Pixar Animation Studios

Casting: Racing aficionado Paul Newman will provide the voice of one of the characters in "Cars," a new film from Pixar Animation Studios, the company that made "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life."

"Brave," its filmmakers at Pixar Animation Studios would like you to know, is not your mother's fairy tale, beginning with its unruly heroine, Merida. Deft with a bow and arrow and crowned with a massive mane of curly red hair, Merida (voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald), defies her parents King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) and disregards an ancient custom, inadvertently setting off calamity in the lush, fog-shrouded Scottish highlands where she lives.

"Honnnnnk! Honnnnnk!" John Lasseter had explicit instructions about how the Galloping Goose, an antique steam train character in "Cars 2," should look and sound, and he was delivering them with brio. It was January and the animation czar was making the hourlong commute from his home in Sonoma County to his Pixar office here on the outskirts of Oakland in the passenger seat of a town car. On his lap, he balanced an iPad loaded with shots to review while he recorded voice memos for the movie's crew: "Like a diesel horn.

"Cars 2" will get a checkered flag by the end of this box-office weekend, but it won't be traveling in the fast lane. The latest release from Walt Disney Co.-owned Pixar Animation Studios will continue the studio's unblemished record of No. 1 openings, but it is expected to debut with only $50 million to $55 million worth of tickets, according to people who have seen pre-release surveys. That would be the second-lowest opening in the last decade for a Pixar movie, ahead of only "Ratatouille's" $47 million in 2007.

Walt Disney Co. has given broader responsibilities to two key animation executives by naming them each to newly created general manager positions at the company's two major animation divisions. Andrew Millstein will continue to oversee the daily operations of Walt Disney Animation Studios in addition to now running DisneyToon Studios, which produces direct-to-DVD animated movies. Jim Morris, who has been managing the production of features and shorts at Pixar Animation Studios, will also assume responsibility for overall operations.

Regarding "Pixar's Creative Chief to Have Special Power at Disney: Greenlighting Movies," Jan. 27: Why didn't Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger just steal John Lasseter away from Pixar Animation Studios and set him up in his own shop? I guarantee it would have cost the shareholders far less than $7 billion. Jon Crowley Sherman Oaks

Pixar Animation Studios said Wednesday that co-founder Ed Catmull has been named president of the company. Emeryville, Calif.-based Pixar said Catmull has been a member of the company's executive team and chief technical officer since Pixar's incorporation in 1986. In his new role as president, he will report to Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Jobs and work closely with Jobs and Pixar's executive team to guide the company's growth.

Shareholders have sued Pixar Animation Studios Inc. in two proposed class actions that claim the company misled investors with inflated projections for DVD sales of its hit title "The Incredibles." A Pixar spokesman described the lawsuits as "completely baseless." Both lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California and purport to represent those who held Pixar shares between Jan.

Pixar Animation Studios President Ed Catmull will get 400,000 Pixar shares in connection with the Emeryville, Calif.-based company's $7.4-billion sale to Walt Disney Co. The Pixar shares would be worth $25.6 million at Tuesday's closing price of $64.10. Catmull's pay was approved by the compensation committee of Pixar's board, Burbank-based Disney said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner said there was still a chance for a new film distribution deal with "Finding Nemo" creator Pixar Animation Studios Inc. but noted that the companies were not in talks. "I will not believe it is over until it is over," he said at an investor conference. He said that discussions, broken off in January by computer-animation king Pixar, had not reopened. "We can only make half the deal. I am just an eternal optimist," Eisner said.

"Honnnnnk! Honnnnnk!" John Lasseter had explicit instructions about how the Galloping Goose, an antique steam train character in "Cars 2," should look and sound, and he was delivering them with brio. It was January and the animation czar was making the hourlong commute from his home in Sonoma County to his Pixar office here on the outskirts of Oakland in the passenger seat of a town car. On his lap, he balanced an iPad loaded with shots to review while he recorded voice memos for the movie's crew: "Like a diesel horn.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the director of the new animated film "Kung Fu Panda 2," might have been destined for a career in pictures. After immigrating to the United States from South Korea with her parents and two sisters when she was 4, Nelson spent her childhood in Lakewood watching martial arts movies, playing with cars and drawing. As a young girl, she would sit at the kitchen table for hours and watch her mother draw, copying her every stroke. Nelson traces the lineage of her career to those formative family experiences.

