Pixar

The Golden Age of Animated Cinema is Over

2 Comments / Opinion /

Eighty-something years is a pretty good run though, right?

All good things come to an end and animation at the cinema is no different. Cinemas are struggling and (at least in the US) audiences have been declining for a long time even as studios tout rising box office revenues to deflect attention from that. The COVID-19 pandemic merely bought forward the inevitable switch to streaming by a good five or so years; hastening the end of the every-man multiplex.

Which means the golden age of animation at the cinema appears to be over. The slow return of films (and audiences) to cinemas coupled with numerous studios’ decision to release films directly to streaming suggests that the cinema as a regularly occurring experience is finished.

…the larger discussion revolves around whether studios like Pixar can afford to create, and maintain the infrastructure to deliver, films costing hundreds of millions…

Lightyear is a symptom of this trend. Middling reviews aside, the film leans hard on Pixar’s brand without success. The studio’s other recent films have gone straight to Disney+; leading to staffers moaning on Twitter that the films are devalued as a result.

It’s a bit more complicated than that though. Films costs have to be recouped and the box office was the first route to doing so until now. Netflix demonstrated that film costs could be decoupled from outright performance and instead folded into overall subscriber revenues; you spend the money you have and not the money you’ll hope you have in an effort to maintain and grow income in the future.

Mainstream culture has changed and the concept of a monoculture where we all consume the same media is gone. We don’t all watch the same films (if we can even watch them all) let alone go to the same location to watch them. Complaining about films being denied their moment to shine at a movie house is anachronistic thinking. Parroting their performance when they succeed there is devoid of meaning. Saturday Night Live gets a lot of attention from media that intones a wildly influential show but the numbers watching, and the numbers of real people talking, tell a very different story. It doesn’t matter if SNL is actually funny; if everyone is busy watching something else to care, it can’t be a paragon of culture.

If anything, going straight to streaming is a sign of confidence in quality. Lightyear going to the box office is a sign that Disney figured they had to hedge their bets by recouping at least some of the film’s massive $200 million cost at the box office because their data most assuredly told them such a turkey wasn’t going to deliver any subscriber growth to Disney+.

I don’t agree with /Film’s take on Pixar’s future, especially since it focuses on the box office, and argues that Disney shouldn’t shy away from a studio who’s delivered hits in the past. I think the larger discussion revolves around whether studios like Pixar can afford to create, and maintain the infrastructure to deliver, films costing hundreds of millions if the return on investment isn’t as clear cut or as swift as the weekend box office.

Low Budget =/= Low Quality;

This is what Netflix has wrought: animated films that are decent quality yet low cost and delivered frequently. Large budget films exist because they had economics which supported them. What happens when those economics are no longer there or are unfavourable? Technology has also advanced to the point where technological prowess is kind of irrelevant. Will a $300 million film look better than a $75 million one? Probably. Will the audience notice enough to care…? Illumination’s success provides a definitive answer.

The Future?

What does the future hold? Like Spielberg, I agree (and have agreed since he made the remarks in 2013) that the cinema experience isn’t dead, but it will evolve into something that is consumed rarely; perhaps once or twice a year and with an increased focus on older films people want to see on a big screen with others. This will continue for a few decades until cinema itself becomes an anachronism like vaudeville, jukeboxes, and the cassette tape.

With the cinema in decline, what will animated films evolve into from here.

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Pixar Employees Learn the Hard Way that their Films Aren’t so Superior

Industry /

Lots of films go straight to VOD in light of the COVID pandemic, but Disney made a point of upcharging for the latest blockbuster releases. With new Pixar films being released without an upcharge, some employees are upset at their apparent downgrade in status.

Aeons ago (OK, five years ago), I wrote a somewhat incendiary post for Jerry Beck’s Animation Scoop where I argued that Pixar’s films were not the stellar, unimpeachable magnificence they are marketed as. My argument was they while their initial films were, the industry soon caught up. With a rash of sequels [then] scheduled to be released, I pointed out that Pixar’s films were, for all intents and purposes, average films designed to appeal to the broadest of audiences and make the most money.

The responses were, well, not in agreement to say the least.

Fast forward a few years later, and Disney announce that the soon-to-be-released ‘Luca’ will be released on Disney+ but crucially, will not command an additional fee on top of normal subscription charges.

This isn’t sitting well with Pixar employees:

In many ways, this tweet speaks to the ego of cinematic filmmaking. When only a select few films got made let alone receive a cinematic release, those films are seemingly ‘better’ than ever other.

With times a changing, Pixar’s latest and greatest find themselves on the same playing field as every foreign, independent, and two-bit animation studio out there. Does this devalue their work? No, but it clearly stings to realise that you’re not creating superior films based on some grand, artistic purpose that the cinema ordains upon its releases. Instead you’re creating a film that’s just a flash-in-the-pan along with a million others. Vying for attention down in the televisual muck in a dogged, scrappy fight that will never end.

