Joseph P. Lanham

The entertainment industry can leave you scratching your head until you've gone bald.  Pixar has developed a formula for success that is unprecedented in the history of movie making: Mix 10 parts creative types with 0 parts suits. The result:  Ten features, ten huge hits with domestic box office at close to $2.5 billion and an average opening weekend take of $56 million. In any other industry you'd have investors killing one another (figuratively or literally) to be the first, second or even third to replicate such a lights out business model - live action or animation.  It's a business game called "pioneers and settlers".

The pioneers head into the great unknown intent on conquering new worlds and reaping great rewards, otherwise they wouldn't take the risk.  Pioneers absorb all the arrows, cross the bad terrain, survive the inclement weather and obsess about if they left the space heater running.  Once it becomes known the pioneers have reached the Promised Land and its bounty, the settlers load up the wagons and head west stopping every ten minutes to congratulate one another and call their PR department to see if they can rate a feature article in Wired, Forbes or Business 2.0. 

In my example above, the Indians (audience) were all too happy to see the brave pioneers (Pixar) because of the respect they showed the natives and the mutual rewards the relationship could bring; wonderful movies built around imaginative stories populated with compelling characters. The settlers (Studios) showed up with the same old contaminated blankets, fire water and sanctimonious attitude of superiority then blamed the Indians and anybody else they could find for their failure.

Don't tell me live talent doesn't lend itself to the model. There are plenty of exceptional actors, writers and directors who would jump at the opportunity to create a groundbreaking studio, make good movies and reap the financial rewards. And they could do it without reminding everyone involved that an animated character can be made to do anything while humans are…well, humans.  And as for Emeryville, if you've ever been there then you know there's nothing special in the water.

So, why hasn't there been another Pixar?