Pixar Execs Behind ‘Bug’s Life’ Discuss Company’s Life Under Microscope

Pixar Animation Studios burst on the entertainment scene in 1995 with “Toy Story,” and computer animation hasn’t been the same.

Bankrolled by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs and led creatively by veteran animator John Lasseter, the movie tells the story of a boy named Andy and his toys, which come to life when people aren’t watching. The film pits cowboy doll Woody (Tom Hanks), who’s trying to retain his place as Andy’s favorite toy, against new spaceman toy Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), who proclaims he can soar “to infinity and beyond.”

Distributed and marketed by Pixar partner and investor Walt Disney Co., “Toy Story” not only was a breakthrough in computer animation, it also was a huge hit with audiences, grossing $360 million worldwide at the box office, selling millions of videos and earning an Oscar nomination for best original story for Lasseter. It also put Pixar in the position of renegotiating a more lucrative deal with Disney to split profits on future films, rather than getting 12.5% as on “Toy Story.” But it also exposes Pixar to more financing risk by splitting production and marketing costs.

Now, three years later, it’s Act II for Pixar with “A Bug’s Life,” which Disney opens nationwide in movie theaters today. Using computers with 10 times the power of the ones used on “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life” chronicles a group of ants who are under siege by evil grasshoppers. The film has received favorable reviews, and analysts expect it to be a hit.

One sore spot with Pixar was the October release of “Antz,” a computer-animated feature from Disney rival DreamWorks SKG that was made by Pixar competitor Pacific Data Images. It’s grossed $84 million to date. Pixar alleges that DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg, who formerly ran Disney’s movie division, pirated the idea when he left Disney. DreamWorks says that’s nonsense and that the studio came up with the idea for an insect film on its own.

Pixar has been a hit with investors, who have pushed the company’s stock into the stratosphere despite its relatively small size and brief history. Wall Street currently values Pixar at about $2 billion, although its stock took a sharp hit Tuesday on concerns that the company has become too vulnerable to the movie industry’s pitfalls. Shares fell $6.19 to close at $45.81 in Nasdaq trading.

Lasseter, who directed “A Bug’s Life” and received a special Oscar for “Toy Story,” is the firm’s vice president for creative development. His ties to Disney go back to the days when he worked at Disneyland on the jungle cruise ride.

Jobs, Pixar’s chairman and chief executive, remains one of the key figures in the personal computer industry, recently spending much of his time leading the turnaround of Apple with the successful debut of the iMac PC.

Their edited comments that follow came during separate interviews at Pixar’s headquarters in an industrial area north of Oakland. The company is building a new headquarters in nearby Emeryville.

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Times: What was different about doing “A Bug’s Life” from “Toy Story”?

Jobs: We learned a lot about how to make films, we learned how to improve our technology, and we also thought a lot about how to grow into a studio capable of producing hopefully great feature animated films a lot more frequently than once every two or three years.

We also were able to recast our deal with Disney after “Toy Story” into a five-picture deal, where we actually split the profit with Disney 50-50.

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Times: How were you able to do that?

Jobs: We really like working with Disney. We obviously wanted some things like getting better economics and better branding. They wanted to extend the relationship over a longer period of time. We were able to accommodate each other.

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Times: What if you had the same deal with “Toy Story” as you have on “A Bug’s Life”?

Jobs: We would have made four times as much money. These animated films can be very profitable if they are successful. “Toy Story” generated over $400 million worth of profit.

When we originally did our deal with Disney, I think they looked at us as a company that would produce a product that would be more of a boutique product, kind of a “Nightmare Before Christmas” that might do $30 million, $40 million or $50 million at the box office. It wasn’t until about six months before the film came out that they realized this could be a mainstream film.

More Pressure the Second Time Around

Times: Was there more pressure this time because “Toy Story” was such a huge success?

Lasseter: To be honest, yeah. It’s kind of a simple fact that when we were working on “Toy Story,” no one knew we existed. People in the computer animation community knew of Pixar and knew we were making this movie. But in the film industry, as well as internally at Disney, it was kept kind of quiet. Even though we spent four years making it, a lot of people felt like it came out of nowhere. Now all of a sudden we felt we were making “A Bug’s Life” in a fishbowl. People were dying to know what we were doing next.

Jobs: We felt a lot of pressure on “Toy Story” because it was our big shot. I can’t say there’s more pressure. I’d say it’s just different pressure.

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Times: Are you hoping people won’t look at “A Bug’s Life” as just a computer-animated movie?

