Popcorn Talk proudly presents Profiles with Malone and Mantz! In this vodcast series hosts Alicia Malone and Scott “Movie” Mantz break down and focus on some of the most prolific Hollywood directors, writers and actors in the entertainment industry – past & present. Pixar Animation Studios, or simply Pixar (//), is an American computer animation film studio based inEmeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction that resulted in Jobs becoming Disney’s largest single shareholder at the time. Luxo Jr., a character from a 1986 Pixar short film of the same name, is the mascot of the studio. Pixar has produced 14 feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995. Most of the films have received both critical and financial success, with a notable exception being Cars 2 (2011), which, while commercially successful, received substantially less praise than Pixar’s other productions. All 14 films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least “A−”, indicating a positive reception with audiences. The studio has also produced several short films. As of December 2013, its feature films have made over $8.6 billion worldwide, with an average worldwide gross of $616 million per film. Both Finding Nemo (2003) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are among the 50 highest-grossing filmsof all time, and 13 of Pixar’s films are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films. The latter is the second all-time highest, behind Walt Disney Animation Studios‘ Frozen, which grossed $1.27 billion in its initial release in comparison to Toy Story 3 ’s $1.064 billion. The studio has earned 15 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and 11 Grammy Awards, among manyother awards and acknowledgments. Since the award’s inauguration in 2001, most of Pixar’s films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Seven have won, including Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3, as well as The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), and Brave (2012).Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars (2006) are the only films that were nominated for the award, but did not win it. Upand Toy Story 3 were also the second and third animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (the first being Disney’s Beauty and the Beast). On September 6, 2009, executives John Lasseter, Brad Bird,Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich were presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the biennial Venice Film Festival. The award was presented by Lucasfilm founder George Lucas. Follow Alicia on Twitter! Follow Scott on Twitter! SUBSCRIBE TO PROFILES ON ITUNES!
