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Should Pixar make me their new creative consultant?

Should Pixar make me their new creative consultant?


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I don't think the moviegoing public in the USA will embrace animation as an adult medium to the degree that would be required to make a Pixar-level production financially viable. Yeah, some adults like Japanese anime and some like Bashki-style stuff, and some (like me) enjoy going to Pixar movies even without kids. But all of those people are a minority. Overwhelmingly, "cartoons are for kids".

Besides, it would be an extremely stupid business move for Pixar. They've done one of the hardest things a company can do...they've made their name a brand synonymous with a specific kind of movie that people can trust. Parents can see that there is a new Pixar movie and they immediately know they can (and should) take their kids to it. Not only that, but the quality of their films is consistently high and far exceeds the hit-to-miss ratio of any other production company. What you're suggesting is akin to telling Coke to stop making so much cola and maybe make some iced tea instead, simply because you're bored of cola. Why? People want so much cola that they can't make it fast enough.

The only way this could possibly work is for Pixar to spin off its own adult-themed distribution arm like Disney did in creating Touchstone, and to slash the budgets. But even then I think it would be a colossal disaster...lower budgets would reduce the quality of the films and tarnish the Pixar name, and the well-established cultural idea of cartoons being for kids would make this a niche market at best.
 

swordpath

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Thought there was a real job offer on the table or something. Thread fail.
 

The Ü™

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Oh, what a surprise, Ivy thinks it's a bad idea. Do I sense a personal grudge?
 

The Ü™

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I don't think the moviegoing public in the USA will embrace animation as an adult medium to the degree that would be required to make a Pixar-level production financially viable. Yeah, some adults like Japanese anime and some like Bashki-style stuff, and some (like me) enjoy going to Pixar movies even without kids. But all of those people are a minority. Overwhelmingly, "cartoons are for kids".

Besides, it would be an extremely stupid business move for Pixar. They've done one of the hardest things a company can do...they've made their name a brand synonymous with a specific kind of movie that people can trust. Parents can see that there is a new Pixar movie and they immediately know they can (and should) take their kids to it. Not only that, but the quality of their films is consistently high and far exceeds the hit-to-miss ratio of any other production company. What you're suggesting is akin to telling Coke to stop making so much cola and maybe make some iced tea instead, simply because you're bored of cola. Why? People want so much cola that they can't make it fast enough.

The only way this could possibly work is for Pixar to spin off its own adult-themed distribution arm like Disney did in creating Touchstone, and to slash the budgets. But even then I think it would be a colossal disaster...lower budgets would reduce the quality of the films and tarnish the Pixar name, and the well-established cultural idea of cartoons being for kids would make this a niche market at best.

Someone should tell these parents about the stained glass knight.
 

wolfy

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Sounds like a terrible move. I'd choose me before you, I think I'd make a great creative consultant.
 

Totenkindly

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Oh, what a surprise, Ivy thinks it's a bad idea. Do I sense a personal grudge?

Probably not.

EDIT: Well, you might sense one anyway, even if it's not there. It's not like others don't think it's a poor idea.

[MENTION=325]EffEmDoubleyou[/MENTION]: Yeah, what you said, in a nutshell. Honestly, the name brand is already established. It makes more sense to start a new brand than trying to change an established and very successful brand.
 

Fluffywolf

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If you take Beowulf as an example. It is a very good arguement that adult hollywood style animations is not going to be the norm any time soon. With production costs at 150 mil and a gross of like 90 or so, they lost out on quite a bit with making that movie.

Ofcourse something could probably be said about the high production costs. Was that really neccesary? A think a good production team could make a similar quality animation for much, much less. Then it might be feasable.
 

ZPowers

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Considering they have ten movies that are, based on their critical reception, between really good and great, two movies that are just good, and one movie that is average/mediocre, it seems to me like they still have maybe the best batting average of any film production company going today. So, no, I think they're probably good.

Have you considered taking this offer somewhere where you can do even more good? Say... Dreamworks?
 

The Ü™

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Beowulf was not an animated movie. It was a performance capture movie. And it was just not very good.

None of the performance capture movies were giant hits, and that includes The Polar Express, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, The Adventures of Tintin, and especially Mars Needs Moms. Most of these, save Beowulf, were family films. My guess is because they were unintentionally creepy.

And I am so glad Bob Zemeckis is going back to live-action with Flight.
 
Joined
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If you take Beowulf as an example. It is a very good arguement that adult hollywood style animations is not going to be the norm any time soon. With production costs at 150 mil and a gross of like 90 or so, they lost out on quite a bit with making that movie.

To be fair, Beowulf sucked. Even though I advocate the position that adults won't see adult-themed animated movies, It's hard to pin the failure of Beowulf on that.

Of course something could probably be said about the high production costs. Was that really neccesary? A think a good production team could make a similar quality animation for much, much less. Then it might be feasable.

It's not as easy as that. Computer animated films don't suffer from bloated budgets any more than traditional films do. In fact, VFX is one of the aspects of film production that studios try to save money on. VFX work is farmed out to vendors who can be pinched because they are eager to land the contract, and VFX is such a relatively new field that it is one of the few movie production specialties that doesn't have a labor union.
 
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