In listening to the Pixar quarterly analyst meeting, I came away with the distinct impression that Steve Jobs was willing to wait until the next CEO of Disney was announced. Jobs said he expected a game of musical chairs would occur in the film industry and it didn’t make sense to finalize a deal until then. It’s like a game of war and Pixar is holding all the cards.
The New York Times thinks Pixar and Disney could still end up together. But now that Disney, Sony, Dreamworks, and Warner Bros, all have CG animation features in the works, why would Pixar want to work with a close competitor? Maybe Pixar is just waiting for Disney to give up on the CG side and announce they’ll stick to traditional animation. That would make a lot of Disney fans happy too. Just a thought.