- published: 14 Jul 2015
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Pixar Animation Studios /ˈpɪksɑr/ is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned twenty-six Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. It is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion; the transaction made Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney.
Pixar has produced twelve feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995. It was followed by A Bug's Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters, Inc. in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 (to date, the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, grossing over $1 billion worldwide) in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011. Eleven of the films have received critical and financial success, with the notable exception being Cars 2, which received substantially less praise than Pixar's previous films. As of February 2012, its films have made over $7 billion worldwide, with its $602 million average gross by far the highest of any studio in the industry. In addition, all of the films produced by Pixar are among the top 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Finding Nemo (#27), Up (#44), and Toy Story 3 (#8) all in the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time.