Pixar began not as a film studio but as a computer-graphics research group inside Lucasfilm. Its history is the story of that technology meeting character-driven filmmaking: the group became an independent company in 1986, built an early identity through short films, and found its defining feature-film breakthrough in Toy Story. Disney completed its acquisition of Pixar in 2006, after the two companies had already established a feature-film partnership.
How did Pixar start?
From Lucasfilm’s computer division
Pixar’s roots go back to 1979, when computer scientist Ed Catmull was recruited to lead Lucasfilm’s Computer Division. The group explored digital tools for filmmaking; it was not yet the independent animation studio most people recognize today. Disney’s 2026 Pixar retrospective traces the studio’s origins to that division.
Steve Jobs purchased Lucasfilm’s Computer Division in 1986, establishing Pixar as a separate company. The same year, Pixar began working with Disney on CAPS—the Computer Animation Production System—and released Luxo Jr., a short that helped demonstrate how computer animation could support expressive characters. These were distinct strands of the new company’s early work: developing production technology and finding a creative voice.
John Lasseter and expressive animation
John Lasseter joined Pixar full time in 1984. His short The Adventures of André & Wally B. had premiered at SIGGRAPH as an early demonstration of expressive computer animation. That emphasis on characters and performance would matter as much as the underlying software: technical novelty could attract attention, but audiences needed a reason to care about what the characters did.
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What made Pixar’s approach distinctive?
Technology in service of storytelling
Pixar’s early significance is not simply that it used computers to make animation. Its work joined a developing technical craft to filmmaking choices about character, movement and story. Luxo Jr. showed how a simple premise and recognizable behavior could make computer-generated objects feel expressive; later, Toy Story would bring that character-centered approach to a feature-length film.
Steve Jobs offered a contemporary account of the studio’s working culture during the Disney-Pixar acquisition announcement in 2006. He credited Catmull with building a culture in which artists and technologists worked as peers rather than treating one group as subordinate. That is Jobs’s description of Pixar, not an independent measure of its workplace, but it captures the studio’s ambition to bring creative and technical decision-making together. In the same conference call, Jobs said the team and culture they had built enabled Pixar’s work. The Disney-Pixar conference call records his remarks.
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How did Toy Story change Pixar’s future?
Disney says its feature-film relationship with Pixar began in 1991 and led to Toy Story, which opened in theaters on November 22, 1995. Disney describes it as the first fully computer-animated feature film. Its importance was not only a technical milestone: the film made computer animation the medium for a character-led feature, bringing the new visual method together with a story audiences could follow and invest in.
Toy Story established the feature-film partnership as the central line of Pixar’s development. The chronology matters: Pixar became independent in 1986, its feature relationship with Disney began in 1991, and the first Toy Story arrived in 1995—more than a decade before Disney acquired the company.
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Announcement and completion
Disney announced an agreement to acquire Pixar on January 24, 2006, and completed the transaction on May 5, 2006. The announcement described a transaction value of $7.4 billion, or $6.3 billion net of Pixar’s cash. These are the terms Disney stated when it announced the deal, not a measure of Pixar’s artistic impact or subsequent performance. Disney’s acquisition announcement also set out the planned leadership arrangements.
What changed—and what the deal figures mean
At the time, Disney said Ed Catmull would lead the combined animation studios, John Lasseter would become chief creative officer, and Steve Jobs would join Disney’s board. Those were historical arrangements announced around the acquisition, not descriptions of the individuals’ current roles.
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The acquisition also brought a change in ownership without erasing the fact that Disney and Pixar had worked together on feature films before the deal. Pixar’s story therefore has two connected chapters: a partnership that produced Toy Story, followed by Disney’s purchase of the studio.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Pixar’s legacy, and what its history does not prove
Pixar’s origin story is strongest when technology and filmmaking are considered together. The Lucasfilm group supplied a technical foundation; the early shorts and feature work showed how computer animation could serve character and story; and the Disney relationship gave that work a route to feature audiences. None of those facts alone establishes why any particular film succeeded, and a transaction’s dollar value is not a measure of creative influence.
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The franchise continued well beyond the company’s first feature. Disney’s June 2026 retrospective reported that Toy Story 5 opened theatrically on June 19, 2026. That is a dated release fact; it does not establish where the film or earlier entries are currently streaming, since catalog availability can vary by region and change over time.
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