June
29
Wall-E: Pixar Goes Nine for Nine
Jack Lechner, an occasional contributor to this blog, wonders if anyone else has ever matched Pixar's nine-for-nine winning streak. Every Pixar movie has now opened at No. 1.
Wall-E, which earned a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and scored the third-highest opening for a Pixar picture this weekend, could even give Iron Man a run for the number-one summer blockbuster crown. (UPDATE: So far it's not pulling little kids in the numbers it would need to accomplish that.)
Here's Lechner's query. Readers, any ideas?
Having seen and loved WALL-E, I find myself wondering whether anyone else in the entire history of cinema -- a production company, a studio, a star, a writer, a director -- has ever made nine great movies in a row; nine big hits in a row; or, especially, nine great movies in a row that were also hits.Every one of my personal cinematic heroes -- Wilder, Bergman, Altman -- had a strikeout now and then. Woody Allen never made nine winners in a row; nor did Hitchcock, Ford, Truffaut, or Godard. Even Mr. Consistency, Eric Rohmer, never made nine greats in a row, at least to my taste. (If you take "The Decalogue" as ten separate movies, then Kieslowski's streak is off the charts -- but since only two of the ten episodes can function as stand-alone feature films, I don't think it counts.) I've never seen AIR FORCE; if it's great, then Howard Hawks at least ties Pixar with a nine-film streak from BRINGING UP BABY to RED RIVER. But if it isn't, then all bets are off.
In recent years, Alexander Payne has made four great movies in a row -- but can he keep it up for another five? Rob Reiner's first seven films were all aces in my book -- but then there's NORTH. I know Armond White will readily testify on behalf of Spielberg's last nine films (which would take us back to AMISTAD) -- but I hated WAR OF THE WORLDS as much as I loved MUNICH. Tom Hanks had a twelve-film streak of massive hits from A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN to CAST AWAY, if you don't count THAT THING YOU DO -- but why wouldn't you? And then there are the actors -- Jeff Bridges snaps to mind -- who give consistently great performances in film after film, but not always in great films.
Unless you or your readers can come up with a rival, I'm betting that Pixar is having the single most impressive streak of all time.
The trick here is to recognize that Pixar thrives on teamwork, much as the old studios did. But Pixar releases one movie a year, which takes about four years to make. The entire team works on every movie, even if one or two people get director credit. Wall-E's Andrew Stanton also wrote and directed Finding Nemo. Here's animation expert Peter Debruge's Pixar story for Popular Mechanics.com.
Remember Michael Arndt, the screenwriter who delivered Little Miss Sunshine right off the bat? He went to work for Pixar because they boast the best writers of original screenplays in the film business. John Lasseter understood from the start that story had to be wed with huge entertainment value, family-friendly accessibility, great characters, as well as huge craftsmanship on the animation side.
Go up to visit Pixar--as I have several times, since my first feature in EW on Toy Story--and you see toys and bicycles and gizmos and artwork everywhere. It is a magical fun place. They work hard and play hard.
Hollywood could learn from them. The current thinking about the studios' future involves cutting back on production. Frank Price, the ex-studio head at Columbia and Universal, once said you couldn't produce and release more than fifteen quality movies a year. Disney is doing better since it cut back on production.
Lasseter has long been compared to Walt Disney. Did Disney ever have as long a winning streak? Perhaps the Disney studio in its prime under Walt?
Wall-E may replace Finding Nemo as my favorite Pixar film. Maybe it's because I love dystopian sci-fi, Charlie Chaplin, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a fine musical romance. Wall-E reminds us of how much we humans have to lose. Plucky robot trash compactor Wall-E, at the start of the "silent" section of the film (sound magician Ben Burtt gives him a voice), has become the collector of human valuables after we have abandoned our garbage-pile planet.
One Variety colleague told me that she was trying to figure out why the movie moved her so much. She decided that the love between the robots was so pure, that it reminded her what love really was. When was the last time a movie did that? And the movie musical Hello Dolly! is the agent of their romance!
Here are links to past reports from Debruge:
from Comic-Con 2007, where Burtt made a presentation.
