If all went to plan, General Motors would have purchased Pixar all the way back in 1985, so writes Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, in his new book, “Creativity, Inc.”
The current president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, claims that General Motors was interested in the animation studio in order to usher in a new era of car design.
“General Motors was intrigued because we were leading the way in the modeling of objects, which they felt could be used in car design,” Autoblog quotes Catmull as saying.
General Motors wasn’t alone, though. Apparently Philips was interested in the animation studio as well, and at one point the two struck a deal to pay George Lucas $15 million for Pixar, and invest another $15 million into the company’s operations.
Fortunately for animated film fans this never happened. If GM had purchased Pixar, films like Toy Story and Cars may have never made it to the big screen. In fact, it’s likely Pixar would have never made an animated film. Then again, given GM’s penchant for putting its cars in the Transformers franchise, the Detroit car company may have seen some value in letting Pixar enter the movie biz.
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