steve jobs Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Last week I attended the Macintosh love-fest known as Macworld Expo and was one of the thrilled spectators at the infamous keynote where Apple honcho Steve Jobs told us all about the new iPhone and Apple TV. As I looked around the crowded room I noticed several people that I recognized -- including a couple of TV execs and Disney CEO Robert Iger.

At the time, I also wondered at the absence of other movie studio execs. Usually, when Jobs announces something big, as he did with the iPhone and its deal with Cingular, he brings out a bigwig from the company in question to talk about it and say how great it will be working with Apple -- as he did with Cingular CEO Stan Sigman.

It has now been one week since Apple started selling movies through its iTunes service, and, with only one studio participating (Disney, which includes Miramax, Pixar and Touchstone), the company has already sold 125,000 downloads, earning $1 million. While this may not be much in comparison to a single movie's weekly DVD earnings, it's a pretty good debut for a product that has far fewer benefits. However, the initial numbers could be a sign of people's curiosity, with the possibility that disappointment with the service could decrease returns as time goes by. I doubt that any more studios will announce a jump-on as soon as this week, but if the movies sell another million by this time next Tuesday, the rest of Hollywood should be quick to get in on the profits.

Disney is expecting their total earnings to reach $50 million within one year.

News of the iTunes movie download service just keeps on a comin'! Just yesterday I told you of the leaks regarding an upcoming announcement from Apple and some of the expectations for a time-frame of when we can expect the service to begin. Now, thanks to iPodHub.net, I can also tell you about some of the movies that will be available within the first few years (not sure why they can't put 'em out all at once, but whatever). So far, only Disney and Lionsgate titles have managed to slide onto the net(see the list after the jump).

The site also mentioned a rumored name change for iTunes in the works. This makes sense since iTunes is now selling shows and movies in addition to tunes, but really, the name is so well-known as a brand that I can't imagine Apple would bother. The change wouldn't happen for a long time and may depend on how well the movies sell. For now the current iTunes software will simply include a "movie store" link in the menu sidebar.

According to the trades this morning, Apple is interested in offering movies for sale at iTunes. You don't say! In other news, the sky is blue. I mean, really -- we all knew this was just a matter of time, right? Now, though, Apple has stopped just fantasizing about movies on iPods, and have started negotiating with "major studios" with the goal of having films for sale by the end of the year. The major issue under discussion, not surprisingly, is how much those films will cost: Steve Jobs wanted to offer them for $9.99 across the board, no matter the film or the studio. While that sounds nice to us consumers, studio heads immediately nixed the idea, saying right up front that they need to gouge us for the stuff we really want: "We cant," one negotiator said, "be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff."

Because there are several established companies already offering movies for download, Apple doesn't have the market-stranglehold that has allowed them to pretty much dictate the terms of their deals with the companies providing music and television shows to iTunes, and the guess is that the final price for movies will range between $9.99 and $19.99, depending on how many people want to see a given film. The deal, rumored to be done last February, seems to still a ways off; we'll let you know when it happens.

You know that big announcement that Apple's Steve Jobs is scheduled to make this afternoon? Our friend C.K. Sample over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog is speculating that the new big roll out has nothing to do with the new Mac tablet or iPod Video, or any other new hardware gadget caught in the web of hopeful rumor. C.K. says, "The announcement is going to be all about movies coming to the iTMS."

He's got three bits of evidence. First, iTunes used New Music Tuesday to debut a batch of Oscar nominated short films in the Music Store; second, the people who usually get tipped off when Apple debuts new hardware (like Kevin Rose of Digg) seem to have no such edge this week; and lastly, there's this article from CNN Money, by Owen Thomas of Business 2.0. Thomas sites Jobs' buddy-buddy relationship with Disney, the sucess of the iTunes TV show business, and the relatively short-notice nature of these procedings, as reasons to believe that "Apple might go Hollywood".

