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There's this genuinely eerie passage in Karen Paik 's " To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios " ( Chronicle Books , November 2007), which talks about how a single book basically changed the course of John Lasseter 's life. In ninth grade, Lasseter was searching the art section...

As part of their classic comedy routine, " The 2000 Year Old Man ," Carl Reiner asked Mel Brooks what he attributed his amazing longevity to. To which Mel replied: "I never, ever touch fried food. And I never run for a bus. There'll always be another." I bring up Brooks' bus joke for a reason. In that...

It was the super-secret holiday movie that you weren't supposed to know about. Until Bob Hoskins -- in a July 4th interview with EmpireOnline -- revealed that ... "... ( Robert Zemeckis ) is going to make A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey . He wants me to play Mr Fezziwig. He's doing in...

Okay. I admit it. Maybe -- just maybe -- the folks at Walt Disney Studios actually do know what they are doing. Case in point: " Ratatouille ." When this Brad Bird film only sold $47 million worth of tickets over its opening weekend (Which was at least 20% less than the $60 million that industry experts...

If you go strictly by the numbers, there aren't really a whole lot of reasons to be happy with the way " Ratatouille " performed this past weekend. Were you to compare how this new Brad Bird film opened versus how other earlier Pixar movies did over their opening weekends ... Title of Movie Year Released...

It is one of the more intriguing aspects of the production history of Pixar 's latest, " Ratatouille ." The fact that this animated feature started off with one director (I.E. Jan Pinkava , who helmed this animation studio's Academy Award-winning short , " Geri's Game ") yet wound up being completed...

Here's the official party line for the Walt Disney Company nowadays : That everyone who works in Burbank is just thrilled that John Lasseter & Ed Catmull now exert so much control over the corporation. More importantly, that all Mouse House employees have been eager to embrace Pixar 's "Quality is...

Earlier this week, Perry T. sent me the following e-mail : Jim, Are you as sick as I am about how the Imagineers keep forcing characters into older attractions at the Disney theme parks? Just in the past six months, we've had that new " Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor " show replace the Magic Kingdom 's old...

You know what's really striking about Andreas Deja ? Not that he's such an accomplished animator, the talent behind such memorable Disney characters as Gaston in " Beauty & the Beast ," Jafar in " Aladdin ," Scar in " The Lion King ," the title character in " Hercules " as well as one of the title...

Did anyone else find it kind of bizarre that Disney's PR flaks are already out there, trying to spin " Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End " 's box office results ? Okay, admittedly this Gore Verbinski film didn't top " Spider-Man 3 " 's stateside opening weekend numbers ... But -- that said -...

There is this rather brutal business-related saying. Which -- at various different times -- has been attributed to Gore Vidal , Genegis Khan , Larry Ellison , David Merrick and Attila the Hun . "It is not enough that I succeed. My enemies must fail." Now, given that I know that several executives at...