• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

The Troubling Pixar Paradox

Recent misses and low expectations for ‘Elemental’ beg the question: Has Pixar lost its magic touch? Perhaps the answer is that original animation is now a smaller business—one that can’t necessarily support the unique culture and $200 million budgets that made Pixar great in the first place.

Pixar’s leader Pete Docter and ‘Inside Out‘ producer Jonas Rivera. Photo: Fotonoticias/WireImage
Matthew Belloni
June 16, 2023

Last time I walked onto the Pixar campus up in Emeryville—past that giant Luxo, Jr. lamp and the Lego Woody and Buzz—it was to interview its co-founder, Ed Catmull. That was late summer of 2015, at arguably the high point of the company, and I could feel the bravado, even from the quiet, all-business Catmull. Pixar had just released Inside Out, maybe its most original and entertaining film, which grossed $850 million worldwide in theaters. It capped an incredible run of 15 innovative and profitable features, dating back to Toy Story, in 1995. (The Good Dinosaur, released later in 2015, would snap the Pixar streak, grossing only $334 million.)