What do you think about this? The TUAW readers, as usual, take C.K.'s provocation and run with it, and I think the very first two comments on the post are on to something. "Oscars are this week also, a perfect time to roll out some advertisements," writes Ryan Meyers. "I really hope this happens, been waiting for this forever. Instant-cinema." Not everyone is so excited: LD writes: "Would be a shame if it's just movies. I don't want to watch movies on an iPod and without a "media center" type of solution I can't really watch on my 50" plasma, not to mention the quality is crap from iTMS." As C.K. points out, Ryan Block from our big brother Engadget was one of the select members of the press invited down to the Cupertino event. It all leads me to believe that Jobs might not just be rolling out new content – he might also have a new kind of hardware for us to play it on.

The announcement goes down around 10 AM PST/1 PM EST. We'll be watching Engadget and TUAW's live coverage with bated breath.

Now that the whole "I hate you, you hate me" venom has been cleared up between Disney and Pixar - with the former slurping up the latter for a pretty penny - it seems that the newly-crafted Frankenstein of animation is coming out with fresh news for fans every week. Today brings word that Disney has announced that Ratatouille, a planned Pixar flick about a rat who lives in a French restaurant, will release in Summer 2007, which will have it premiering a couple months after the late-spring release of Spider-Man 3.  Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett will voice the chef who runs the restaurant.

The real question, of course, is when we're going to see a sequel to The Incredibles. No, you can't improve upon a classic.  But I sure wouldn't mind seeing Brad Bird and team crank out another compelling tale of the Parr family. This would be a welcome follow-up announcement to the news that Toy Story 3 was unceremoniously dropped from Disney's production schedule. (Can't you just picture John Lasseter begging Jobs to sell the company to the House of Mouse for no other reason than to cancel that film?)

As previously speculated, Disney's purchase of Pixar - to be completed this summer - will be an all-stock one worth about $7.4 billion. Though no layoffs have been announced, the purchase of Pixar is expected to have a major impact on the employees of Disney's existent animation division. Right now, however, only the top level is changing: Steve Jobs is joining Disney's board (and, as previously mentioned, will be one of the company's biggest shareholder), and Pixar's heads are sliding into the leadership positions of the newly-created Pixar and Disney animation studios.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies and needs only the vote of Pixar's shareholders to go through. And, Since Steve Jobs personally owns just over 50% of Pixar stock, it's safe to say that Disney won't be jumping the gun too much with today's press conference (scheduled for 515pm ET).

The fallout from this massive buy will certainly be extensive; we'll be bringing you the highlights as they happen.

According to this morning's Telegraph, "The board of Pixar Animation Studios, the digital animations company, is set to meet tomorrow to approve the company's $7 billion (£3.9 billion) takeover by Disney." As we reported earlier, the deal - if it goes through - would make Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder (not to mention about $3.5 billion richer. Yes. Bilion.). Though the web is now treating this as a done deal, John Frost at the Disney Blog is a voice of reason, pointing out that we can't be "certain that the boards will approve the deal" (though since Jobs holds 51% of Pixar stock, it'll probably get by that board pretty smoothly) until the results of the meetings are officially announced.

If/when this goes through, we'll update you on the final, mind-blowing terms of the deal.

After months and months of speculation about whether Disney and Pixar would continue working together at all (for the past 12 years, Disney has "distribute[d] and co-finance[d]...Pixar movies"), it appears that Disney may have just decided to swallow Pixar whole. According to a report in today's Wall Street Journal, unnamed sources indicated that in a possible deal, "Disney would pay a nominal premium to Pixar's current market value of $6.7 billion" in stock transaction that would leave Steve Jobs (in addition to being king of the world, he's also Pixar's CEO) Disney's "largest individual stockholder."

Whoa. Keep in mind, however, that this is NOT a done deal. In addition, those same unnamed sources told the Journal that "other options are possible," so a buyout isn't necessarily the only way this relationship will continue. Still, though - whoa. We'll be following this throughout the day, and will post updates as we get them.