[Photo Ben Burtt courtesy LAT]
Subscribe to this blog's feed
A certain amount of any winning streak is luck, but the pieces have to be in place or it'll never happen. From a distance, and as a movie lover who is not in the business it seems that there are certain things in common in everything coming out of Pixar. They're willing to thing outside the box (a rat chef?), there's a guiding feeling of where they're going, it's going to be high quality and finished, and it's a labor of love. Add that to a lack of the new corporate "more with less" mantra and you've got a winning streak.
Posted by: mitkid | June 30, 2008 at 04:10 AM
Ummm...someone should tell Mr. Lechner to see Hawks' AIR FORCE. It really is a great film, on a par with--or better than--most of the others in Hawks' nine-film streak. And one of the greatest war movies ever made.
Posted by: Brian | June 30, 2008 at 08:53 AM
agree, pixar is so good because it is a collective. think tv show, like friends, or something. the writers would brainstorm on every story beat, throwing out all sorts of possibilities, and settling on the best choices. it might take an hour to get through a few seconds of dialogue/action.
pixar does the same thing on every movie. my impression has always been they don't accept a final script from a single screenwriter. rather they get a concept from someplace (was it toy story that was sketched on a napkin during a lunch meeting?) and throw that idea out to the group to evolve over a period of hundreds of story meetings.
i'm sure that's what i've read (a few times). that has to be the secret of their success -- constant molding of the script, taking ideas from any source, mulling it over, and if it is accepted, refining it until it clicks. at any point in the process anybody that has anything to contribute simply chimes in.
my impression has always been that everybody at pixar cooperates and contributes something positive. in other words, the exact opposite of all the bickering and power struggles you hear about with almost all other hollywood productions
Posted by: Alan | June 30, 2008 at 09:53 AM
I would argue Peter Jackson made 7 great films in a row, but not all of them were hits (his early few are still relatively unseen.
LOTR (2001-2003)
The Frighteners (1996)
Forgotten Silver (1995)
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Dead Alive/Braindead (1992)
Meet the Feebles (1989)
Bad Taste (1987)
It seems more possible in music: Prince (9 albums from "Dirty Mind" to "Lovesexy", The Beatles (a-doy), Elvis Costello (first five albums), Husker Du (entire career), Bob Dylan (til '66).
Posted by: Dave | June 30, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Nine hits (and classics) in a row from Frank Capra:
Lady for a Day '33
It Happened One Night '34
Broadway Bill '34
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town '36
Lost Horizon '37
You Can't Take It With You '38
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington '39
Meet John Doe '41
Arsenic and Old Lace '44
The streak was broken in '46 by...
It's a Wonderful Life
Posted by: Lou Lumenick | July 01, 2008 at 03:52 PM
These aren't proper comparisons. Pixar is a company with many employees whose pictures have been made by multiple directors. How can you equate that with movies made by single filmmakers?
Insofar as movies go, directors can rarely make a streak last even a decade. Probably the three most significant from modern history, in terms of both critical and commercial success:
Kubrick 64-75
Coppola 70-79
Spielberg 74-82
Some might point to recent Eastwood or Scorsese, but I don't think either of them have made movies lately, no matter how successful, that were as groundbreaking and influential as those mentioned above.
Posted by: Edward Wilson | July 01, 2008 at 08:03 PM
that's why I thought the Disney comparison was apt:
Cinderella 1950
Alice in Wonderland 1953
Peter Pan 1953
Lady and the Tramp 1955
Sleeping Beauty 1959
101 Dalmations 1961
The Sword in the Stone 1963
The Jungle Book 1967
The Aristocats 1970 Robin Hood 1973
The Rescuers 1977
That's ten!
Posted by: anne Thompson | July 02, 2008 at 12:46 AM
Completely agree with Edward Wilson.
But I've got a question. I really, really loved Finding Nemo which is directed by Stenton. I dunno, can I write him down as my one of the most fav directors on my Facebook profile?
Posted by: Aleena | July 04, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Charlie Chaplin made more than 9 great, or very good films.
He also wrote the music in some cases for songs that were hits.
He directed, wrote, and acted.
I think he blows Pixar away. And did it before the age of computers.
Posted by: John | July 11, 2008 at 11:22 AM