Here is a little more, from DVDExclusive.com, on the deal. The part I'm most excited about, I'm highlighting in bold.
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http://www.dvdexclusive.com/article.asp?articleID=2680
DISNEY SECURES PIXAR SEQUELS
As biggest animated movies stay in Mouse House
By Jennifer Netherby 1/30/2006
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With its $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios, the Walt Disney Co. said it will move forward with sequels to some of its most profitable movies in recent years while keeping the original animation team in place.
Pixar's The Incredibles--distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment--was the top-performing movie on home video in 2005, and the company's previous releases of Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo broke records on DVD.
"The addition of Pixar significantly enhances Disney animation, which is a critical creative engine for driving growth across our businesses," Disney president and CEO Bob Iger said in a statement.
The deal is an all-stock transaction set to close by early summer. Under terms of the deal, Pixar stockholders will get 2.3 Disney shares for each Pixar share.
The deal makes Pixar chairman and CEO Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder. Jobs, also chairman and CEO of Apple Computer, owns 60% of Pixar shares. As part of the deal, he will join Disney's board as a director.
Jobs' powerful new role could help chart a new future course at the studio. Not only has Disney secured the top CGI-production company under its roof, but its biggest shareholder heads a company that has led in the digital video download space at a time when studios are moving their content into the digital arena.
When asked in a conference call following the announcement, Iger and Jobs were vague on what the merger could mean for digital distribution.
"The goal here above all else is to make great animated films; the rest kind of takes care of itself," Iger said.
Before the acquisition, Disney was preparing to make sequels to Pixar films on its own if the two companies parted ways. Iger and Jobs said the original creative team would be brought in to make the sequels.
Pixar president Ed Catmull will continue as president of the combined Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, reporting to Iger and Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook. Pixar executive VP John Lasseter will join the merged company as chief creative officer and will serve as principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering.
"We don't think there's any reason that a sequel can't be as good or even better than the original," Jobs said. "And we certainly strived for that with Toy Story 2. So we don't see sequels as second-class citizens. We see them as first-class citizens. And as Bob said, there's nobody [who can] try to make a film as good or better than the original than the people involved with the original."
It's unclear if sequels will be theatrical releases or whether the companies also are considering making lower budget sequels following Disney's successful DVD premiere strategy employed for other franchises.
In 2000, BVHE released the only video premiere created under the partnership, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, which sold an impressive 3 million videocassettes and DVDs during its first week in stores. The release was timed to kick off the Saturday morning cartoon series Disney/Pixar's Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
BVHE handled distribution, marketing and publicity for Pixar DVD releases under the previous partnership, so not much is expected to change when Pixar becomes a division of Disney.
Disney and Pixar animation units will keep their current operations and remain in their respective locations.
Iger said the stability is important to preserving the Pixar culture, which he said is the reason for the company's film success.
"I am really deeply committed to seeing that Pixar is allowed to exist in the form that it has existed," Iger said.
Disney senior VP and chief financial officer Tom Staggs said the company believes the acquisition will benefit Disney's feature animation division and could maximize the value of any sequels made to Pixar films. Jobs said the companies have already begun to consider which properties deserve sequels.
Before the acquisition, Disney's partnership with Pixar was slated to end with the release of Cars, due in theaters on June 9. Disney and Pixar began their film co-financing and distribution partnership in 1991 with the release of Toy Story. The companies' CGI films have been some of the top animated performers in theaters and on home video.
Disney's first in-house CGI film, Chicken Little, is due on DVD on March 21. The film earned $100 million in theaters, less than half of what Pixar's last film, The Incredibles, earned.
Jobs said that despite negotiating with other studios for distribution deals, in the end because of Pixar and Disney's film library, "nobody could offer us what Disney could offer us."
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I sure hope that Pixar will feel their sequels are worthy of going to the theater, first, rather than putting them direct to video.
Other than that, I'm excited that all sequels will be made by the original creative team.
I doubt Pixar executives are going to receive training like recently hired cast-members....but you never know.
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