February 2, 2022

How to beat Pixar at its own game

Pixar has produced 24 beloved movies since its debut in 1995. For over a generation, Pixar has dependably produced adorable, marketable animated films and arguably dominated the genre. A filmmaker looking to compete in the market might want to know: what makes these films so successful?

Well, I have crunched the numbers and from the data, I have made the following conclusions:

Newmans are important

Pixar movies scored by any member of the Newman family have a higher box office return on investment than movies scored by non-Newmans. Furthermore, movies scored by Thomas Newman, Randy’s cousin, actually had the highest average box office ROI. Therefore, it can be concluded that to make more money, one should hire a member of the Newman family to score films, preferably Thomas.

Keep it short

Critics¹ agree that shorter movies are always better. And the money supports that assertion. Or at least they do, until you remove Toy Story from the running, in which case, Pixar’s highest ROI has come from its longest movies. So if you’re going to make Toy Story, make it shorter than 90 minutes. If you’re going to make something else, aim for 110 to 119 minutes in length.

Feature inorganic characters

By aggregating the ROIs of films that starred organic main characters versus inorganic ones, I found that inorganic main characters delivered an ROI 325% higher than organic characters.

While I would like to draw conclusions from this, I don’t have the full picture: is the ROI simply higher because minimum wage for robots and talking cars are lower? But then again, how high can the minimum wage be for bugs and fish? I’m also unclear on the labor laws in relation to deceased souls and sentient emotions. It’s possible that the wage differences cancel each other out, in which case, this data is sound in supporting the recommendation that filmmakers employ more inorganic stars to achieve success.

Employ time travel

Pixar films’ ROI has been steadily decreasing since their first film, Toy Story.

Even when making adjustments for outliers – Toy Story delivered Pixar’s highest ROI ever and the last two Pixar movies, released since Covid began, had very disappointing returns – the ROI is still trending downward.

Based on this data, I would advise that filmmakers invent a time machine, and begin releasing new movies in the past. I believe that would solve the downward trend.

See for yourself

Well, there you have it, all the information you could possibly need to best Pixar in the "Beloved animated films" market. You can see all the data for yourself here or in the table below.