CNN: Apple to possibly distribute Pixar films?

[chadtheartist]

This wouldn't profit Apple or Pixar. It would make some individuals a lot of money though, as pointed out in the article.

I could see Apple eventually getting into the distribution business though. That's a little different than owning a creative studio outright. I can see them creating one of the first movie download sites. But if I'm not mistaken, I think Steve said that it wasn't in the plans right now. I guess Apple is waiting on making a vPod(video) or something?

I can see the advertising now. "Witness the worlds best 3D movie... Spongecake... an Apple/Pixar production... " And everyone on the planet will cry foul and say that there are other 3D movie that are better, and a giant battle will ensue about Apple's false marketing. :P

[Dearmad]

All rendered on an Apple Lisa....

[Saurus]

Steve Jobs grand plan is coming to shape. Don't really know whether this plan has been in a making long before they decided to split with Disney or it was just a recent plan, but it’s a good marketing tool for Apple. Imagine, an Apple logo appearing at the beginning and end of every Pixar movie. “See kids you can make movie like this, all you need is to buy an Apple computer”. It’s a shifty move, but a brilliant one.

Saurus

[beaker]

Apple isn't even setup to distribute a movie. Distributing music over the internet is far from distributing movies. Every little studio out there always gets one of the larger studios to distribute their movies because they allready have all the distribution lines and warehouses setup. It is a very expensive business to be in, so unless you have a few hundred movies to distribute, it is too cost prohibitive to do this. There is no way Apple could pick up a couple hundred movies to distribute to make it cost worthy in the next few years. It takes a decade or so to do something like that.

I could only see Apple taking something like this on if all the theaters in the US were digital projection theaters and they all downloaded their movies from satellite. Maybe in another 10-15 years when film projected in theaters anymore.

The author of the article is talking out their arse.

[onlooker]

CNN is off it's rocker.

[pthomas72]

I dont know dude.. Steve Jobs is a freak'n genius. ( I still wouldnt want to go drinking with him, but he is a smarty pants.)

[BillB]

Originally posted by beaker
The author of the article is talking out their arse.

That's not really fair, if you read the whole article they pretty much come to the correct conclusions.

Pretty speculative story though :shrug:

[js33]

This could be a good move or a bad move. Given Apples' market share in the world they could either move up in the world or Pixar could be moved down and marginalized as Apple is.

But it would be a coup for Steve Jobs. He got control of the computer company he started back and can now use it's might to help his other company. Also the fact that Pixar is moving to Apple workstations can only be good advertisment for Apple. :applause:

Cheers,
JS

[heavyness]

"Apple isn't even setup to distribute a movie. Distributing music over the internet is far from distributing movies."

its cheaper now since movie theaters can dl movies from Apple's servers. most, if not all digital movies [Star Wars Episode 2] were dl'ed from a secure server. this cuts a huge amount of cost off from shipping film. yes, not every theater has this yet, but just like good sound systems in the early 80's, every theater will [thank you George Lucas for both!].

Apple and Pixar both have the money to pay for advertising and movie tie-ins [McDonald happy meals, toys deals]

... i don't see why the can't

[ACFred]

I guess it's possible, but the author of that article needs to do some research. He states that Apple is looking more and more like a content company. Well, the only reason they're selling content right now is so that they can sell their hardware (iPods) at a MUCH more significant profit margin.

There was an interview with Jobs in a Business 2.0 a couple of months ago and he said straight out that selling music on line isn't a moneymaker and that his entire goal is to sell hardware.
It's a consistent (and wise) pattern with Jobs. To get film FX & editing companies to buy his hardware, what does he do? Buy the company that makes some of the more popular software, discontinue the Windows version, and make the Linux version twice as much as the Mac version. Yes, I'm speaking of Shake. This move, in addition to poking some film companies in the eye, was made to sell hardware. I don't think Jobs carers one bit about compositing software except that it can help move the more profitable hardware.
If Maya continues to dominate the CG market, look for a puchase of Alias in the future (not an original idea, I know).

Basically, I don't think Apple buying Pixar would be consistent with the model Jobs has created. It would be better for Pixar to continue to negotiate the distribution rights with other companies (New Line Cinema is my shot in the dark guess as the next distributor -- look for New Line Animation coming to a screen near you). Pixar is in the driver's seat and can really afford to negotiate an incredible deal for themselves without attaching themselves fully to Apple.

That's it. Enough rambling.

Alec

[boboroshi]

Digital distribution could really rock pretty much every industry - the point being that you basically cut out all middle men and all markups.

A content creator or licensor can now charge more and the end client can still pay less.

Will it work this way? probably not overnight, but eventually, it could make things much simpler and more cost effective for a large number of businesses.

[beaker]

It has nothing to do with whether or not Apple can do it. Steve Jobs is a business man first, so he is about MAKING MONEY. Distributing just Pixar movies would not be profitable. It would be a waste of money and they would loose alot of it on distributing it themselves.

The trouble is that there are still only 200 movie theaters in the world that have digital projection(out of those 200, it's usually only 1 screen out a 5-10 that have digital). Most movies are distributed to 2000-3000 theaters in the USA alone(there are alot more than that in the US) No idea how many in europe. It is going to be another 10 years till all the theaters move to digital. Apple's first movie to distribute under pixar would be in 2 years. So they would have to still use mostly conventional methods. IE, they would loose alot of money doing it. Maybe in 10 years.

[onlooker]

Yes, but being a distributer is also being somewhat of a promoter I think. There for Apple would have to pump the same kind of cash into TV commercials, and advertisement that disney did for their previous ventures, and Apple barely advertises their own products. I don't think they can afford to do it the way disney did. If it wasn't for all the constant ad's I don't think the Disney/Pixar films would have made what they did. Ad's are constant reminders, and the only thing's that reminds people that there is a Macintosh is all the Mac users on the internet, and Mac's that pop up in just about every TV show. It's rare to see an actual Mac ad on TV unless it just came out. I don't know if that is truly the case, about promoting, but I thought I read it somewhere a while back when DreamWorks, or Warner, or somebody was courting Pixar. I think Warner Brothers would be more suited to do this more than Apple if you ask me. I'm sure it could be done, and if anyone could do it successfully it's undoubtedly Steve Jobs, but it just seems so out of left field.
Who ever said this guy is talking out of his backside I'd have to agree.

[Crumply]

I haven't read the CNN article, but...

A mac is a harder sell than 80 minutes to watch a kick-ass Pixar movie.

The harder part will be getting folks used to the idea of: "Apple Films Presents..." Average folks will go, huh? But, they have 2-4 years to build/morph the current brand into that entertainment zone, and they are on their way already with Ipod and such. Seems like a bold idea and if it's true I look forward to it.

[Joe2003]

most, if not all digital movies [Star Wars Episode 2] were dl'ed from a secure server.

No, the vast majority of digital prints of Episode II were delivered to theaters on harddrives.

[TheGreenGiant]

http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore/

if you guys click on the above link, you'll see that they're already started. NEMO is on sale on the apple site. Way too expensive but its started. It will be funny to see the APPLE logo at the start of a movie but what a way to build mindshare.

[devin]

One thing to note in the article is that it talks more about Apple owning Pixar as a studio or production facility and less about Apple's involvement as a full scale distributor/"brand" like Disney, New Line, Universal, etc. It does, however, talk about Apple's potential as a provider of downloadable movie content such as it is with music.

No matter, the article is still all about speculation.

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