2010 provided valuable lessons about what works -- and, more important, what doesn't work -- when it comes to the box-office performance of movies. Studios, in planning the kinds of films to make this year and next, might want to take note: Be careful what you pay for Reese Witherspoon ("How Do You Know"), Johnny Depp ("The Tourist"), Russell Crowe ("The Next Three Days") and Tom Cruise ("Knight and Day") may still command fat paychecks, but what's good for their agents isn't necessarily good for the box office: Each of the actors' last movies faltered.

For Universal Pictures, all it took was some puny yellow minions to tackle the giants of animation. The studio's movie "Despicable Me," about a villain who enlists an army of yapping subordinates to assist in his nefarious deeds, has racked up $118.4 million in 10 days at the box office, granting Universal something that has long eluded it: a family-friendly animated blockbuster. Such a windfall represents a turning point for the General Electric Co.-owned studio, which has lagged behind rivals Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios in establishing a foothold in the increasingly popular genre of digitally animated movies.

Russians love Shrek. And Russians love the acorn-obsessed squirrel Scrat from "Ice Age." But Russians aren't showing a lot of love for Buzz and Woody. "Toy Story 3," released June 18, has been a blockbuster success in the U.S. and most of the other countries where it has opened, racking up $244 million in ticket sales domestically and more than $100 million in foreign nations, including more than $34 million in Mexico. But the Pixar Animation Studios sequel has posted surprisingly frigid box-office results in Russia, one of the hottest international markets for movies, especially for animated films.

The soft summer box office is poised to get a big boost from "Toy Story 3" this weekend. People who have seen pre-release surveys say that "Toy Story 3" is certain to have the biggest opening for a movie from Pixar Animation Studios, beating 2004's "The Incredibles," which started with $70.4 million in the U.S. and Canada. Thanks to strong interest among all audience segments, as well as 3-D premium ticket prices, the movie could provide Pixar's first $100-million-plus opening if pre-release tracking is on target.

Shareholders of Pixar Animation Studios voted to approve the company's acquisition by Walt Disney Co. for $7.4 billion in stock. The vote made the studio a subsidiary of Disney and made Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs the largest holder of Disney stock, with about a 7% stake. The deal is aimed at restoring Disney's luster as a leader in animated films. Disney's efforts have faltered in the last 10 years while Pixar's films have been huge successes.

Quaker Oats Co.'s fourth-quarter earnings rose 79% on lower costs, even as losses from its mainstay Gatorade sports drink widened. Earnings before charges rose to $31 million, or 22 cents a diluted share, from $17.3 million, or 12 cents, a year earlier. The company was expected to earn 24 cents a share. * Avon Products Inc. said fourth-quarter earnings rose 1% to $133.7 million, held down by results in Japan and Brazil, a strong dollar and other factors. Quarterly net income, equivalent to $1.

Pixar Animation Studios, the pioneering digital studio that long prided itself on creating novel stories and characters, is now treading a well-worn Hollywood path. Three of the company's next four releases are sequels. On Friday, Pixar debuts the highly-anticipated third chapter of its popular "Toy Story" saga, to be followed in the next two years by new installments of "Cars" and "Monsters, Inc." Pixar won't have another original movie until 2012, when "Brave," about a young Scottish girl of royal blood who dreams of becoming a champion archer, arrives in theaters.

Disney Pixar Animation guru John Lasseter found himself tangled in a miniature fashion kerfuffle. Toy maker Mattel Inc. had made a prototype doll of "The Princess and the Frog's" newly minted princess, Tiana, wearing her bayou wedding dress. But one animator worried that the gown failed to reflect the one in the film, whose multiple layers resemble the petals of an unfolding waterlily. Lasseter suggested a way to create the illusion of volume without driving up the doll's $10 price tag -- namely, printing a swirling pattern of glitter atop the diaphanous outer layer of fabric.