On the outside we see Pixar as the most amazing success story…
But when you delve deeper, all wasn’t as it seemed.
Before the original Toy Story was released, Pixar was haemorrhaging money, and if it wasn’t for Steve Jobs pumping in $50 million over 10 years the business would have folded.
The reason for this? Pixar didn’t have a plan and got stung by one sided contract terms.
Originally Jobs bought Pixar from Star Wars creator George Lucas, because they had created an amazing imaging computer, and Jobs thought he could build a great business around it.
They had 4 business units, and none of them looked likely to make much money.
Although Pixar had never made an animated full-length movie before, Job’s managed to get a deal with Disney, who agreed to pay their production costs across a 3-movie deal.
But this wasn’t their saviour, as the agreement tied Pixar in knots, and gave them less than 10% of the box office takings. Each movie had to be a mega hit for Pixar to make to little bit of money.
Even Steve Jobs got caught out with complicated and one-sided contract clauses, which were heavily weighted towards Disney. Pixar were close to folding.
As a last throw of the dice, Jobs reached out to Lawrence Levy. Lawrence came in and quickly identified animated movies were the only business unit with a chance to save Pixar.
And after claiming royalty cash from Microsoft, which gave the team time to finish Toy Story, he took Pixar public and persuaded Disney to re-negotiate the one-sided agreement.
Following Pixar’s unparalleled success with movies like the Incredibles, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo, Disney bought them in 2006 for $7.4 billion, making Job’s a multi-billionaire.
The moral of the story, read the full terms and conditions of any contract before you sign.
Although our office technology agreements don’t need much reading, as they’re on simple rolling monthly plans with come with a fixed price guarantee, with no strings attached.
…there’re no high paid lawyers required when working with MY Total Office Solutions.
