Disney Pixar Discussion

[ShyViolet]

Whoa WJ, cool avatar!!!

Honestly, I didn't even "recognize" you at first!


You're like "The Master of Disguise" with all your changing avs!

[Ben]

???

[ShyViolet]

I mean 'cause he always changes his avatars, sometimes you don't even realize it's him if you don't check the name!

[Ben]

No, sorry...my "???" was asking why WJ was so pleased I said that about Walt and CGI.

We musta been posting...wait, get this...<I>AT THE SAME TIME!!!</I>

[ShyViolet]

I think maybe WJ was trying to say that with everyone wringing their hands over the "loss" of 2d animation, it's good to be "real" about it and say: "Well, Walt would probably have embraced CGI as well."

[Daniel]

I have reasons for thinking what I do, true based on conjecture mixed what I read (as does anyone) but if it upsets you guys THAT much, I"ll try to limit what I say about it.

You already know how I feel, so....

[Ben]

Ahhh, gotcha. I was curious as to why WJ was SO happy about that!

Anyhoo, glad I made someone's day.

[ShyViolet]

In conjunction with the front page article, I thought I'd start a thread on this....(wasn't sure what it would fall under though.)


TAG comments here:

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... falls.html


So funny how no one mentioned that little faux pas Michael Eisner committed back in 1984 when someone told him they run "BVD" and he answered: "I didn't know Disney made underwear."







Question: Was Disney at one time also briefly distributed, or maybe funded, by Silver Screen partners IV?

You see their name on a lot of the early productions, even Oliver and company.

[Ben]

Silver Screen Partners were a series of investment vehicles.

Disney uppsed with them when they were in their II period in 1984 and continued the arrangement until they reached IV in the early-mid '90s, after which Disney was big enough to finance their own movies.

Beauty And The Beast was a IV production.

[ShyViolet]

Beauty And The Beast was a IV production.

I know Dick Tracy was IV as well--that's where I got the "IV" from. I've seen that movie an ungodly number of times, so that's how I remember.

[Ben]

Can't believe they're talking about dropping BV... Walt himself developed that title just so incase he wanted to put stuff out <I>without</I> the Disney name attached.

It's a good, fall-back company structure that sees all the Disney family studios come out through the one same channel.

Some of those feedbacks just don't get the plot, do they?

[ShyViolet]

I personally think Iger's just doing this so he can telegraph to the world: "Hey everyone! I'm not Michael Eisner!" so any kind of "change" (no matter how redundant, pointless, or even potentially destructive) seems like "progress."

[ShyViolet]

Silver Screen Partners were a series of investment vehicles.

Disney uppsed with them when they were in their II period in 1984 and continued the arrangement until they reached IV in the early-mid '90s, after which Disney was big enough to finance their own movies.

Beauty And The Beast was a IV production.

I've read of Silver Screen in books and articles but still not 100% clear on who or what they were. Ben, can you explain further? Thanks!

[Ben]

Silver Screen Partners is a privately owned film investment company founded in 1983 by Roland W. Betts and Thomas Bernstein.

It was originally "Silver Screen Management" and they signed a deal to co-produce several films with the then-Coca Cola owned Columbia Pictures, and HBO.

In 1984 they switched the name to "Silver Screen Partners Co", creating a production deal with the then cash-strapped Disney to essentially fund their movies.

From this point until they "closed" in 1992, George W. Bush was a member of the Board of Directors (Betts and Bush were members of the same fraternity at Yale).

As tends to happen with investment firms to protect their capital and for tax reasons, the name changed over the years. Though the same "company" the name change means that successes or failures under the previous incarnation could be written off or the money safely invested in another vehicle.

They essentially bankrolled Disney until two things happened: they began to see more and more films come in as "flops", and Disney began making enough money from the partnership to not have to rely on Silver Screen.

Silver Screen Partners films:
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0133016/

Silver Screen Partners II films:
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0077024/

Silver Screen Partners III films:
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0076881/

Silver Screen Partners IV films:
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0133018/

You can see from the list that although the earlier films were fruitful, the "III" and "IV" titles contain a fair amount of clunkers. By 1992, they had contributed money to more than 75 animated features and live-action films released under the Disney, Buena Vista and Touchstone Pictures labels, but since then Betts and Bernstein have not produced or financed any projects for any studio.

Hope that helps!

[eddievalient]

I think dropping the BV name is a terrible idea. In recent years they've mainly been using it to release things that they own the rights to but aren't Disney productions, for example the Marvel Comics cartoons (X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, etc). If they drop the BV name, there's a good chance that the Marvel shows will never be seen again, cause if you think about it would they really release Spider-Man under the Walt Disney name? Probably not. Why in the world would they drop that channel of distribution and leave fans like me out in the cold? Especially since it means that I might have to-gasp!-download the Marvel shows in order to see them (which I think would be completely justifiable until Disney releases them which, again, I doubt they will)!