OK, so you’ve got a successful formula going at Pixar, but what of the rest of Tinseltown and its tendency to settle for the merely OK? That’s never going to fly with you, so the only thing to do is take over. When Pixar was bought by Disney in 2007, John Lasseter became Chief Creative Officer at the Mouse House, and set about cleaning up the town. Visiting Walt Disney Animation Studios nowadays, you find a culture that bears more than a little resemblance to its northern neighbour, with the same open-plan layout and emphasis on learning and discussion. There’s even a breakfast bar full of free cereal. Lasseter, after bringing old-skool Disney working practices to Pixar, has now re-exported them to the mothership, at the same time that he and Catmull assumed control of Disney Animation (and, in Lasseter’s case, became head of the theme-park Imagineers to boot).

Elsewhere, Brad Bird’s going live-action with Mission: Impossible IV and Andrew Stanton’s already there on John Carter Of Mars. It’s only a matter of time before Pixar’s ethos and/or personnel take over every film being made, we enter a second movie Golden Age and world peace spontaneously breaks out.

The moral of the story:
If you’ve found a strategy that works, share it with the less fortunate! And bring back hand-drawn animation to Disney while you’re about it.