Creativity vs Impact Part Two: The Future of Pixar
In last week’s post on the importance of appearance I opened with Sport’s Illustrated choice to feature plus sized (but still very attractive) model Yumi Nu on their cover in 2016. As many of you let me know if was (plus sized model) Ashley Graham that was on the 2016 cover. Yumi Nu was featured in the 2022 issue for the first (not second) time. Apologizes. Not sure how my research missed that. I used two photos on the post, both Nu’s and GRaham’s, but misattributed Graham’s to Nu.
In last week’s premium post I wrote about the Cannes Festival and how AB InBev was given a creativity award just as their business was getting torn apart. This is a stand-alone piece on the theme of how creativity is related to impact, but not sufficient. Recall I am traveling with my family this summer, and have reduced post frequency to 2x/week — one premium and one paid. This is the freely available post this week.
On the weekend of June 16-18th Disney released it’s 27th full length Pixar film, “Elemental”. Elemental was the first film to use cutting edge AI techniques to produce realistic dynamic fire and water shapes that simultaneously capture the shape and sensibility of the characters (For more on the technology used, see this article in Wired). Ticket buyers gave the film an “A” grade, and it’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently at 92% (critic score 75%, putting is below Brave and Monster University, and above Cars and Lightyear).
Unfortunately that technological and customer approval success did not lead to financial success. The film is now the record holder for the worst opening Pixar film of all time with only $29.6MM in revenue over the first weekend.
Has Pixar lost it’s ability to be creative?
That seems unlikely.
I believe what happened last weekend is more complicated, and an example of why creativity alone is not enough to ensure impact.
When Disney bought Pixar it came with a very unique creation method. An internal “braintrust” interrogates each film and filmmaker. They studio is willing to thow away “okay” projects, miss deadlines in the name of quality or replace directors. Here is a list of Pixar films that have been scrapped mid-production:
“Monkey”
“The Yellow Car” (later re-worked into “Cars”)
“Newt” (replaced with Inside Out)
Original Finding Nemo sequel
Original Toy Story 2 (scrapped after more than an hour of film had been completed)
Original Monsters Inc sequel
Wall-e’s third act
Original Toy Story 3
Even the workspace for Pixar was designed to “force” creativity and collaboration (and it was kept apart from the res to Disney post merger).
All of this push for perfection comes at a cost. And that is a cost that Disney has been willing to pay. When Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006 they were buying future creation as much (or more) than they were buying existing IP. Buying Pixar and then cutting budgets and changing processes would have been value destructive. Better to pay whatever it costs to keep the creativity and quality pipeline moving.
At least that has been the plan.
Since the release of Toy Story 4 in 2019 the studio has had challenges. Soul, Luca and Turning Red were all pushed directly to Disney+. Onward and Lightyear were released in theaters but both bombed. Now the $200MM+ bet on Elemental looks like it was a mistake.
The last non-sequel Pixar success was Coco (2017). Disney needs to have patience, but six years (and six releases) is a lot of patience. Is it possible that no matter how high quality and creative a film is, if it is “new IP”, it may not make sense to spend $200 million dollars making it. At least not if the success rate is now as low as it seems to be.
Pixar may be as creative now as they were when they made Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, but it may be that the entertainment environment has changed so much in the last half-decade that the level of creativity needed to make the cost of that creativity viable has increased to the point where the old model does not work anymore.
There has been a long history in film of taking existing IP from other forms of media (books, comic books, “based on a true story”) and repurposing it into movies. The advantage is that creating a book is much less expensive than creating a film. Making a film based on a book does not guarantee success, but it does increase the odds that something created with high quality will be discovered.
Pixar sequels continue to do well (Toy Story 5, and a Disney+ show based on Inside Out have already been given green light). Maybe the next step is testing the ideas of Pixar creatives in a lower-cost environment, and then only making films on the ideas that resonate with audiences. It seems to work for Marvel. Maybe we needed an Elemental Graphic Novel before we needed an Elemental film?
Keep it simple,
Edward