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 Schadenfreude  |
Posted on 02/04/2004 8:42:54 PM PST by Timesink
In a conference call with analysts to discuss Pixar's earnings, Jobs took a slap at Disney's recent animated films.
``The truth is there has been little creative collaboration with Disney for years,'' Jobs said. ``You can compare the creative quality (of Pixar films) with the creative quality of Disney's last three films and judge each company's creative ability yourselves.''
Pixar announced last week it was ending 10 months of exclusive talks to renew its deal with Disney to produce and distribute films. The company has two more films to deliver on its contract, including ``The Incredibles,'' due out in November, and ``Cars,'' to be released in 2005.
Pixar has been in business with Disney since 1991. The two companies released their first film, ``Toy Story,'' in 1995. The two companies co-finance each film and split the profits evenly, with Disney claiming an additional 12.5 percent distribution fee.
Pixar's latest film, ``Finding Nemo,'' has earned more than $800 million at the international box office to date, surpassing the record previously held by Disney's 1994 film, ``The Lion King.''
Jobs said he offered Disney better terms than he knew he could get from a rival studio during their negotiations, but said Disney balked at allowing Pixar to fold the last two movies due under the current deal into a new agreement with more favorable terms for Pixar.
Jobs also said the Pixar brand has become more powerful in animation than the Disney brand and expressed confidence about Pixar's chances with a new studio.
Jobs said every major studio has expressed interest in working with Pixar. Negotiations with at least four of them will begin in March and Pixar hopes to have a new deal in place by the fall.
Any new deal would begin with a Pixar film due to be released in 2006.
``Honestly, we're sad about it,'' Jobs said about the breakdown of talks with Disney. ``I'm confident ... Pixar's golden age will continue to evolve without missing a beat.''
Jobs criticized Disney's last two animated efforts, this year's ``Brother Bear'' and last year's ``Treasure Planet,'' as ``flops.''
``No amount of marketing will turn a dud into a hit,'' Jobs said.
Jobs said it is unlikely Pixar would ever agree to make a sequel of the five films co-produced by Disney and said he would not want to see Disney exercise its right to make sequels on its own.
``We feel sick about Disney doing sequels,'' Jobs said. ``If you look at the quality of their sequels, such as 'Lion King 1 1/2' and (the Peter Pan sequel 'Return to Neverland'), it's pretty embarrassing.''
Disney called Jobs' remarks ``unfortunate.''
``It is unfortunate that Steve Jobs has grossly mischaracterized good faith negotiations to reach agreement on an extension of the present, successful partnership that has been beneficial to shareholders of both Pixar and Disney,'' Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha said in a statement. ``It's also sad and unfortunate that he has resorted to insults and name-calling in the wake of the disagreement. We expected better of him.''
Earlier Wednesday, Pixar said its earnings more than quadrupled in the fourth quarter on the strength of its animated fish tale ``Finding Nemo.''
Pixar, based in Emeryville, Calif., reported net income Wednesday of $84 million, or $1.44 per share, in the quarter ended Jan. 3, compared to $17 million, or 31 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had expected earnings of $1.26 per share.
Revenue rose sharply during the quarter to $165 million compared with $39.4 million in the same period last year on the better-than-expected performance of ``Finding Nemo.''
The film has also sold more than 24 million home video units.
For the full year, Pixar reported net income of $125 million, or $2.17 per share, compared to $90 million, or $1.68 in 2002.
Revenue for 2003 rose to $262 million, compared to $202 million in 2002.
Shares of Pixar fell 66 cents to close at $63.54 on the Nasdaq Stock Market before the results were released. The shares gained 99 cents in the extended session.
On the Net:
Pixar Animation Studios: http://www.pixar.com
Feb 4 2004 9:40PM
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Schadenfreude |
Haha. I remember her from my New York consulting days. Ms Mucha was Chief of Staff for Sen. Alphonse D'Amato for years, and then a senior official in George Pataki's first 2 campaigns. A good lesson for you budding politicos on how to play the game. Be patient, be loyal, be confident, and you can get a cushy blue chip job yourself when you get tired of politics.
If Disney is so worthless, why did Pixar just spend ten months in exclusive negotiations with it? Answer: because Jobs made a bad deal with Disney originally and was trying to get out of it. Disney isn't stupid. Disney may have creative slumps, but it is run by good businessmen, current attacks on Eisner notwithstanding.
Jobs is simply annoying and ungracious. His good run will end someday, too.
To say such a thing about Steve Jobs is fatuous.
Jobs is right, of course.
Do you own Disney stock? Your supportive statements about Eisner and his team persuade me that you don't. Because the stock is at the same price it was in 97 or so. It didn't follow the market up during the boom, and it tanked hard after the general bust. Having Disney stock has been owning dead money for nearly a decade. Please list for me all the brilliant business moves that make you admire Eisner -- but that apparently haven't been recognized by the market. I'll give you a paste-it and you still could't fill it up. EuroDisney? CaliforniaAdventure? "Hercules"? "Atlantis"? Flop, flop, flop. There are some good, business-savvy summaries of Eisner's ineptitude as exhibited in the 10 years since the death of Frank Wells, at www.savedisney.com. You might want to read that site before rashly posting any more criticisms of Jobs or other Eisner critics.
I suspect if you'd placed any portion of your kids' college fund in Disney stock you'd be a lot less critical of Eisner's critics.
I'm hoping that Jobs is working with Roy Disney to pry Eisner's cold clammy fingers off of Disney and get new management - - and then Pixar can come back.
The act is getting pretty old.
Where it was in 1997? IBM is about where it was in 1999, GE where it was in 1998, MCD where it was in 1995, KO where it was in 1996, GM where it was in 1993 - by your reasoning, I suppose those are all run by incompetents, too. Anyone can play that game, these companies go through swings and cycles and saying it is the same price as five or ten or however many years ago is meaningless. Oh, it pays a fair dividend, too.
Also, where are those brilliant business moves by Eisner that I asked you to list? And please don't say Lion King -- he drove Katzenberg (creater of LK) away. Or Lilo - he just shut down the team that made it. ---
And please go read Michael McConnell's rundown of Eisner failures at www.savedisney.com
It's entirely possible that Pixar could produce a dud someday. The important thing for Pixar is to increase their output of movies so that they don't have to wait two years between films to recover. If they can do that - and there is every reason to believe they will - their good run could last for decades.
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