Doesn’t seem to jive with the guy’s personality – he’s already rich, and hasn’t made any major efforts to get himself richer. Why would he change his behavior now?
I can’t see it happening unless there’s some weird way that it would help Apple acquire more Disney TV/movie content for the iTunes store. It’s probably more to Jobs’ advantage if he can be somewhere on the inside in the movie industry. Gives him a little more legitimacy maybe? Why would he give that up?
The smoke the OP’s article sees may may just be Pixar renegotiating a deal for movie distribution, now that Eisner is gone. A recent article (which I’m too cheap to pay to read the whole thing so I’m linking to a discussion forum instead) claims Jobs may be getting the ABC TV shows for iTunes in exchange for joining back up with Disney.
</ rank amateur armchair Apple-watcher>
Me too. It’s an awful movie.
I’m pretty sure that’s a big corporate no-no. Jobs can’t offer assets from one of his companies in order to benefit another of his companies; Pixar’s shareholders may not give a damn about Apple, and vice versa.
Good point. Clearly I’m not the only amateur Apple-watcher out there 
But there’s no reason he can’t at least think strategically about both his companies, even if he doesn’t actually use one in negotiations regarding another… right?
Don’t look at it as Jobs & Disney, look at it as Apple, Pixar, and Disney.
There’s nothing to prevent a corporate deal that involves more than two corporations. As long as all the appropriate people are satisfied at all the involved corporations, there’s no reason a three-way deal couldn’t be done.
It wouldn’t even have to be technically a three-way deal. Say Apple offers Disney a boatload of money for rights to its properties, contigent on it being able to provide the latest Pixar movies. Now, if Disney wants the money, they go negotiate a deal with Pixar. Apple doesn’t have to do any deal direct with Pixar.
Or Apple could go to Pixar and say they’d like to license their stuff, but that license would mean more to them, thus being worth more, if Disney was distributing their movies (the belief being that they’ll get wider distribution and great publicity, and therefore be more desired by the video-buying public). That then gives Pixar a reason to try to work out something with Disney.
The fact that one guy has great influence over Apple and Pixar isn’t a problem, as long as the two companies boards of directors and shareholders are happy and everything is done on the up-and-up.
Nuts to that, cstamets. We’re looking at this from the consumer/cinemaphile angle, & it looks pretty grim. 
I’m getting a flashback to when Steve Jobs first introduced the new gumdrop iMacs with a built-in DVD player – one of the bonuses in the box was a DVD of A Bug’s Life. 
Yeah, I saw that, but check out AICN’s positive review of the film
Looks like there are plenty of people who saw screenings and loved it. I’m definitely going to give it a chance and see it this weekend. Zach Braff is the man, and I’m all about supporting him.