After the astounding success of this year's biggest film to date, Finding Nemo, Pixar is looking to renegotiate their contract with Disney. In the past, Disney simply promoted and released the films created by Pixar and in turn took half of the profits. Mind you, they did a heck of job marketing these films, from Toy Story to Monsters, Inc., but if I were one of the head honchos at Pixar I would say forget working with a distributor and release the films in-house.

Forbes.com ran an article recently about the situation and reported that after polling an audience around the time Monsters, Inc. was released, a larger portion of the crowds were attracted to the Pixar name than that of Disney. To counter this point, Clay Timon, chairman of brand consultant Landor Associates, reports that "Disney has world wide brand almost in a league of its own" and that Pixar is almost unknown abroad. Is this true? Possibly, I wouldn't know, but there's one very important element being overlooked in this whole discussion: the look.

Even if audiences abroad don't know the Pixar brand, there's really no question that they recognize the visual appearance of a Pixar film, which is quite unique and hard to miss. Pixar has managed to hit one out of the park every time they come to the plate, and going out on their own really doesn't seem as risky as it would for most other production companies. That said, the smart play would be to consider releasing future films on their own here in the U.S. and allow Disney to take control of the overseas distribution. Would Disney ever accept such an arrangement? I have no idea, but my gut tells me they need Pixar as much as Pixar needs them. I'm guessing the two companies will stay together (with a larger cut of the profits going to Pixar), both sides figuring if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Posted September 2, 2003 | link