Thinking of Disney's family history, Zhou Fangyuan couldn't help but exude a little thought.

In fact, Disney's actions are worth plagiarizing from him, no, learn from them!

Look at Disney's methods, except for the TV network, Zhou Fangyuan may really not be able to do it, in other aspects, Zhou Fangyuan can actually do it now.

Pixar Animation, Lucasfilm, and Marvel Comics, these companies are not doing well these days.

Let's start with Pixar animation.

Pixar Animation was founded in 1984, when John Lasseter left Disney, where he had worked for many years, to join ILM, a subsidiary of Lucasfilm.

In 1986, the computer animation division of ILM, a subsidiary of Lucasfilm, was acquired by Steve Jobs for $10 million, officially becoming an independent production company, Pixar. Ed Catmoore, who has served as vice president of Lucas' film and animation division since 1979, has been appointed co-founder and general technical director of Pixar. At this time, Pixar had a total of 44 employees.

In 1987, Pixar's short film Luo Jr was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and won the Golden Gate Award, the first jury prize in the computer imaging category at the San Francisco International Film Festival. This short film is also the first animated short film produced by Pixar, and the main character in the film is the jumping lamp, which would become the symbol of Pixar, and it can give many meanings, such as tireless work, a hands-on style, inspiration and non-conformist personality

In 1989, Pixar's self-developed program Renderman was officially launched. That same year, Pixar made its first commercial for pure Connor juice: Wake Up. The animated short film Tin Toy won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the first prize at the 3rd Los Angeles International Animation Festival, and the National Film Association Cordon Bleu Award. It was the first Oscar-winning animated short film and the source of the idea for Toy Story, which looks at their owners from the perspective of a toy: the children, who in their eyes are demons!

It wasn't until May 1991 that Pixar took the historic step of partnering with entertainment giant Disney. From Snow White in 1937 to Treasure Island in 00, Disney, which has always been the supremacy of animation, has created one classic cartoon after another. The films are all hand-drawn, but sooner or later computers will be integrated into the creative field of animation. As a result, Pixar signed an agreement with Disney to produce three computer-animated feature films, which Disney was responsible for distribution. That same year, Pixar's show for Sesame Street won Best Film at the London Computer Animation Competition.

In 199, the computer-aided production system developed by Pixar's R&D team won the Academy Award for Science and Engineering.

Later, in 1993 and 1994, Pixar also produced corporate logos for IBM and Paramount Pictures, respectively.

In 1995, Pixar was listed. In November of the same year, Pixar, which is also the world's first fully computer-produced animated feature film, Toy Story, was released in the United States. The film broke the record for animated films at the box office of $1.9 billion, became the box office champion in the United States in 1995, set a box office record of $360 million worldwide, and won director John Lasseter an Oscar for Special Achievement. The film's huge success also contributed to the fact that Pixar's boss, Steve Jobs, was brought back by the failing Apple because he was worth $1 billion at this time, and begged the veteran to reorganize the country. Jobs readily agreed, and the iPod was Jobs' masterpiece after returning to Apple. Because of the deep popularity of the character, John Lasseter decided to shoot Toy Story. At the same time, Toy Story is also known as the third leap after Mickey Mouse gave the cartoon sound and Snow White gave the cartoon color to the cartoon 3D!

Then, in 1997, Pixar became even more out of control, reaching a further agreement with Disney, deciding to join forces to produce five animated feature films.

The bug crisis and Toy Story are all products of the cooperation between Pixar and Disney, and they both caused box office sensations that year, and Pixar's fame reached its peak in the industry.

And then in 001, this year, or just over a month ago, Disney's fourth computer-animated feature film, Monster Power, was released. It broke through the $100 million mark in 10 days, becoming the fastest animated film in film history to break 100 million, and will also become the second highest-grossing animated film in the world at this time.

However, behind the brilliance, Pixar animation hides a crisis.

What is the crisis?

Quite simply, the market is shrinking.

This is obvious, the audience of animated films is relatively small, although children have always been a huge group in society and an important part of the country, but it cannot be denied that children's spending power is indeed not high enough, they need to be accompanied by their parents in order to have a certain amount of spending power. But nowadays, with the vigorous development of the Internet, children have more ways to be entertained, although there is a concern in the whole society that with the gradual increase in children's love for computers, computers will seriously affect children's health. However, it must be said that the development of the Internet is the trend of the times, and no one can stop it. At the same time, parents can't completely restrict children's entertainment, so the future of animated films is in jeopardy.

Why did Disney have to transform into live-action movies in the later stage? It is because they saw this kind of urgency and couldn't wait to change their market from children to all ages, otherwise Disney, such a big company, such a large stock volume, once it really crashed, the consequences would be unimaginable. What's more, watching other film companies make a lot of money in the field of live-action films, it would be fake to say that Disney is not tempted.

And the current Pixar looks brilliant, but in fact, they make films with Disney, and Disney must share the profits, there is no doubt about it. But at the same time, as a joint investor, their own income can only be about 40%, even if it is a movie with a box office of one billion, there is only 400 million left in the hands of the two companies, and there are taxes and profits, how much money can Pixar get?

Why did they stay in tune with Disney until the later stage? It's very simple, because Pixar has less money, and at the same time, their scale has also increased, so their ambitions are bigger.

But nowadays, although the ambition is not large, it is absolutely impossible to say that you are satisfied with the share. A movie, with 100 million in the account, seems to be very profitable, but in fact, the cost of computer animation is much higher than that of hand-drawn animation. There is also a lot of money spent on developing a new production system, as well as labor costs and company operating costs, so how much money can Pixar make?

