List of animation studios owned by The Walt Disney Company
Pixar () is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Pixar and Disney had a seven feature agreement that allowed Disney to distribute the films with Disney owing the character rights. With the success of "Toy Story 2" in 1999, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of their continued relationship. Eisner claimed that Toy Story 2 would not count towards the "original" film count of the agreement. Jobs announced in January 2004 that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CG animation studio to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties. In Late January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to have Disney purchase Pixar which led to Disney closing Circle 7.
Disney's Animated Storybook
Jobs said that while Pixar staff enjoyed creating the titles, the studio chose to focus talent on films produced under its partnership with Disney, as that was "where our greatest opportunities lie". Ultimately, the "uncertain future of this market, combined with Pixar's enhanced opportunities to create longer format film and made for home video products under its new partnership with Disney, triggered Pixar's decision to redirect its valuable talent". The computer games operation dissolved on March 31, 1997 and no further games were made, while Kerwin was assigned to start a shortfilm group. Their first project, "Geri's Game", was released alongside "A Bug's Life" and started a trend of shorts being paired with films. Robertson Stephens analyst Keith Benjamin felt it "[made] no sense for Pixar to waste their scarce talent on CD-ROMs now that they have a better deal with Disney. They're going to concentrate on films because that's where the real money is". Pixar co-founder, Ed Catmull, told "Variety" in 1999 "we did the very best and only did fine financially" on the games, noting that the company spent as much on them as they did on films. When asked in 2012 if Pixar would return to the gaming industry, "Brave" director Mark Andrews firmly said "no" based on his experience at the Interactive Products Group, while the film's producer Katherine Sarafian said "I don't think we would consider it now because we want to focus on the primary business of filmmaking".