Los Angeles — The most summer Pixar movies aren’t from Pixar. It’s from Apple TV + and John Lasseter, the filmmaker of the lightning rod that turned Pixar into a superpower.
Five years ago, Mr Lasseter was overthrown by allegations of his actions at work. Almost overnight, build Pixar from scratch, create a megawatt “Toy Story” and “Car” franchise, revive the dying Walt Disney animation, deliver “Frozen” and win an Oscar. Many of his achievements have been footnotes.
After the employee complains Unwanted hug According to Lasseter, Disney investigated and found that some of his men felt he was a tyrant. He was forced to resign as Disney Pixar’s animation chief and apologized for the “failure” that made the staff feel “despised and uncomfortable.”
65-year-old Lasseter is currently on the verge of professional redemption. His first animation feature since he left Disney-Pixar will arrive at Apple’s subscription streaming service on Friday. A $ 140 million movie called “Luck” shows an unlucky young woman in a secret world where magical creatures bring good luck (in the right place, at the right time) and bad luck (research and design of pet waste). In the lab, in the house it “). Things go awry and become a comedy adventure involving rare dragons, rabbits in hazmat suits, the millennial generation of leprechauns, and overweight German unicorns in too tight tracksuits.
Perhaps the only company that protects its brand more enthusiastically than Disney, Apple uses Lasseter as an important part of its “luck” marketing campaign. Directed by Peggy Holmes and produced by Lasseter, the movie’s ad explains that it came “from the creative foresight behind Toy Story and Cars.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook shared what the movie looked like in the company’s latest March. Product showcase event“Luck” is just the beginning of Apple’s bet on Skydance Media with Mr. Lasseter. Skydance Media is an independent studio that hired him as Animation Chief in 2019. (Skydance hired a lawyer to scrutinize Lasseter’s allegations and personally concluded that nothing was terrible.) Skydance Transactions to supply Apple TV + with multiple animated films and at least one animated series by 2024.
Dalit? Not Apple.
“I feel like some of me are back,” Lasseter said in a telephone interview, when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs made Pixar before selling it to Disney in 2006. He said he helped. I’m doing it. Quality, not quantity. And their marketing is just spectacular. It’s the best movie I’ve ever made, of all the movies I’ve ever made. “
Lasseter’s return to full-length filmmaking is at a difficult time for Disney Pixar. Disney Pixar seems to have lost a bit without him, as he misfired badly in the first part of “Toy Story” in June. The “lightyear” about Buzz Lightyear before it became a toy seemed to forget why the character was so loved. The film cost an estimated $ 300 million to produce and sell worldwide, spending about $ 220 million. This is even worse than Disney’s revenue, as the theater maintains at least 40% of ticket sales. “Light Year” is the second worst performing title in Pixar’s history and ranks higher than “Onward” announced in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Lasseter declined to comment on the “lightyear” arriving at Disney + on Wednesday. He also declined to discuss his departure from Disney.
Competition to dominate streaming TV
More than 50 people have followed Lasseter to Skydance from Disney and Pixar, including Holmes (“The Secret of the Wings”) he hired to oversee “luck.” The script for “Luck” is credited to Kiel Murray. Kiel Murray’s Pixar and Disney screenplays include “Cars” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Lasseter and Holmes have at least five people working on senior Lasseter crews, including animation director Yuriko Senu (“Tangled”) and production designer Fred Warter (“A Bug’s Life”). Hired a veteran of Disney Pixar.
Pixar’s “MagicHe has spoken so many characters over the decades that he appears in “luck” as Rooty, the unofficial mayor of the land of Bad Luck.
Conclusion: With its glittering animations, attention to detail, twists in the story, and emotional ending, “luck” has all the characteristics of a Pixar release. (Reviews arrive Wednesday.) Some people who watched this movie commented on the similarities between “luck” and 2001 Pixar’s classic “Monsters, Inc.” Both films contain an elaborate secret world that was accidentally destroyed by humans.
“People love to be there because I want to take the audience to a world that is so interesting, beautiful and wise,” Lasseter said. “We want the audience to book a week’s vacation to the place where the movie was just shown.”
However, it is true that Lasseter continues to be a polarized person in Hollywood.Ashlyn Anste, Director of Cartoon Network Told the Hollywood Reporter Last week she was dissatisfied with Skydance “making so-called creative geniuses take over the position and space in the industry that could begin to be filled with different people.”
Emma Thompson hasn’t changed her public position on Mr. Lasseter since he resigned from the role of “luck” in 2019. She was cast as the first director of the film, and she resigned when Mr. Lasseter participated in Skydance.
“It feels very strange to me that you and your company consider hiring someone with Lasseter’s cheating pattern,” Thompson said. Written in a letter To David Ellison, CEO of Skydance. (Her personality, humanity no longer exists in a radically remade movie.)
“Luck” director Holmes said he wasn’t worried about joining Lasseter in Skydance.
“It was a very, very positive experience and John was a great mentor,” she said.
Holly Edwards, president of Skydance Animation, a division of Skydance Media, responded to Holmes. “John was great,” she said. “We are proud to create an environment where people know that they have their own voice and that they can hear it,” Edwards said earlier in DreamWorks Animation for nearly 20 years. spent.
Some of Lasseter’s creative tactics haven’t changed. One is the willingness to overhaul the project thoroughly while it is on the assembly line. This includes things that can cause hurt feelings and fan blowbacks, such as the removal of a director. He believes that such decisions are difficult, but can be important for quality results.
For example, “luck” was already in the works when Mr. Lasseter arrived at Skydance. Alessandro Carloni (“Kung Fu Panda 3”) was hired as a film director to fight between lucky and unlucky human agents.
“The moment I heard the concept, I was really jealous,” Lasseter said. “It’s a subject that everyone in the world has a relationship with, and it’s very rare in the basic concept of cinema.”
But he eventually threw away almost everything and started over. Major performers include Jane Fonda, who speaks out a pink dragon that can sniff out bad luck, and Whoopi Goldberg, who plays the taskmaster of Dror Leprechaun. Flula Borg (“Pitch Perfect 2”) speaks out the main scene stealer, the overweight bipedal unicorn.
“Sometimes you have to take the building down to its foundation, and frankly, in this case, to that parcel,” Lasseter said.
Lasseter did not invent the concept of doing real research to inform the story or artwork of an animation, but he goes far beyond what is normally done. Is known for. On “luck,” he let researchers delve into what constitutes good luck and bad luck in a myriad of cultures. The filmmaking team also studied the foster parent system that told a part of the story. (The main character is raised as a foster parent and is repeatedly taken over for adoption.)
Like Pixar and Disney, Lasseter set up a “Story Trust” council in Skydance, where a group of elite directors and writers frankly and repeatedly criticized each other’s work. The Skydance animated version includes Brad Bird, a longtime Pixar force (“The Incredibles”, “Ratatouille”) who recently participated in Lasseter’s operation and developed an original animated film called “Reagan.” Will be included soon.
Holmes said Lasseter was not a tyrannical thing, but a creativity to nurture.
“John will give you a note about the sequence,” she said. “He proposes a dialogue. He comments on colors, timing and effects. He sells ideas for the story. He draws something —” Oh, maybe it looks like this. not.”
“And it’s up to you and your team to do it for those notes. Sometimes we go back to John and say the notes don’t work — and that’s why — or me. We decided that we didn’t have to deal with it. “
Holmes added: “If the answer is no, he’s really okay with that. He Are you sure you’re okay.. “