Why did they want to work with Disney? Isn't it because they don't have enough money?

In addition, in the release of animated films, Disney is a real bigwig, and they can only live by relying on people's noses. What kind of character Joe gang leader is, naturally he can't be satisfied with this situation, so the gap between Pixar and Disney has begun to get bigger and bigger, which can actually be seen by industry insiders.

As for saying that everyone doesn't do it immediately, in the final analysis, the animated film itself is not fully accepted by the entire market, after all, the audience is still limited to children with low spending power, and it really doesn't make much sense to buy such a company. And large companies have their own layouts, not to say that they can do what they want, and large companies are also responsible for shareholders, so don't look at Pixar is booming now, in fact, there are really not many large companies willing to take over. But they are still inseparable from Disney, so Pixar's current situation is only glamorous on the surface, and there is already a major crisis behind it, which is definitely not alarmist.

In the future, Pixar and Disney will unite with each other, in fact, it is a compromise with each other, because both sides see their own dangers, and they also know that if they don't join the animated film again, it will really be over, otherwise why would Disney accept Joe's share? Isn't it good to buy it directly? In the end, there is no way for Disney and Pixar to cooperate in the future, and the two sides must really unite together, so it will be much easier for Joe to join Disney.

After talking about Pixar, let's talk about Lucas.

Lucasfilm is George Lucas's company, and the company's most famous work is the Star Wars series, which has a very lofty position in the history of Zai Mi film, which is not much to repeat. Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic is also quite powerful, and it is currently the best special effects company in the world, and it is also the most famous.

But it's such a great company, and the current situation is not good.

Let's talk about Lucasfilm first, yes, he has a Star Wars series, but what about other than that? The audience likes the new and hates the old, especially the series of movies. Star Wars is very famous, but it has also gone downhill, and it seems that the box office is good, but looking at the continuous rise in movie ticket prices over the years, it can be seen that in fact, the number of Star Wars moviegoers is constantly decreasing. Any IP has a day when its life ends, and Star Wars is no exception, no one knows what the future will be, so no one can know what kind of achievements Star Wars will create in the future. According to the previous philosophy, anyone can see that without more changes, the fate of Star Wars will not last long.

In addition, there are no real works that can be taken, Lucasfilm is actually not very famous, at least in the industry, it is just a small company.

And his subordinate industrial light and magic is now becoming more and more prosperous. But so what? Everyone knows the high cost of movie special effects, and if you look at the global market, how many of the movies that are released every year have special effects? Those that do have special effects, and how many movies have more than one-tenth of the special effects? Very few, too little, too little.

Doing special effects is particularly money-burning, and the degree of money burning is even no less than making a movie directly. Today, when special effects movies are not popular, the life of industrial light and magic is not easy. After all, if you can't get more work, the company can't create higher profits, but Pixar, like Industrial Light & Magic, eats computer equipment, and if the equipment can't maintain its advanced and performance, it can't guarantee that it will make really good special effects. It can even be said that a computer can be used in other industries or other companies until the end of its life, but in companies like Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic, as long as the performance of the computer regresses, if it cannot be brought back up, it must be replaced with a new computer.

If there is a new development in computer hardware, a large number of devices must also follow suit.

You know, now is the era of digital electronics, the speed of hardware improvement is still changing day by day, and companies like Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic are under too much pressure to survive. Even if they look very good in the eyes of outsiders, everyone knows that in order to ensure the advancement of the equipment, they have to invest a large amount of money every year. However, the development of the relevant market is not satisfactory, if you are not looking forward to the future, and at the same time willing to keep the clouds open to see the sun and the moon, how many people are willing to burn so much money?

Also caught in this predicament is Marvel.

Marvel Comics is a comic giant with the same name as DC Comics, it was founded in 1939 and officially named Marvel in 1961, formerly translated as "Marvel Comics", and was once known as "Times Comics" and Atlas Comics.

In April 1939, the company created the world's first mutant superhero Namor in the inaugural issue of the movie comic book weekly, which was the first superhero of Marvel, he was half a year earlier than the establishment of the company, and in October of the same year, the company created the world's first cyborg superhero in the first issue of Marvel Comics, and introduced Namor into it, this dual cooperation of water and fire, played the first punch in the history of MARVEL. In the future, at the end of 009, Marvel will be acquired by Disney for $4.4 billion and become its subsidiary.

In September 010, Marvel announced its official Chinese name as "Marvel". It has superheroes such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain Rice, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Tekken, Ghost Rider, Blade, Barbarian Conan, and superhero teams such as Avengers, Sentros, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, S.H.I.E.L.D., Defenders of the Defenders, Inhumans, and the Illuminati.

Marvel is very powerful, the largest comic company in the United States, and has created countless comic characters, which can be said to be the favorite entertainment of the young generation in the United States.

However, with the development of society, traditional media has suffered a violent impact from the Internet, not only comics, but almost all traditional media industries have been severely impacted, and comics are undoubtedly the most serious one. The reason is that young people like the new and hate the old, the elderly like nostalgia, and young people like the trendy more. Today's rice country is no longer the rice country of decades ago. And today's market is no longer the same market it was a few decades ago.

It's hard to remember that Marvel killed DC in one fell swoop and became the most powerful comic book company in the United States, people call that era the Marvel era, and now, with the emergence of pop music, the Internet, and all kinds of new entertainment methods, Marvel immediately suffered a heavy blow. If Pixar and Lucas are still struggling to move forward, then Marvel is really getting worse day by day.

And this is undoubtedly a very important opportunity for Zhou Fangyuan.