How I gave Disney a happy ending
The genius who took legendary studio to new heights
JOHN Lasseter is boss of the legendary Walt Disney Animation Studios and is using a combination of artistry and commercial nous to transform a moribund legacy into a global commercial powerhouse. In the words of one of his creations, Buzz Lightyear, he is aiming ‘To infinity and beyond’.
The Studios’ Oscar-winning chief creative officer is also a co-founder of Pixar, which was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion in 2006.
Lasseter, 60, produced every Pixar hit from Monsters Inc, Toy Story (where the slightly confused space ranger Buzz first appeared in 1995), to Finding Nemo and its latest, Cars 3, which saw the actors from the film in the pit lane of the British Grand Prix last weekend.
Cars 3, the latest in a series of movies about talking cars made by Disney’s Pixar division, is among hits which drove Disney to become the first studio to break $7 billion in box office revenue last year.
But just a decade ago, its movie division had been bruised by underperforming sequels and made just $729million in 2006. By 2016 this had risen to $2.7billion, boosted by blockbusters including Zootropolis and Moana.
Disney likes to say its success comes from a sprinkling of pixie dust, but Lasseter is a little more hard-edged. His aim has been to bring the magic back to Disney – by very careful calculation. Lasseter says Disney’s downturn had been driven by cynicism.
‘The directors, story people, animators were fantastic. Unbelievable. But the leadership before us felt the world had grown too cynical for a sincere fairytale and for that classic Disney type of storytelling.
‘Every movie had to be a smart alec making fun of stuff and I knew that was not right. I knew that Los Angeles was too cynical because I had lived in Northern California.
‘So when I came back, I said, “I want to bring back this type of classic Disney storytelling but it had to be told through today’s audiences.”’ He adds: ‘I changed the name immediately from Disney feature animation to Walt Disney Animation Studios because I wanted everyone there to see that Walt Disney’s name is going to be on the front of this picture. I said, “We have to make films that are worthy of Walt and worthy of that name.” It paid off.’
The turning point was Frozen, the 2013 adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Snow Queen. Walt Disney himself had considered turning it into a movie but Lasseter gave it a contemporary sparkle – and turned it into a box-office blockbuster.
It became a phenomenon thanks to cutting-edge computer-animation and catchy tunes composed by Robert Lopez, who co-created edgy musicals The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q. Frozen raced to a total gross of $1.3billion making it the most successful animated movie and the ninth-highest-grossing film of all time. Buzz and his Toy Story pals have grossed $1.9billion across all three films.
‘I encourage every production team for every movie to do exhaustive amounts of research about their subject. Music, customs. We want to get the details right. We want to tell stories all around the world,’ says Lasseter. ‘The thing I love is getting to deeper levels and it is all through research. It is hard work but we don’t take the easy route. We don’t carbon copy another sequel to print money. We start from scratch to bring something to the world that is meaningful.’
Last year’s smash hit was Zootropolis, a comedy adventure mystery about an unlikely partnership between a fox and a rabbit who joins the police in a city run by animals. Its computer-generated visuals of course appeal to children but Lasseter says adults enjoyed it too as it deals with issues they can understand. ‘Zootropolis is such a classic Disney kind of movie, a talking animal movie where they walk upright and wear clothes but it’s for today’s audiences. They all have smartphones. They ride on trains and work together. It’s a story of stereotyping, of bias and prejudice and we got the idea because we were doing our research.
‘In the world of mammals there are only two groups – predators and prey. Well, prey animals outnumber predators by ten to one so if they all had an equal vote, who is going to be in charge?’
It won the best animated movie Oscar and made $1billion worldwide, according to analysts Box Office Mojo, making it the fourthhighest-grossing movie of 2016.
It is a far cry from when Lasseter took up his current role 11 years ago. Disney’s latest releases, Treasure Planet and Brother Bear, had flopped so the company’s chief executive Bob Iger called on Lasseter to save Walt Disney Animation Studios.
It was ironic as the studio had once fired him for being an early proponent of computer animation. Lasseter is famous for his flamboyant shirts and when we meet he is sporting one which features some of his most well-known creations, from Lightning McQueen in Cars to Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, Pixar’s first movie. Animation runs in his family. ‘My mother was an art teacher so I was surrounded by the arts and I was drawing constantly. Cartoons were always my favourite thing and Disney cartoons have a special place. I loved the Warner Brothers cartoons as well, especially the cartoons of Chuck Jones, but the Disney films had heart. My favourite movie of all time was Dumbo.’
Lasseter says that a transformational moment came when he was at school and read a book about animation. ‘It dawned on me that people actually make cartoons for a living. You can actually do that for a job and be paid for it.’
He studied at California Institute of the Arts and took a part-time job as a ride operator in Disneyland, one of 14 parks that he now advises on the design of. In 1984, he joined Pixar’s predecessor which was owned by Star Wars founder George Lucas and was sold to Apple founder Steve Jobs two years later.
Lasseter wrote and directed 1995’s Toy Story which was the first computer-animated feature film and put Pixar on the road to becoming a Hollywood powerhouse.
‘Pixar is a studio of pioneers. We invented computer animation in movies and have been rebels. Steve Jobs was our CEO. Talk about a rebel. He just kept pushing and being risky and trying.
‘With Toy Story we made a list of all the things we didn’t want the movie to be which is all the things Disney was doing so well with their fairytales. We didn’t want our movies to have an “I want” song, we didn’t want to have typical sidekicks and a villain. Out of that came this genre of the buddy picture.
‘If you look at each of the princesses that I have been involved with, they are not waiting around for a guy to come and save them. That is something we have put a lot of effort into.’
Lasseter’s combination of art and shrewd business know-how has provided Disney with just the kind of happy endings it has always liked.
I said, “We have to make films that are worthy of Walt and worthy of that name.” It paid off
Music, customs. We want to get the details right. We want to tell stories around the world