Disney to acquire Pixar Animation in stock-swap

Burbank (CA) - Putting an end to Pixar Animation’s distribution problems for good, the Walt Disney Company and Pixar have come to an agreement which will merge the two companies. In a 100% stock-swap arrangement valued at $7.4 billion, Pixar’s creative team will become the heads of the new Disney and Pixar animation studios, with both brands apparently remaining separate but equal.

Pixar president Dr. Ed Catmull becomes president of the new Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, reporting to Disney’s new CEO, Robert Iger. And in a land where fairy tales can come true if you stick to your dreams, John Lasseter, the Disney "Imagineer" animator whose work on the landmark film Tron inspired him to found Pixar, will become the combined studios’ new Chief Creative Officer, as well as leading the company’s newly refreshed "imagineering" efforts.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs, who has maintained the chairmanship of Pixar ever since he reclaimed the throne at Apple, will not become a Disney executive, yet will instead be named to the merged company’s Board of Directors. After the company’s historic restructuring which led to the bowing out of former Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner, and his being replaced with Iger as President/CEO and former Sen. George Mitchell as Chairman, a majority of Disney’s board seats were made "independent," in order to restore a system of checks and balances to the company. In the new structure, there will be 11 independent board members among the company’s 14. Jobs will be a non-independent member, meaning he is a stakeholder in the company, and will probably also draw some salary and benefits. Disney did not bestow upon Jobs a title, however.

The company did, however, grant Jobs some space in its press release this afternoon : "Disney and Pixar can now collaborate without the barriers that come from two different companies with two different sets of shareholders," Jobs stated. "Now, everyone can focus on what is most important, creating innovative stories, characters and films that delight millions of people around the world."

Bridging the cultural barriers that divide creative industries and multi-national media conglomerates, has historically not been the job that mergers have done best (see "AOL Time Warner"). But Disney already had made decisions to scale down its own animation division, eliminating its classical film-related workload entirely, producing much of its 2D animation through its Japanese computer animation division, and even experimenting with rendering Mickey, Goofy, and Winnie-the-Pooh in 3D.

When Pixar and Disney appeared to be parting ways last year, at first, it seemed Pixar had some alternative distribution routes available to it. But 20th Century-Fox made its compact with Blue Sky Productions, the force behind Ice Age and Robots ; while Dreamworks Animation became spun off, while its parent company became submerged into the virtual ice-age cavern that is the new Viacom. With Warner Bros. scaling back its animation efforts to a sadly familiar tune st-st-stuttered, perhaps, by a beloved pig, and Universal focused on finding a way to make its new corporate parent, NBC, into a network once again, all of a sudden, Disney seemed to be Pixar’s last, best option.

"With this transaction, we welcome and embrace Pixar’s unique culture, which for two decades, has fostered some of the most innovative and successful films in history," reads Robert Iger’s portion of this afternoon’s joint statement. "The addition of Pixar significantly enhances Disney animation, which is a critical creative engine for driving growth across our businesses." In other words, Pixar provides the talent, Disney the licensing and marketing, which is oddly enough where the two companies stood with respect to one another two years ago.