The New York Times explains the reasons.
... [Robert Iger is] one of the most aggressive dealmakers in media (the $7 billion purchase of Pixar, the animation studio, and the $4 billion acquisition of Marvel, the comic book publisher and movie studio); a risk-taker who isn’t afraid to make decisions that rankle Disney’s own troops (ripping apart the wiring for how the company does business in Europe); and a guy who, more than any of his big-media counterparts, is retooling antiquated industry practice, particularly when it comes to movie-making.
In short: blockbuster C.E.O.
“The spectrum of points of view this job requires is incredible, and Bob is great at it,” says Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, who became Disney’s largest shareholder — and a board member — after the Pixar acquisition ....
Putting aside the fact that these long profiles often come off as though they were written by a close family member, Mr. Iger has been making changes and throwing the dice.
The fact that the dice come up snake eyes now and again is one of the hazards of the Big Game.
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Another fact is that he's diluting Disney's uniqueness by buying up properties like Marvel and by shoehorning lesser purchases like the Muppets into Disney ads and promotions. He's making the company come off as a conglomerate of properties instead of as a creative powerhouse, and tarnishing its image by giving its business end a higher profile than the legacy of its legendary founder. That's a roll of the dice I don't think Disney will ultimately survive. As a result, I don't get that "high" when I see the Disney castle any more. I see a false facade in front of a money vault. Robert Iger is worse than Eisner, and I never thought that would be possible. Disney has lost its soul.
I was renting a car in San Francisco, and the gentleman behind the counter asked what I did for a living. I told him I use to work for the Evil Empire.
And he said, "Oh, Disney."
@Floyd - Yikes.
I was renting a car in San Francisco, and the gentleman behind the counter asked what I did for a living. I told him I use to work for the Evil Empire.
And he said, "Oh, Disney."
Was talking to someone the other day who didn't even KNOW that Disney had had a new CEO for five years. (In much the same way that most people aren't aware that Bill Gates no longer works at Microsoft.)
"Michael Eisner" and "Evil Disney" just took such hold in the public's mind for twenty years, it became folk legend...Most Disney whines you hear in the mainstream today are still trying to salvage the old jokes from the 90's, back when there was more to choose from.
Re the carefully-chosen picture:
Just saying...no, no, just saying...what if Pooh 2.0 turns out to be a GOOD movie? Is anyone planning for that scenario?
Just playing Lasseter's Advocate and tossing out some what-if's, here: Yes, it would be the smug whine-fodder of a lifetime if it turned out to be the soulless marketing plug half the board here believes and wishes it was--But is anyone else here getting vibes that the powers that be are deliberately, willfully, and with rebellion aforethought making this movie for it to NOT be one? (Y'know, like Lasseter trying to figure out ways to bring Sebastian Cabot back from the dead, just to rub it in the Darby and Heffalump producers' faces?)
We've got to hang up that "Nobody Knows Anything" sign up on a wall where more people can see it.
I was talking to an executive at ABC the other day and he said all they are talking about is how to re-orient the network for the Internet. Sounds like the business types are realizing the change that has been building for media companies and how to position themselves for it.
Buy, reorganize, cut. When will Disney start producing CONTENT again? Isn't that what the company should be doing? The Disney Channel is 99% pure crap. I'm happy for Disney that their Alice film did well, but it was a terrible film. What happened to QUALITY entertainment? Surely rich ross knows nothing about that. All he knows is how to dress tweens up as little whores.
It's not just "why he gets the Big Bucks" in the here and now. I know why he gets the Big Bucks now . The inexplicable thing is that he will continue to get the Big Bucks even after his dice have come up snake-eyes one too many times, at which point he will jump (or be shoved) out the plane , floating serenely down on his Golden Parachute (even more Big Bucks for being fired ! Yay ! ) . And as he floats down comfortably on his Golden Parachute the rest of the people on the plane continue to crash and burn.
Ultimately did Michael Eisner have to suffer financially for his bad decisions ? Nope. He's doing just fine. He's made for life financially-speaking. The swath of destruction that he left behind (in particular how he strip-mined , salted, and plowed under the fertile ground of the Animation Department at Disney ) is still effecting many of us , but Michael is doing just fine. I'm sure Iger will do the same , even if in the end the Pixar and Marvel , etc. buy-out deals are deemed to be too much money spent with not enough real return , and the company has by and large stopped producing original content that is uniquely "Disney".
Just saying...no, no, just saying...what if Pooh 2.0 turns out to be a GOOD movie?
I talked to one of Pooh's directing animators just today. And he said it was a good picture.
So we'll see ...
"what if" Pooh is a good movie?
Bolt and The Princess and the Frog were good movies. Praised by critics. There's no reason to assume it won't be a good film. The worst critical reception a Lasseter production faced was Cars' 75% Rotten Tomatoes score. My God, how awful!!!!
Say what you want, any blame lies far away from Lasseter. His movies are terrific.
It's the marketing department that has no clue how to market these films. Everything about Disney's marketing department is a mess. The trailers, the posters, you name it. If the Pixar brand name hadn't been so powerful, no way would people go see their films based on trailers. Even those suck.
No one is saying Lasseter has mad bad films - not completely (though many have come close despite Pixar's good luck). Its that some of the films were BAD ideas.
Frog wasn't a BAD film (though I could argue it certainly wasn't great), but it was a BAD idea - a really BAD idea.
It's true no one in Hollywood knows anything, but in Frog's case, short of a miracle (though JL has had his fair share of them) everyone guessed Frog was a bad idea early on. Same goes for Pooh - unless you work in licensing, of course.
"what if" Pooh is a good movie?
There's no reason to assume it won't be a good film.
Oh, don't get so hypersensitive. ;)
Was just saying that a lot of posters here very wishfully want to use "They're making another Pooh movie, boo-hiss!" as their personal wishful symbol that "the regime hasn't changed", whether they've actually seen a frame of the finished film or not.
But I was just throwing in my pro-Iger contribution to say this looks on paper like what I've begun referring to as "an Oswald project": The times when Iger seems like he's actually going out of his way to repair twenty historical years of Eisner company-image damage--like, say, soulless Pooh exploitation--with a little help from Lasseter's retro-geekdom for the vintage versions.
Like PATF, the results of good intentions might not always work out, but you always end up giving those intentions the benefit of the doubt.
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