DisneyWar Highlight

Katzenberg was also working to salvage Toy Story, Disney’s first joint venture with Pixar. Late that year, John Lasseter and his team came to Burbank and screened some of it for Katzenberg, Schneider, and Thomas Schumacher, who was acting as the Disney liaison to Pixar. While they still liked the idea of toys coming to life, the Disney executives agreed that the project was a “mess,” as Katzenberg put it. There was no coherent narrative line. But suddenly Katzenberg had an idea: In the characters Woody and Buzz Lightyear, the retro cowboy and the futuristic spaceman, Lasseter had the makings of a classic buddy movie. “Go out and watch two movies,” Katzenberg told Lasseter and his team, “The Defiant Ones and 48 Hrs.” Both were classic “buddy” pictures where opposites bond, with 1958’s The Defiant Ones starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.