Jobs: We don’t care. We believe we are inventing a whole new medium of storytelling. It doesn’t matter how it was made to the artist. The fact is, such a high- resolution, highly detailed, three- dimensional medium is a dramatic leap in the capabilities for storytellers.

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Times: Do you think 3-D computer animation will eventually supplant traditional animation?

Jobs: The artists are going to answer that. I know one thing: As the audiences left “Toy Story,” a lot of people felt this 3-D computer thing is here to stay.

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Times: Do you think that “Antz” hurt “A Bug’s Life”?

Jobs: The two movies are very different. The movie business is different than most other businesses in that in most businesses it’s a zero-sum game. If you walk into a computer store and you buy an iMac, that means Apple is the winner and Compaq, Dell and everybody else are the losers. If you bought another brand, Apple would have been one of the losers.

In the movie business, audiences have shown that if you have three good movies out there, how many are they going to go see? All three. If you have three lousy movies, how many are they going to go see? None. I said early on that if “Antz” failed, it’s not going to help us one iota, and if “Antz” is really successful, it won’t hurt us that much.

That said, we obviously have feelings about the situation. Jeffrey [Katzenberg] knew all about “Bug’s” the day he left Disney. We pitched it to him.

Lasseter: I think the whole thing with “Antz” is not about the movies as much as it is about how much it’s changed the computer animation community for the worse. It was a small, tight-knit group of people who were passionate and loved the medium we were in.

Months after “Toy Story” came out, when PDI and DreamWorks made the deal together, we thought it was a perfect match. DreamWorks has a lot of very good story people and PDI has their production experience. Then I found out the story they were doing. It’s sad. There are so many great ideas, why do something you know someone else has been working on? We were working on this movie since the summer of ’94. They all knew it.

What it has done is fundamentally changed the computer animation community. We now have to be secretive. We cannot talk about our movies. If we tell you what we are developing for the next movie, the next movie and the next movie, you’ll hear DreamWorks is making the same movies. Sometimes I jokingly say that I feel like we’re the DreamWorks development department.

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Times: You don’t buy it that they planned the movie on their own?

Jobs: I’m assuming that Jeffrey wasn’t planning his movies for DreamWorks while he still worked for Disney. There is a very simple fact: The day Jeffrey walked out the door at Disney he knew all about “Bug’s.” He can’t deny that. Maybe he had a dream about it when he was 7. I don’t really care. He knew about “Bug’s” the day he left Disney and chose to make a movie on exactly the same thing. What kind of character does that show?

Disney Rumors Put to Rest

Times: What about speeding up the production schedule of “Antz” to get it out before “A Bug’s Life”?

Lasseter: We know for a fact that when they made the deal, it was a deal breaker that they had to bring it out before our movie. They immediately started doing this smoke screen to say it was coming out in the spring of ’99 so they could do this big “We’re scooping Disney” PR thing. It was all for the PR. Their entire production schedule was for it to come out when it did.

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Times: Was the creative autonomy with Disney different or the same as for “Toy Story”?

Lasseter: It was better. We’re very autonomous, but we work very closely with many people at Disney.

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Times: There’s been rumors Disney might buy Pixar.

Jobs: Let me be very clear. They’ve never inquired about buying the company and we’ve never inquired about selling the company. We have a great relationship.

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Times: What about “Toy Story 2”?

Lasseter: The history of it was that it was going to be direct to video. What happened was we came up with a great story. It’s so different from “Toy Story” but has a lot of neat themes about being a toy. Woody gets stolen by a collector because he turns out to be extremely valuable. Buzz and all of Andy’s toys go to rescue him to bring him back to Andy’s room. In the time it takes to get there, Woody has started believing in his value as a collectible and views himself as a collectible instead of a toy. So Buzz Lightyear gets to say the immortal words: “You are a toy. You are a child’s plaything.”

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Times: A lot of studios have gotten into animation. Do you see many of them dropping out?

Lasseter: I think they will. One of the fundamental commitments that a studio needs to do to make a successful animated feature film and a successful animated studio--which so far only Pixar and Disney are willing to do--is commit to the time it takes to develop the story.

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Times: What do you see ahead?

Jobs: Our products renew themselves with each new generation of children. When Disney released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on video, they sold over 25 million copies. We were one of the families that bought it. My then- 4-year-old son must have watched it 50 times. This is a 60-year-old product that completely renews in my 4-year-old son. These products are evergreen products. They don’t get stale. When “Toy Story” is re-released 60 years from now, somebody at Pixar will get a check from Disney, and with “A Bug’s Life” too. I guarantee you nobody is going to be booting up a Mac in 60 years.