Chapter 111: Pixar

In recent years, Wang Jie is not ready to put several major heroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, etc. on the big screen, in addition to the technical impermissibility, there are also considerations for maximizing economic interests, and now the world film market has not yet been maximized. When it comes to Spider-Man's copyright, the island man Lion opened his mouth and asked for a copyright fee of five million US dollars, which is worth 5 million US dollars in the 80s is equivalent to the purchasing power of 40 million US dollars in the 21st century, although the US dollar has depreciated very quickly recently. Wang Jie told the negotiators that there was no need to bargain anymore, and directly paid Sony Columbia 5 million dollars to recover all the copyrights of Spider-Man, but Wang Jie suffered such a big loss, and Sony Columbia Pictures should not have a good time in the future.

In June this year, Jobs, who had just stepped down, wanted to buy the computer animation department of Lucasfilm, George Lucas was not very concerned about the animation department that lost money, so he advocated directly agreeing to sell, because Wang Jie owned most of the shares of Lucasfilm in this life, so he politely rejected Jobs after learning the news, and then Wang Jie directly split the computer animation department to form a new company, Wang Jie named it Pixar Animation Studio.

As soon as Pixar Animation Studio was established, Wang Jie injected $10 million into the studio to update equipment and future research and development funds.

The Pixar company of the original time and space has attracted the attention of the world since its inception. At their first performance at SIGGRAPH, their animated short film was met with applause. Moreover, their works have become classics of computer animation. Their animations are included in the textbooks for computer animation teaching. Pixar videos produced every year are Oscar favorites. After Steve Jobs founded Pixar, Ed Catmull was appointed as Pixar's co-founder and general director of technology. At this time, Pixar had a total of 44 employees. Later, in 1988, Pixar's self-developed program RenderMan was officially launched. In the 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, first prize at the 3rd Los Angeles International Animation Festival, and a BAA Cordon Bleu Award. The first Oscar-winning animated short film and the source of the idea for Toy Story, Pixar looks at their owners from the perspective of their owners: children, who look to them like devils! In 1990, Pixar moved to a single-story office building in Portridgemon, California. Here, Pixar created several commercials: "Dancing Cards" for the California Lottery, "La Nouvelle Polo" for Volkswagen, and "Babies" for life insurance companies, among others. The animated short film Knick Knuck, which won the Best Short Film Award at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Best Animation Award at the Badalona Film Festival in Barcelona. In May 1991, Pixar took a historic step by partnering with entertainment giant Disney. From 1937's "Snow White" to 2002's "Treasure Island", 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 1992, the Computer-Aided Production System (CAPS), developed by Pixar's R&D team, won an Academy Award for Science and Engineering. In 1993, after shooting nine commercials, Pixar created a corporate identity for IBM. The RenderMan program development team won the Academy Award for Science and Engineering. In 1994, the corporate logo was created for Paramount Pictures. In 1995, Pixar was listed. On November 22 of the same year (Thanksgiving), Pixar was also the world's first fully computer-produced animated feature film, Toy Story, released in the United States (distributed by Disney). The film broke the record for an animated film with $192 million, became the 1995 U.S. box office winner, set a global box office record of $360 million, and won director John Lasseter an Academy Award for Special Achievement. The film's huge success also contributed to the fact that Pixar's boss, Steve Jobs, was brought back by the collapse of 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 2".

In 1996, John Lasatt won the Academy Award for Special Achievement, and Toy Story was nominated for the Oscars for Best Score (Musical Comedy), Best Theme Song, Best Original Screenplay, and in the same year, it was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture and Best Theme Song in the Musical Comedy category. In 1997, Pixar reached a further agreement with Disney and decided to join forces to produce five animated feature films. In June, Pixar expanded its staffing to 375 and expanded its office space to two floors. In the same year, Pixar released the short film "Geri's Game", which made significant improvements in the materials of the animated characters' skins and costumes.

On November 25, 1998, Disney's second computer-animated feature film with Pixar was released. "Bug Crisis" earned a total of $163 million in North America and $362 million at the global box office, beating out DreamWorks' "Ant Soldier" launched at the same time to become the box office champion of animated feature films that year. In the same year, "Geri's Game" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and Pixar's Marionette 3-D animation system and digital graphics technology won the Academy Award for Science and Engineering. On November 24, 1999, the world's first fully digitally produced film, Toy Story 2, was released, breaking opening week box office records in the United States, the United Kingdom, RB and other places. This third computer-animated feature film from Disney and Pixar follows Toy Story. With the box office performance of "Toy Story 2" of $245 million, director John Lasseter is known as one of the top ten most profitable directors in Hollywood, along with Spielberg and James Cameron. That same year, Bug Crisis was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Film/TV Performance Score and the Academy Award for Best Score in the Musical Comedy category, and the PixarVision won the Academy Award for Technical Achievement. In 2000, Pixar moved to a new office building in Emeryville, California. In the same year, "Toy Story 2" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture and Best Original Song in the Musical Comedy category, the Grammy Award for Best Film/TV Song and Best Children's Music Album, and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

