Circle 7 Animation
 |
|
| Division | |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Predecessor | Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | Michael Eisner |
| Defunct | May 26, 2006 |
| Headquarters | Glendale, CA, US |
|
Key people
|
Andrew Millstein |
| Products |
|
|
Number of employees
|
168 (2006) |
| Parent |
Walt Disney Feature Animation (Walt Disney Studios) |
Circle 7 Animation, or Disney Circle 7 Animation, was a short-lived division of Walt Disney Feature Animation specializing in computer generated imagery (CGI) animation and was originally intended to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties, leading rivals and animators to derisively nickname the division "Pixaren't". The studio did not release any films during its existence and none of its scripts were used by Pixar.
The division was named after the street where its studio was located. Circle Seven Drive in Glendale, California is also home to KABC-TV.
Pixar and Disney originally had a seven film distribution agreement that gave Disney full ownership of Pixar's feature films and characters, as well as sequel rights. With the success of Toy Story 2 in 1999, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and then-Pixar owner Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of a continued relationship. Eisner claimed that Toy Story 2, as it was a sequel, did not count towards the "original" film count of the agreement, though Jobs disagreed. Jobs announced in January 2004 — after 10 months of negotiations — that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. Jobs wanted Pixar to receive most of the profits that their films made (giving Disney the standard 10% distribution fee) as well as full ownership of any future films and characters that the studio would create post-Cars (2006). Eisner found these terms unacceptable.
Pixar executive producer John Lasseter, who had personally directed Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), and Toy Story 2 (1999), was distraught at the breakdown of the Disney-Pixar relationship, as he was worried about what Disney might do with the characters Pixar had created. When he had to announce what had happened at a meeting of Pixar's 800 employees, he reportedly said, through tears, "It's like you have these dear children and you have to give them up to be adopted by convicted child molesters."
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Wikipedia