John Lasseter | No 4 | Film Power 100
Director: Toy Story, Toy Story 2
Chief creative officer: Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios
John Lasseter, 53, is the animation genius who has overseen a golden age at Pixar. Every single one of Pixar's films has turned a profit, beginning with its game-changer breakthrough Toy Story – which Lasseter himself directed. As a -producer, he has presided over consistently groundbreaking computer-animation: Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, WALL-E. All of them are timeless movies whose humour and storytelling appeal to kids and grownups alike. (Lasseter describes his target audience as "basically anybody who is breathing".) Lasseter began his career as an upstart young animator at Disney, but was fired in 1983 for rocking the boat. It must have been a sweet moment in 2006 when Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4bn – putting Lasseter in creative control of the two studios. Since then, if anything he has since upped the game of both. This summer, Pixar's Toy Story 3 weighed in as the second highest-grossing movie ever in the UK (behind Avatar). Amazingly. Lasseter (well-known for wearing loud Hawaiian shirts) even returned old-style hand-drawing to Disney animation with last year's The Princess and the Frog. Last year, he told the Financial Times: "I've got Disney blood running through my veins." Every now and then, Pixar encounter murmurs of a backlash. Before Ratatouille and WALL-E, some critics said audiences wouldn't get them. They did. Ratatouille director Brad Bird said in an interview with the Times: "If we had market research at Pixar, like the rest of Hollywood, there's no way Ratatouille would ever have been made. It's got an almost unpronounceable title, named after a dish that's obscure to most Americans, and it's about rats in the kitchen."