Biz, 1/29.

In the wake of Disney's $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar, people seem to be talking a lot more about Steve Jobs than about Bob Iger. In Slate, Daniel Gross even goes so far as to write, "By acquiring a company with a charismatic, legendary, youngish CEO, Iger at the very least may have made his own job more difficult. At worst, he may have acquired himself out of a job. It's happened in the past."

We'll see how it pans out, but in Business Week, Peter Burrows and Ronald Grover have a less vulture-like take: "If [Jobs] can bring to Disney the same kind of industry-shaking, boundary-busting energy that has lifted Apple and Pixar sky-high, he could help the staid company become the leading laboratory for media convergence." Slashdotters discuss.

As for the other players, "'John Lasseter is probably the most respected single person in American animation,' said Kevin Koch, president of Animation Guild Local 839, the Hollywood animators' union. 'He's a creative leader without being overbearing or over-controlling.'" For the New York Times, Charles Solomon looks into the role to be played by the man who's done so much to make Pixar great, while Laura M Holson gathers the big numbers and big quotes. And the editors: "For Pixar and Apple, there is only an upside in this deal. The same is true for Disney, especially if it keeps shedding the ways of Mr Eisner's old company and allows itself to become what may turn out to be, in the end, Mr Jobs's company after all."

Similarly, in the Los Angeles Times, Richard Verrier and Dawn C Chmielewski do the Lasseter piece while Claudia Eller, Kim Christensen and Chmielewski offer the overview of implications of the deal as a whole. Eller follows up: Lasseter gets "greenlight" power.

Meanwhile, IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez reports on The Distribution Lab from Withoutabox "that will offer a suite of services to support filmmakers who plan to release their films themselves in various ways, including theatrical, DVD and on demand distribution. As part of the new program, participants will have access to ticketing, catalog management, accounting and online social networking and marketing solutions. A plan to offer DVD fulfillment and download distribution is also in the works."

Back to the NYT: Sharon Waxman on IFC's plans to release 24 films in theaters and on cable simultaneously and Caryn James: "Since the future is a big guess anyway, the Weinsteins might as well make it fresh."

You need to know about Trixie DVD. Sujewa Ekanayake explains it best.

The windfall deals you hear about stars and star directors scoring from studios don't really add up as impressively as they sound, explains Edward Jay Epstein in Slate and, disappointed that West Wing's been cancelled, Andy Bowers asks, "Why not continue the series on iTunes and cable/satellite pay-per-view?"

And while you're at Slate, snicker along with Bryan Curtis: "Art houses, the sanctuaries of cinephiles, have their own peculiar horrors. Despite their noble commitment to the movies, what happens there on a nightly basis is far more absurd than anything that happens in the multiplex."

Posted by dwhudson at January 29, 2006 4:14 PM