hollywood melon man

Chapter 606: Creative Director with a Salary of One Dollar
As June approaches, the summer movie season remains hot.

After the successive releases of "The Last of Us", "Transformers", "The Da Vinci Code" and "X-Men: The Last Stand" in May, the summer season in June is still very lively.

The blockbuster in June is "Cars" produced by Pixar Animation Studios, directed by John Lasseter, one of the five Pixar directors, and written by Joe Ranft, who also wrote the "Toy Story" series.

Coincidentally, John Lasseter was the director of the first and second Toy Story films, and the two had a very pleasant collaboration.

Each of the five Pixar directors has his own team of collaborators. While Hollywood animation film production is increasingly moving towards an assembly line, Pixar still retains a creativity-centered production approach.

It is said that when Pixar decides whether to approve a project, they do not discuss whether the film can gain market favor or how much profit margin it has.

They discussed the significance of the project and what kind of thoughts the film could bring to people, mostly from the perspective of humanistic and artistic expression.

Of course, as long as you are in Hollywood, you can't get away from commercialization. But this is exactly what makes Pixar so great. The animations it produces can be successful in business and stand out in the field of humanities and arts.

Although there are so many animation studios that have produced a lot of works, few can compete with Pixar.

It is no exaggeration to say that Pixar is the king of animated films today, and there doesn’t seem to be any big problem with that.

Such a dazzling animation studio naturally attracted the attention of all parties. However, Pixar's boss Steve Jobs was like a seasoned fisherman, standing still and waiting for the fish to bite.

After several years of tug-of-war, the acquisition is now nearing completion. Disney has attracted Steve Jobs with better conditions, and the two sides have reached an agreement.

If the deal is signed, Disney will acquire Pixar Animation Studios in a cash-and-stock deal, and Steve Jobs will become a member of Disney's board of directors and the company's largest individual shareholder.

Who is the second largest individual shareholder? Of course, it is Steve Jobs' good friend and long-time friend, the famous Gilbert Landrini Jr.

Disney is preparing to acquire Pixar Animation Studios in full, but it only holds 50% of Pixar Studios' shares, with the other 50% being with Warner.

So it is normal that Steve Jobs' shares exceed Gilbert Jr.'s. After all, the difference in value and size between Pixar and Cantaloupe Studios is not that big.

This world-renowned acquisition caused a sensation and impact that was no less than the merger of related studios by Disney and Warner.

In order to allow Pixar to fully integrate into the Disney system, Robert Iger also promised not to interfere with the creative freedom of Pixar Studios.

It was in this context that the film Ratatouille, which features mice as the main characters, was launched. Then there was Wall-E, which shows robots falling in love.

As the creative director of Pixar hired by Steve Jobs for one dollar, Gilbert Jr. also provided several creative ideas, such as "Kung Fu Panda", which is based on kung fu themes and features cute giant pandas as the protagonists.

According to the previous life, Kung Fu Panda was produced by DreamWorks Animation Studios, which belonged to Paramount Pictures. But DreamWorks Animation Studios had nothing to do with Gilbert Jr., and he was not working with Paramount.

So there is nothing wrong with cutting in advance, and the one dollar salary is not taken for nothing...

There are also cartoon ideas that Gilbert Jr. likes, such as "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Big Hero 6", which he also provided to Pixar.

Many times there is actually no problem with animation production technology, the main issue is the creativity.

With good ideas, animated films can be produced continuously.

Of course, Steve Jobs would not treat Gilbert Jr. unfairly and promised that when these animated films were produced, Gilbert Jr. would be listed as the first-line screenwriter and would also receive screenwriter fees.

In fact, if he followed the routine of the general entertainment industry, Gilbert could have set up an animation studio and hired people to develop these animated films. But to be honest, Gilbert gave up, mainly because he didn't have enough time. If he did it himself, he would be very serious and afraid of losing money, so he would pay more attention.

But if you leave it to someone else, then there won’t be that burden.

Besides, Pixar will soon be a subsidiary of Disney, which means it is a studio under his control. If Pixar makes money, it means he makes money.

Back to the movie "Cars", the film was released on June 6011nd and earned million US dollars in its first week.

Compared with today's live-action movies and commercial blockbusters, this first-week box office is not outstanding. However, the box office explosiveness of animated films has never been outstanding, but more of a lasting one.

In addition, many popular animated films usually have excellent peripheral performances.

"Cars" is such a movie. Although it is a new IP series, "Cars" still generated $2300 million in peripheral revenue in its first week in North America.

Of course, there will be a steady stream of peripheral income in the future, and its profitability is much better than many live-action movies.

Although the first week box office was not too high, by this week, the films released last month had begun to decline.

So "Cars" won the weekly box office championship without any suspense, and also won the overseas box office championship with 8853 million US dollars. 1 million US dollars was also enough to ensure that "Cars" won the global box office championship in a single week.

However, "Cars" is not the only new movie released this week. The romantic film "The Break-Up" released by Universal Pictures and starring famous TV star Jennifer Aniston will be released this week.

What is very interesting is that before the release of the film, Jennifer Aniston cried many times in public, saying that she missed the sweet time she spent with Brad Pitt.

She said she missed Brad Pitt and wanted to get back together with him.

In response, Angelina Jolie came out and said that this was impossible and scolded Jennifer Aniston for hyping the popularity.

Actually, what Angelina Jolie said is true. Jennifer Aniston is just trying to attract attention. This is normal. Many celebrities usually use their exes to hype up their exes to attract attention.

For Jennifer Aniston, as a well-known TV actor, it is no secret that she wants to transition from television to film.

But unfortunately, this road is very, very difficult.

Many well-known TV actors have tried to transition to movies but failed, and most movie actors will not star in a TV show.

Despite the long list of Hollywood stars who made guest appearances in "Friends", it is simply a fantasy to ask him to star in a TV series.

Even Leo only played supporting roles when he was a child and never played a leading role.

Of course, things will change, and it won't be strange for movie actors to star in TV series in the future.

Look, the great film director Gilbert Jr. has become a TV series director, and is planning to get a few movie actors to act in the TV series together.

"The Break-Up" is one of the few successful works in Jennifer Aniston's film career. Although it did not win the weekly box office championship, its box office performance of 3917 million US dollars is quite good.

According to this situation, it will not be a problem to break 100 million in North America and 200 million globally.

(End of this chapter)