John Lasseter, the man whose trademark has become his Hawaiian shirts, turns 55 today! Happy birthday, John!
John Lasseter
Most of us know John for being the Vice President of Pixar and as the producer of basically all of their major movies. Toy Story, for example, won him an Academy Award for special achievement. He is a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki, who is both a close personal friend and source of inspiration, and has been quoted as saying that, at Pixar, “when we have a problem and we can’t seem to solve it, we often look at one of his films in our screening room”.
John is currently involved in the production of Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Planes, Monsters University and the Untitled Pixar Dinosaurs Project. Still in development are Toy Story 4 and King of the Elves, two movies that I’m very much looking forward to – especially the latter one. It is loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s 1953 short story King of the Elves, and will be about a band of elves and a dwarf living in the modern-day Mississippi Delta. They name a local man their king after he helps save them from an evil troll, and hilarity ensues. Having been a huge Philip K. Dick fan for as long as I can remember, seeing a Dick/Pixar movie is very much a dream come true.