Can Disney, Pixar stay on top?
Amid turmoil in Hollywood’s animation sector, competitors are closing in on the industry giants
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood’s animation business is slowly playing out its own mythic dramas, albeit with less-catchy music.
Companies are beset by mergers or #MeToo scandals. Studios are wedded to big ambitions, or shackled to past successes. And internal questions are only the start.
Leaders such as Disney and Pixar are trying to maintain dominance over the field, while close competitors, such as Illumination, are closing in. Once-great studios such as DreamWorks are struggling to find their way back. And wellfunded upstarts, from Sony to Netflix, are seeking to knock them off.
“We are witnessing fundamental change right before our eyes,” said Dan Sarto, editor at Animation World Network. “It’s totally unprecedented. Everything is subject to disruption.”
At stake is not just which Hollywood conglomerate will reap financial bounties — major franchises such as Toy Story can take in $2 billion or more globally — but which will define the tone and style of animation moviegoers see for years to come.
John Lasseter has been one of just a few people to define the modern animation zeitgeist: slick computer-generated kids’ tales with simultaneously serious themes for adults.
He achieved the feat first at Pixar and, in recent years, at Disney. But despite what many thought would be a lifetime tenure, Lasseter has stepped down, accused of unwanted sexual advances and promoting an unsafe work culture.
The news set the companies — and industry — on their ears. While this month’s Ralph Breaks The Internet and next year’s Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4 are decidedly Lasseter pieces, the longer term brings a large degree of uncertainty.
Disney promoted two in-house filmmakers, Jennifer Lee and Pete Docter, to run the creative sides of Disney Animation and Pixar. Each has a deep track record in crafting stories that kids can understand but parents can appreciate — the heartbreaking opening montage in Up about an elderly man’s life with his beloved late wife, for example.
But neither has any executive experience, provoking skepticism about whether the pair will run the business side or placate their corporate bosses as skilfully as Lasseter was known to do.
Meanwhile, Illumination Entertainment, a company founded just 11 years ago and owned by Universal Pictures parent Comcast, has become a quiet force, claiming two of the Top 5 all-time global animation hits in Minions and Despicable Me 3, the only titles on the list not from Disney-Pixar.
“They’ve done a great job with quality and consistency,” said Doug Creutz, a senior research analyst at Cowen who covers animation.
But Illumination has work to do on the Oscar front: Disney-Pixar has won the animation prize 10 of the past 11 years, including six in a row. Illumination has never been nominated.
“Even if Illumination takes share from Pixar (with Lasseter gone), I still think there’s room for all three,” added Creutz of the ranking of companies by market share. “It’s below them where things get really interesting.”
Right below them, in fact, is DreamWorks, a one-time megalith searching fervently for its identity after a sale to Universal and the exit of the pioneering Jeffrey Katzenberg.
At the helm now is Chris DeFaria, a former Warner Bros. executive who oversaw the penguin musical Happy Feet.
In February, DreamWorks will release How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the third film in its Oscar-nominated crownjewel series that has totalled $1.1 billion in global ticket sales. DreamWorks has high hopes — Steven Spielberg even gave notes to Dragon’s director Dean DeBlois, according to a person familiar with the production who was not authorized to talk about it publicly.