Disney > Pixar

Pixar Animation Studio’s partnership with Disney has created the highest grossing children’s movies around. Pixar was founded by George Lucas, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter in 1979 to take computer graphics and create a whole new way of experiencing feature-length family films. Joined By Steve jobs in 1986, Pixar was able to fund their first minor films such as Luxo Jr., Reds Dream, Tin Toy, and Knick Knack before partnering with Disney in 1991 to make a computer-generated animated movies. Disney-Pixar’s first real hit was Toy Story, released in 1995 made 30 million dollars,nearly breaking even their budget, and just under 362 million dollars worldwide.

In the popular documentary, Inside Pixar, John Lasseter tells the audience that it takes Pixar about 4 years to create an animated movie. Between Toy Story’s release in 1995 to 2009, Pixar has released “ten feature-length motion pictures: Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredible’s, Car’s, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and UP” according to, Is Pixar Out of Ideas? by Jason Bailey. Since then, 3 of the 4 films released were sequels to the previous movies such as Toy Story 3, Cars 2, and Monsters University. Rumor has it that Pixar will also be releasing a sequel to Finding Nemo called Finding Dory. The only original movie since then was Brave, which was not as popular as past movies.

Is it that Pixar is out of ideas? Disney strayed away from their classic cartoon look of Lion King or Snow White, and started making animated films like Princess and the Frog and Tangled which were released in 2009 and 2010. These movies have a similar animated look to those of Pixar, taking away the special style of those movies. Princess and the Frog and Tangled were also released right around the decline of Pixar. With Disney Animated Studio’s cranking out such popular movies, Pixar doesn’t stand a chance.

The newest Disney Animated feature-length film, Frozen was released in November of 2013, and since its opening, the songs and characters from the movie went viral. The craze has not only surfaced with children, but also adults all around the world. The movie was just named the highest grossing animated film ever bringing in 1.072 billion dollars worldwide.  The movie features two sisters, one with magical snow powers. Between the captivating characters, extraordinary talent and catchy songs such as “Let It Go“, it was no surprised that this animated film captured the hearts of people all over the world. It is possible that the success of Disney has contributed to the decline of Pixar’s movies. With extreme hits like this, how can Pixar compete?