Such feelings are also somewhat disingenuous. Feeling ‘demoralised’ is one thing, but to be so at a time when many of Pixar’s former colleagues at Blue Sky are out of a job and looking for work?

Another flake falls from the facade to reveal a bloated ego filled with hubris and Pixar’s reputation tarnishes a little further.

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Here’s the Reasons Disney Shuttered Blue Sky

Analysis /

Deadline are relaying the news many were fearing ever since Disney acquired FOX in 2019. Blue Sky was owned by FOX and its long-term future was in doubt with many wondering whether Disney would retain a third feature animation studio. That question is now answered, and the answer is no. Blue Sky will be wound up in April (two months from writing) and all features currently in progress are cancelled.

Impacts

Blue Sky had about 450 talented employees and was the only major feature animation studio on the US east coast. Far removed from the industry hub in California, but very close to some of the top schools in the country.

With Blue Sky gone, the wider region as a whole will feel the impact. Retaining talent in the greater NYC area will be more difficult, and the pool of resources will shrink as a result.

This is all the more depressing when we keep hearing stories about how the animation industry is booming and business has never been better. There may not have been room for Blue Sky within Disney, but there certainly was room for it within the wider industry.

Disney decided not to simply spin-off or sell Blue Sky, and while this says a lot about Disney (they don’t want to create competition if they can avoid it), it also suggests that they felt they couldn’t find a buyer if they tried.

Is the industry saturated with studios?

It’s certainly possible. Major feature studios are a dime a dozen, especially once you look overseas, and even in the US they are more than a few:

  • Disney Feature Animation
  • Pixar
  • DreamWorks (NBCUniversal)
  • ReelFX
  • Laika
  • Sony
  • Warner Bros.
  • Paramount

and these are just the major ones. There’s dozens of independent and boutique studios putting out their own films or producing on behalf of the likes of Netflix. Throw in the oversees studios such as Illumination and suddenly the marketplace does seem a bit crowded.

Despite the fact that animation is weathering the COVID storm much better than live-action, it has also lost the ability to release films in cinemas; perhaps the last level playing field remaining for film releases. Some studios’ decisions to switch to a ‘digital-first’ or simultaneous digital/cinema release can’t have helped matters either. Streaming is booming, but the economics for streaming services other than Netflix remain a bit murky.

The release decisions behind films such as ‘Onward’ and ‘Soul’ are less about pioneering digital so much as hard economics; studios do after all, have to pay for the films before they earn a cent from them. COVID certainly brought the inevitable changes forward by a good half-decade, but many studios were not prepared for the change and were still producing films based on the expected revenues from a theatrical release. This, I believe, was probably the last nail in the coffin for Blue Sky.

What Likely Killed Blue Sky

As alluded to in Disney’s statement:

“Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios.”

This is true for a few reasons

The first is that FOX never had their own streaming service. They relied on Hulu but that service is very much known more for TV than for films even though it does carry the latter. Without its own service, Blue Sky’s films were relegated to other streaming services and were never able to build their own niche with audiences.

Secondly, because of this, there is no audience eagerly awaiting the next Blue Sky release. FOX never crafted a unique brand image for the studio that spoke to the kind of films it made. Instead, Blue Sky became synonymous with ‘Ice Age’; a single franchise.

Thirdly, because of the first two reasons and perhaps most critically, Disney simply felt they already extracted all the value from the studio already. By that I mean that moving forward, all signs point to Disney+ as being the primary avenue for delivering new content from Disney as a whole. There is also the matter of library content of which Disney has a vast and rich collection of animated features of its own let alone Pixar’s. Crucially, it now also owns Blue Sky’s as well. The main value of Blue Sky as far as Disney+ is concerned is in its library, and by owning that, they can extract revenue without the cost of producing new films.

Yet they are producing new Disney Feature and Pixar films, why not for Blue Sky as well?

Simply put, it’s a combination of all three factors. Blue Sky wasn’t afforded the chance to build their own streaming audience or to build a brand image that aroused excitement from such an audience. Now that they are owned by Disney, that company is not going to spend the time, effort and money to do so because they don’t perceive a payoff down the line (doubly so with COVID) AND because they’ve already paid for Blue Sky’s library which is valuable in itself.

Contrast it with Disney’s purchase of Pixar back in 2006 when the latter was very much firing on all cylinders with audiences salivating at the though of each new film, and heralded a new way of making films that people wanted to see. Disney had neither and saw great value in acquiring Pixar for not only their library of films but also for their upcoming slate AND their way of doing business. Does Blue Sky add any of that to the greater Disney empire? Nope.

The demise of Blue Sky was perhaps inevitable as innovators outmaneuvered not just it, but its parent company FOX as well. There’s a reason Rupert Murdoch decided to sell it after all. What the future holds for the wider industry is unclear, but it does hint that further consolidation is likely.

Although this is not surprising in the least, it’s downright disappointing that Disney did not find a better solution for the sake of Blue Sky’s employees and the east coast as a whole.

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