7/30/2023 0 Comments Antz directorKatzenberg later denied that those phone calls had taken place. In the Business Week article, Jobs said that he told Lasseter, “There’s a word in the dictionary for this, it’s called extortion.” Shortly thereafter, Katzenberg offered a deal: He would cancel production on “Antz” if Disney would move “A Bug's Life” away from “The Prince of Egypt.” Lasseter, somehow, was even angrier, storming into Pixar CEO Steve Jobs’ office. We were just cannon fodder in his fight with Disney." (This was during the time that Katzenberg had engaged in a costly legal battle with Michael Eisner over profit sharing - the court would ultimately rule in Katzenberg’s favor.) That's when I realized, it wasn't about me. In the Business Week article, Lasseter said that he called Katzenberg and said: “Jeffrey, how could you?” Lasseter went on: “ started talking about all this paranoid stuff about conspiracies - that Disney was out to get him. In terms of the official story, Lasseter claims to have read about the film’s development in the trades.ĭavid Price’s book, “The Pixar Touch,” recounts that Katzenberg gave PDI “rich financial incentives” to make sure they could beat Pixar to the punch. Supposedly, it was PDI chief Carl Rosendahl who broke the news to Lasseter about the development of “Antz.” Rosendahl laid it all out for Lasseter: DreamWorks had agreed to purchase 40% of the struggling PDI, but only if the studio could deliver “Antz” before “Bug's Life.” (“Antz” was originally scheduled for the spring of 1999, but it was then moved to October 2, 1998.) Katzenberg wanted “The Prince of Egypt” to be a sensation and was noticeably concerned about going up against Pixar’s sophomore feature, so he quietly put a second, computer-animated project into development: “Antz,” with the animation being handled by Pacific Data Images, a studio closely associated with Pixar. That was the same timeframe that Katzenberg had earmarked for DreamWorks’ first animated epic, a splashy biblical tale called “ The Prince of Egypt” that featured a starry vocal cast (among them: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra Bullock, and J eff Goldblum) and creative principles all mined from Disney (lyricist Stephen Schwartz, composer Hans Zimmer, and co-director Brenda Chapman). Lasseter had told Katzenberg that Disney and Pixar hoped to have “Bugs” (finally “A Bug’s Life”) ready by the fall of 1998. Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released.” And the when of it was incredibly important. In Walter Isaacson’s “ Steve Jobs” biography, Lasseter said, “I should have been wary. A Business Week article from 1998 noted that, “Lasseter left the meeting with no sense of concern.” ![]() A year before the film hit theaters, a then-nascent Pixar started developing its second feature, then called, simply, “Bugs.” But in the years since “Toy Story’s” celebrated release, Jeffrey Katzenberg, a top Disney executive who was chiefly responsible for bringing Pixar to Disney, defected, ultimately forming DreamWorks SKG with pals Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.īy the time “Toy Story” was in post-production on the Universal lot, DreamWorks had already set up shop nearby, and “Toy Story” director John Lasseter had stopped by the new office to talk about their follow-up project (“Bugs”) and get some friendly creative input from his former boss. ![]() Not only was it a technological breakthrough, serving as history’s very first fully computer animated feature, but it was also an emotionally resonant and artistically sound creative accomplishment, too. In 1995, “ Toy Story” was released to a rapturous response. “A Bug’s Life” and “Antz” weren’t just conspicuously similar animated features, they were mastheads in a violent battle between warring corporate entities. And while these days, both movies are hardly remembered aside from the unfortunate fact that they both star widely-accused sex offenders ( yikes), the behind-the-scenes tumult that surrounded their production and release remains as fascinating as ever. Twenty years ago, one of the strangest cinematic showdowns occurred, between Pixar's " A Bug's Life" and Dreamworks' " Antz."īoth movies star computer-generated insects and both battled for box office supremacy.
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