Submitted by: kirkland on Sunday February 22nd, 2004 at 02:51 PM EST

In a decisive move, Steve Jobs, CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, pulled the plug in late January on discussions about the company's marketing and distribution deal with Walt Disney.

Citing failure to strike a deal after 10 months of negotiations, Jobs said it was unlikely that the two partners would reconcile their differences and that it was time to move on.

Coming after a string of successful Pixar-Disney releases, the announcement set off a storm of speculation in Hollywood and on Wall Street about Pixar's future and about potential replacement partners for the company. Many noted that the long-standing animosity between Jobs and Disney CEO Michael Eisner probably contributed to the break-off of the talks and wondered about the terms Pixar, given its extraordinary run so far, might demand of any new partner.

In an earnings conference call on Feb. 4, Pixar executives announced that the firm had almost quintupled its fourth-quarter earnings, compared with the same period the previous year. Much of that boost came from the runaway success of its most recent blockbuster film, "Finding Nemo." According to CNNmoney, the animation studio has augmented Disney's profits to the tune of $1 billion so far. Profits notwithstanding, making a deal on Jobs' terms may have proved too much for the equally strong-willed Michael Eisner. Jobs had been trying to negotiate a new agreement, whereby Pixar would receive a larger share of the take from both upcoming releases and as-yet unmade films.

Unlike Disney's traditional hand-drawn animation, Pixar's 1995 movie "Toy Story" was the first completely computer animated feature film.

In the same year, Pixar went public; the $140 million initial public offering beat out Netscape's to become the biggest of the year.

In 1997, Disney and Pixar renegotiated their deal, agreeing that they would make five original movies together in a "co-production" model. Both companies would share equally in the profits of each film and related merchandise and other products. The year 1998 saw "A Bug's Life"; "Toy Story 2" was released in 1999 (though, as a sequel, and it did not count toward the five-picture deal). In 2001, the two companies released "Monsters, Inc." to wide acclaim. And last year's "Finding Nemo" took the cake, becoming the biggest-grossing animated film of all time. The final two movies to be made under the Pixar-Disney agreement, "The Incredibles" and "Cars," are slated to come out later this year and next year, respectively.

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