasseter also will become chief creative officer of both animation studios.
The timing of Sklar's decision was unrelated to Lasseter's pending arrival, Disney officials said.
Low-key and unimposing, Sklar is revered by a generation of designers he trained, dubbed "Imagineers," for his mentoring and his links to the company's heritage. Sklar condensed Walt Disney's ideas into a widely circulated creed called "Mickey's Ten Commandments."
Filed under: The Biz
Tags: designer, disney, pixar, space mountain, SpaceMountain, theme park, ThemePark
Posted Jan 19th 2006 11:37AM by TMZ Staff
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- The Walt Disney Co. is in serious talks to buy Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the maker of the hit movies "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo" among others, following months of exploring how to continue their profitable film distribution partnership, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the plan, the Journal said Disney would pay a nominal premium to Pixar's current market value of $6.7 billion under the deal being discussed in a stock transaction that would make Pixar chief executive Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney.
The Journal said the outcome of the talks isn't certain, and that other options are possible. Telephone messages left Thursday morning for Disney spokeswoman Michelle Bergman in Burbank, Calif., and Pixar's Michele Clarke in New York were not immediately returned.
Pixar shares were up $3.24, or 5.7 percent, to $60.50 in premarket trading while Disney shares were down 22 cents at $25. Jobs is the largest shareholder in Pixar, with more than 60 million shares, or 50.6 percent, according to Pixar's filings with securities regulators last year. At its current share price, his stake is worth about $3.44 billion.
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Filed under: Movies, The Biz
Tags: disney, pixar
