Pixar, the studio that introduced the world to blockbuster franchises “Toy Story,” “Monsters, Inc” and “Cars,” has a problem: an original film it spent seven years nurturing bombed at the box office.
animation pioneer into unfamiliar territory: being a laggard among rivals. Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros.” movie and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” both animated films, have racked up big ticket sales this year.
"As an industry, we need original IP to work," Tony Chambers, Disney's head of theatrical distribution, said in an interview over the weekend, using shorthand for "intellectual property." But the trend packs a big wallop at Disney. New cinematic franchises power the entertainment conglomerate's profit machine, feeding the pipeline for consumer products and theme park attractions, which accounted for over 60% of its segment operating profit last year.
The successes of "Super Mario Bros." and "Spider-Man" also reflect a new post-COVID-19 trend at box offices, Hollywood insiders say. Audiences have been spoiled by three years of direct-to-streaming releases of original animated features on services including Netflix, Disney+ and Apple Inc's Apple TV+ at home. These viewers are now more likely to open their wallets at the cinema only for familiar franchises.
In his book, “Creativity, Inc.,” Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull credited Pixar's brain trust with the studio’s early box-office triumphs. He described how the five men who led the creation of its first feature-length animated film, “Toy Story” — John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich and Joe Ranft — would give candid feedback to elevate films “from suck to not-suck” in an unforgiving process.
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