On November 2, 2001, Disney collaborated with Pixar on its fourth computer-animated feature film, Monsters, Inc. Release. It broke the $100 million mark in 10 days, becoming the fastest animated film in film history to break 100 million, and the second highest-grossing animated film in the world at the time (second only to Disney's "The Lion King" in 1994). In the same year, Executive Vice President John Lasseter signed a 10-year full-time contract with Pixar. Pixar expanded its staff to 600 again. The RenderMan image design system received an Academy Award for Technology, and John Lasatt received an honorary degree from the Motion Picture Association of America. In 2002, Pixar was honored again by the Producers Guild of America with a Vanguard Award in recognition of its achievements in redeveloping new media and technologies. Released on May 30, 2003, "Finding Nemo" is the fifth computer-animated feature film produced by Disney in collaboration with Pixar. Pixar's record-breaking speed was truly astonishing, surpassing $100 million at the box office in just eight days, breaking the box office myth of "Monsters, Inc." Two weeks after its release, its box office had reached 143 million yuan, and finally broke the record of $328.5 million held by "The Lion King" at the national box office with a national box office of $340 million, and was named the highest-grossing animated film in American history. Pixar is challenging a new level, that is, it no longer relies on physical simulation technology to attract audiences, but goes beyond the original stage of computer animation in the past, and returns to the production mode that relies on the sublimation of content themes and the inner meaning of the plot, combining magical computer technology with traditional human concepts to create touching animated stories. With the proud results of "Finding Nemo", Pixar is considering changing its agreement with Disney. If Disney, which is responsible for the distribution, can't meet their requirements, Pixar will look for other partners. On November 5, 2004, Pixar set the record of the highest-grossing animated film in film history with "Finding Nemo", challenging the ultra-high animation technology with real people as the protagonist, and it is worth mentioning that "The Incredibles" is the first "action movie" in Pixar's history, and it is also the story of Pixar's first computer challenge to superheroes. In the same year, the commercial conflict between the emerging animation empire Pixar and the old traditional media empire Disney began to intensify. Beginning in 2003, the two sides began to discuss the renewal of the contract, and Disney continued to distribute the animation produced by the latter, but the negotiations broke down in January 2004, mainly due to the feud between the then Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Steve Jobs (the former called the computer-animated characters "pathetic", the latter called the sequel "humiliating") and the price was not negotiated. In 2004, Jobs had asked to share all rights to the film with Disney, but Disney refused. As a result, the two companies will end their partnership after the release of "Cars" in June 2006. After the two sides broke up, especially after Isner stepped down, Disney has struggled to restore its relationship with Pixar. Robert Iger, when he replaced his predecessor in October 2005, declared that reviving Disney's animation prowess would be his top priority. On January 23, 2006, the board of directors of Disney, the second largest media giant in the United States, authorized CEO Robert Iger to acquire Pixar Animation Company in the form of a $59 per share and a total bid of $7 billion, which cost 13% of Disney's shares, and Pixar's boss Steve Jobs also owned 6.05% of Disney's shares, becoming Disney's largest individual shareholder. Pixar's shareholder meeting on May 5 ultimately approved the $7.4 billion acquisition.

On June 9, 2006, "Cars", which had been delayed for more than half a year, was finally released. The film is co-directed by John Lasseter and Lee Anchorridge. Thanks to the new "ray tracing" technology, Pixar's films have been taken to the next level. On June 29, 2007, "Ratatouille" was released in the United States, and the film was directed by Brad Bird, the director who directed "The Incredibles". The film was a huge hit upon its release, earning $47.2 million in three days over the weekend, beating Bruce Willis' "Die Hard 4" to win the weekend title. On June 19, 2015, Pixar's animation masterpiece "Mind Squad" was released after a two-year absence, and "Jurassic World", which was attacking fiercely head-on, although it lost the first battle, still achieved a gratifying result of 90.44 million US dollars.

Wang Jie has a long-term plan for Pixar, and he knows that Pixar is unlikely to bring him any brokerage benefits in the short term, but he solemnly promised in a meeting with several executives of Pixar that he will not rush for quick success and will inject no less than five million US dollars into the company every year, which makes Pixar feel relieved and full of enthusiasm at the same time.

On December 1, 1987, Wang Jie returned to Xiangjiang, this time he wanted to prepare a film that promised Lin Qingxia, Wang Jie responded to Lin Qingxia's request, consulted the film and television materials in the supercomputer, and finally selected a movie that caused a huge sensation in the Asian region of the original time and space, it is "My Savage Girlfriend".