It was officially announced this week that, after years of disagreement and threats to pack up their computers for a better home, endlessly innovative (and impossibly lucrative) animation studio Pixar were acquired/retained by Disney for an immense amount of cash. Some people seem concerned that Pixar’s loose approach will get corporately homogenized by Disney’s notoriously tightass attitude, but c’mon… Pixar could’ve gone anywhere and preserved creative control, so I’m relatively certain they won’t allow Disney to stifle it, a $7 billion payday or not. If anything, expect a change in Disney’s sensibilities.
The first sigh of relief: One of the things already on Pixar’s agenda is to stomp the hell out of Disney’s planned Toy Story 3 — the Mouse House owned the rights to the property and were going ahead with a sequel without its creators. But as part of their new positions as Animation Overlords, the Pixar honchos took a hammer to the hard drive of Disney’s solo sequel, stating that if Woody and Buzz Lightyear ever visit the big screen again, it’ll be with their original Pixar parts.
Which I actually think would be a good idea, because Cars looks sort of awful so far.