When Toy Story premiered on big screens across the country on Thanksgiving weekend in 1995, it was the first ever fully computer-animated feature film. The movie, distributed by Disney, became the highest grossing film of the year and went on to make $358 million worldwide.
But Toy Story and its cast of tin, plastic and wooden characters was not conceived overnight. In fact, the film reflects more than nine years of creative and technical achievements. The characters moviegoers grew to love, including Andy, Woody and the space ranger Buzz Lightyear, were the imaginative creations of Pixar Animation Studios, located in Northern California.
It is hard to believe that Pixar, which now employs more than 600 people, started back in 1986 with just 44 employees. One person who has been with the studio since its inception is Toy Story‘s director and Pixar’s executive vice president of creative, John Lasseter.
In 1984, Lasseter left his job at Disney to join the computer graphics division of filmmaker George Lucas‘ LucasFilm, Ltd. Lasseter did some memorable work there, including a celebrated sequence in the feature Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985.
Two years later, Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilms’ computer animation division, establishing it as an independent company named Pixar. Lasseter was aboard as a director, and Ed Catmull, who had led the division at Lucasfilm since 1979, was named Pixar’s co-founder and CTO. Also in 1986, the Pixar short Luxo Jr. was released to acclaim, and received a Best Short Film Academy Award nod.
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Pixar spent the next several years establishing itself with other critically acclaimed short films including Red’s Dream, Knickknack and Tin Toy. By 1990, the company had gotten involved in commercial work, producing ads for campaigns such as the California Lottery’s “Dancing Cards,” the Lifesaver Holes’ “Babies,” and those Listerine bottles that went swinging like Tarzan through the jungle (you remember those!).
May of 1991 brought a tremendous development for Pixar when it partnered up with Disney, the company that ought to know quality animation–Disney’s been in the animated film biz since 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, traditionally creating such feature films as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King using the labor-intensive hand-drawn process of creating 2D cel animation.
But computers were about to become part of the equation. Pixar signed a deal with Walt Disney Pictures to develop and produce up to three computer animated feature films for Disney to distribute–hence the creation of the hugely successful first-ever completely computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, in 1995.
New technology allowed Toy Story‘s filmmakers to re-create the three-dimensional quality of the toys while simultaneously rendering human traits; the film became ’95’s highest grossing, making an earth shattering $192 million domestic box office and earning a Special Achievement Academy Award for the film’s director, John Lasseter.
But Toy Story wasn’t Pixar’s only success of 1995; the company went public, and its IPO beats Netscape Communications as the year’s biggest.
In 1997, Disney and Pixar revamped their agreement, with plans to make five movies rather than three. The following year A Bug’s Life was released, making more than $163 million and becoming the year’s most successful animated film. And then 1999, a banner year: Toy Story 2, the first film to ever be entirely created and exhibited digitally, hit theaters to become that year’s highest grossing animated feature and the first animated film ever to gross more than its original with $245 million in receipts.
Pixar and Disney released their next, Monsters, Inc., in 2001, and that film has the largest three-day opening ever for an animated film. It reaches $100 million in nine days.
Next up, the studio will kick off the summer ’03 season with its newest, the underwater adventure tale Finding Nemo, which opens nationwide May 30.
By 2003, Pixar had grown into a company employing more than 600 people in its digs in Emeryville, Calif., and its team has earned 13 Oscars, one Golden Globe and one Grammy. To think Toy Story was just the beginning for this little computer animation studio that could!
Read on for more about Pixar’s feature films…
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Pixar’s Features: Synopses
Toy Story
Woody, a traditional pull-string talking cowboy, has long been six-year-old Andy’s favorite toy. But his place of honor as favorite toy is jeopardized upon the arrival of Buzz Lightyear, a cool astronaut action figurine. When Woody’s plot to get rid of Buzz backfires and the two end up lost in the outside world, they learn that the only chance they have of survival is through mutual trust and respect.
Toy Story 2
When Andy goes off to summer camp, an obsessive toy collector kidnaps Woody because he is a valuable collector’s item. Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, Rex and Hamm, all leap into action to rescue Woody and get home before Andy returns from camp.
A Bug’s Life
A gang of grasshoppers led by the evil Hopper threatens an ant colony. A misfit and common ant named Flik tries to rise to heroic proportions by enlisting a band of circus fleas to help him defend his colony from the grasshoppers.
Monsters, Inc.
Welcome to Monsters, Inc., the largest scare factory in the monster world! Among the top scarers are James “Sully” Sullivan, a huge intimidating monster with blue fur, large purple spots and horns and his scare assistant, a lime green, opinionated, fiesty, one-eyed monster. Things go awry when a little girl named Boo leaves the human world to visit Monsters, Inc.–especially since monsters believe children are toxic.
Finding Nemo
Two fish, Malin and his young son Nemo, are separated from each other in the Great Barrier Reef when Nemo is unexpectedly taken from his home and thrust into a fish tank in a dentist’s office overlooking Sydney Harbor. Malin embarks on an epic journey to rescue his son, while Nemo hatches a few plans of his own to return home.
