The World of Dreams, the company Lux Animation. It became a subsidiary of the parent company Lux Productions, which was responsible for bringing to life Billy's entire management business, who, in the eyes of the company, was beginning to take actions that were not entirely favorable, compared to Lux Animation, which was Billy's golden star. Lux Productions held Lux Films; it controlled the entire slate, all that intellectual property used to support the creation of new channels. At the same time, it owned Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios in the United Kingdom, as well as Ealing Studios; it had Lux Films Japan, Germany, Korea, Canada, Lionsgate in Canada, a collaboration with Regency Agents, Castle Rock, for film investment and distribution, together with the upcoming purchase of MGM, which comprised the entire audiovisual production division and its film library, a studio covering three fanegadas of land, overlooking the sea, and a great coordination of different elements that amounted to a fair market value of 2 billion dollars.
That studio would become the entire headquarters for television shows, and perhaps in the future it would buy another company to handle all film production, which is now used in a rented section of Fox Studios. With the recent creation of Marvel Films, it did not stop there. The companies that were beginning to be taken into account, to be whispered about, were none other than Marvel Films in alliance with Fox and Paramount, as well as DreamWorks Studios, which was part of the long list of franchises that allowed the company's own growth.
Elsewhere, there was Discovery Channel, Comedy Central with a 25% stake, Lux Kids, with HIT and Lyric Studios, which would be reacquired or taken through leverage warfare, based on the technical investments of certain individuals, Lux Nation, Pixar, Lux Anime, which fit with the classic idea of taking over the Eastern market where talent flourished and was exploited for its grace, while acquiring others at a price and generating even more talent through successful pipelines managed with a long reach.
The cherry on top was Lucasfilm, and its recent fascination with special effects, ranging from Pixar, Domain, and Guetta Digital alongside Peter Jackson, combining everything that could truly be called a definition of collaborative work.
That made animation so dangerous. It was a rocket that had launched and, unfortunately, no one had been able to stop it in time, all thanks to the simple talent of one person, and by 1999, it had already released a film in January through Pixar, Finding Nemo, which earned 710 million dollars worldwide. With a modest budget of 100 million. Bluebeard, once again another Pixar film, released in March 1999, with a budget of 120 million, was already shaping up to be another huge success with 39 million in its opening four-day weekend, already surpassing expectations. The cherry on top was Madagascar in December 1999, a film that would once again usher in a narrative momentum that left critics astonished at Pixar's dominance in 3D animation after the fiasco presented by several competing companies.
Why does this happen? One reason is that people became accustomed to the visual quality delivered by Billy, who possessed technology that could only be used under license. As a result, the work of Disney and DreamWorks was not as good as one might expect from two companies that shared so much influence. Pixar existed in magic; it was the new Disney and surpassed everyone it faced on every occasion. This allowed production companies to focus on creating strong releases through their capable 2D teams, but the problem went to the root of the matter: Lux Animation's 2D team was first-rate. Thousands of writers, animators, and producers were themselves part of the process in a merit-based system that showered them with money for their work.
With lower production costs due to hiring structures and success-based bonuses, the company doubled its profits, surpassing the inequitable arrangements suffered by some companies that spent thousands of dollars on production. Team One released Tinkerbell in February, a public-domain franchise that now claimed multiple characters, followed in May by Wells' The Time Machine. With a production budget of 34 million, it was expected to earn at least 100 million dollars, as had already become normal for the company.
By June came Lilo & Stitch 2, a blend of three films, and perhaps the second installment of a trilogy that expanded its franchise into an animated series, with at least thirty episodes planned. Using what was called script training, it first used Lilo & Stitch, employing the premise of the first series: contact. How the protagonist meets the co-protagonist. The second is change, the arrival of thousands of beings similar to the protagonist, and the third is the reform of the world, entering into the scheme of a villain five years later, with an older Lilo accompanying the younger generation through their growth and making everything feel like a nostalgic ending.
The horror film Necronomicon: At the Mountains of Madness is an ode to fiction and adult horror. In it, a fictional series was developed to open the door to five separate films based on Lovecraft's stories, along with a series that was still being written, filled with another collection of disconnected tales, paving the way for Love, Robots and Death, bringing to life a new form of television series, opening an adult-oriented channel that did not yet have much strength, unlike what it would have in ten or twenty years when adult generations sought a space for more mature animated content. For now, it was merely the entry hook, and therefore a flawless strategy that would eventually give rise to Netflix, the cyber giant that was now beginning to be founded through various technical services.
Team Three had one of the most ambitious projects of all: publishing all the books of Narnia in their entirety. The plan was to release the third book, Narnia: The Horse and His Boy, in December 1999, following the previous adaptation of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a blockbuster release that had generated considerable discussion, now that audiences were enjoying many adventures for different series that would be released consecutively, after animated adaptations of the epic works of Homer, Virgil, and Dante were completed in four animated films, which would later be remade in live action.
Then came Team Four, whose strategy was to release two Pokémon films with assistance from OLM Inc. Billy provided storyboards for the first four films, together with Indigo, a film based on a journey to Jupiter's moons by Glasco Frienech. When it eventually moved into a television series, it would feature thousands of ideas involving space, lost civilizations, forgotten empires, myths, and legends, becoming another series composed of ten-episode story arcs managed by Lux Atlanta.
...
-I'm buying MGM. - The assistant commented to Michael Eisner. The changes were arriving far too quickly, and the pace left Disney with little more than a void. Now, with the acquisition of one of Hollywood's largest studios, a troubling new suspicion arose: perhaps Billy Carson would take whatever little remained and push it to the extreme, leaving them in a fighting position. He never considered getting rid of Disney, not even as a joke, now that it generated revenue through other franchises and through its theme parks, which occupied an untouchable market share.
-I'm afraid we're at a complete disadvantage. - his vice president whispered. The political fiasco of the last two years and the corporate war between the family and the board of directors had extinguished what little remained. Stanford Livack and Roy Disney, responsible for the entire operation, had become the hands of Eisner, forcing him into overexertion as Disney pivoted toward a new era of globalization, becoming a giant acquisition-driven corporation, unlike Lux Animation, which danced from one opportunity to another.
-And what does that create for us? - Stanley Gold asked. -A new race to acquire franchises. I think we can rule out the idea that they are independent enough for us to have any influence over Pixar.-
-The valuations are three hundred points above the stock levels we considered; it's impossible to pay for. - Roy Watson replied.
-It's said that he asked about the parks. - Richard Nunis responded; the man raised his arms. -Don't look at me like that. I think you should know that he opened an automobile park on the level of any theme park, and there are whispers that he plans to buy outdated franchises from Universal. Oh, he made a bid for Ocean Eleven, and there's already a script; perhaps he'll act in it. Somehow, that leaves us at a crossroads when competition becomes greater than the rules themselves.-
-In television,n he's not falling behind either. - Robert Iger ventured.
-Why? - Eisner asked.
-He's effective at attracting audiences and has created a strong television strategy with different studios, including ourselves, replacing reality shows with television series and theatrical films, gaining a market share expected to grow by 2% over the next thirty months. - Robert Iger replied.
The board of directors continued. Near the end, Eisner, alone, welcomed a new partner, a man who was already well known, a member of MGM's board, who would be responsible for bringing in self-produced films for the struggle surrounding the end of the century and the subdivision of shares.