On one morning, David, along with his assistant Charlize and a few others, arrived at the gates of Pixar Animation Studios.
Someone was already waiting for them at the entrance and immediately welcomed them inside.
"Hello Mr. Frost, I'm Ed Catmull, President of Pixar. Welcome to Pixar Animation Studios."
"Thank you, Mr. Catmull."
The person responsible for hosting David today is Ed Catmull or Edwin Catmull as his full name. He is currently the co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios.
He used to work at Lucasfilm, the former parent company of Pixar Animation Studios. Back then, Pixar was still known as the Graphics Group.
After separating the Graphics Group and renaming it to Pixar, Steve Jobs bought the majority stake for $5 million. He invested another $5 million as he joined the board of directors as the chairman.
Ed Catmull stayed at Pixar, acting as its President, overseeing everything with Steve Jobs.
Enthusiastically welcoming David inside the establishment, all of them walked inside while happily conversing with each other.
David was full of expectations for the tour inside the studio, and he was not disappointed. The atmosphere inside was very casual and relaxed. There were a lot of creative elements that give off a leisure air.
Before his eyes were various animators, designers, and artists busily working together in their own separate groups.
One key detail David could immediately notice was how few groups they were. It seems like their current state weren't as big as he was imagining.
Maybe a total of a few tens of employees, all of them were steadily completing their own projects.
While talking about them, Ed Catmull was very proud as if all of it was his achievement, telling stories and details about every department they pass through.
"Although the number of employees we have is quite low compared to others, we more than enough to complete all our ongoing projects. Whenever we would need the assistance of some more helpers, we can easily hire some more. There is no shortage of animators after all."
"Currently, we are only capable of focusing on a limited number of films at the same time, but we have plans to increase the number of projects we can work on by the next year."
Ed Catmull spoke with full confidence. Maybe he really believed it, or maybe it was just a bluff, but David nodded generously. In his heart, what Ed Catmull said can easily be understood.
They have plans for Pixar, but that was it, just plans for the future, not now.
Every company has future plans, and this doesn't change anything at all today.
David knows that Pixar has been attempting many projects while seeing almost no success.
In the following years after Steve Jobs bought Pixar, they have only continued to lose money, and rumors circulated that Steve Jobs was finding buyers for Pixar to focus on his other company NeXT.
Steve Jobs had slowly lost confidence in Pixar, and the only reason he had a tiny hope was because of their current cooperation with Disney.
If they somehow failed in Toy Story, no one knows whether Steve Jobs would want to keep this company. Fortunately, David knew they succeeded, and it was only the beginning of their lucrative run.
But no one knows this yet.
David wanted to take advantage of the company's doubt on Toy Story's success to get a piece of it.
...
"Thank you for coming today, Mr. Frost."
David shook hands with Ed Catmull before saying goodbye and leaving.
The purpose of today's visit was only to talk about some details about the company. They never spoke about the investment in Toy Story.
Of course, David was very confident that he would be able to get a piece of Toy Story because why would they be inviting him?
They had toured around the entire Pixar Studio and met with the employees. From their faces when hearing his questions, David could feel their doubts and confusion about the project.
The release of Toy Story is still many months away, and it looks like they also won't prolong the negotiations.
Computer animated movies haven't experienced any commercial success yet, so it was normal that there were many skeptics and doubts surrounding the project.
This is tens of millions of dollars of money put on a film. If this fails, maybe Steve Jobs would just let this company go bankrupt rather than try to save it with his own money.
...
Pixar Animation Studios.
Steve Jobs.
After David left, Ed Catmull directly went to Steve Jobs, who was already waiting for him in his office.
"How is it?"
"It looks like he's not lying on his intention to invest."
"Boss, do we accept his investments?"
The third person in the office spoke, directing his eyes on Steve Jobs.
The person who spoke just now was John Lasseter, another one of the core executives of Pixar. He is also the current director of the movie Toy Story.
At the same time, he serves as the Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation Studios.
After Disney acquires Pixar, he would then serve as the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
John Lasseter began his career as an animator at The Walt Disney Company. After being fired from Disney for promoting computer animation, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the Graphics Group of Lucasfilm.
When the Graphics Group, which was established as Pixar, was sold to Steve Jobs, John Lasseter stayed on the company.
He then went on to oversee all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. In addition, he directed Toy Story in 1995, A Bug's Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Cars in 2006, and Cars 2 in 2011.
From 2006 to 2018, when Disney now acquired Pixar, John Lasseter also oversaw all of Walt Disney Animation Studios and its division Disneytoon Studios' films and associated projects as executive producer.
The films he has made have grossed more than $19 billion, making him one of the most successful filmmakers of all time.
Of the eight animated films that have grossed more than $1 billion, five of them are films executive produced by him.
The films include Toy Story 3, which was the first animated film to pass $1 billion. Frozen, the 3rd highest-grossing computer-animated film of all time, as well as Zootopia, Finding Dory, and Incredibles 2.
These computer-animated films have not only madly harvested box office around the world, but also the income in the surrounding peripherals ended up becoming more than the total box office of many of their biggest films.
And you can't deny John Lasseter's contribution to all of it. His fame is too great in the field of animation.
"Of course, we will accept his investment. If someone is willing to jump down the pit with us, then it's their choice in the end."
Steve Jobs values David's investments very much as this will save him a lot of headaches down the line. There were simply too many risks surrounding Toy Story, and he doesn't like it at all.
"But would he accept our price?"
Hearing this question, Steve Jobs didn't know what to say.
Although he is a person with sky-high self-confidence, he can't trick his own self. He was not very optimistic about the computer-animated film Toy Story.
Even though the visuals are great, for a commercial film, it is a new kind of film. The public might not want to see it.
First off, it's a story about toys, how could they attract people to the cinemas. Would it be limited to kids? Second, the budget is too high, and the marketing cost isn't even included in the calculation yet.
They would need a high box office to break even. To make a profit? They would need a lot more than that.
In the beginning, he had the idea of making a fortune like Disney, but after failing to profit from their animated films, he couldn't help but doubt his decision. Maybe he really should put all his focus on his computer company NeXT.
But now that another person wanted to join their ship, who is he to push him away? Come let's suffer together. If I fail, you will also fail.
"Huh? What? It's up to him. No other person wants to invest in the film anyway. Besides, he also has his own company. Maybe he can contribute some publicity."
Well, Steve Jobs is such a person. He will never show weakness, and he will never admit defeat.