Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Robert Iger's Roadmap

Disney Honcho Bob Iger has been shedding light on the Mouse's moves:

The biggest challenge in running a company as big and varied as Disney is "to maintain the balance between heritage and innovation." ...

... "When I came into the job, I weighed the options. I felt that losing the relationship with Pixar when their contract expired would be a shame. And so we brought into the company a culture of innovation, of never accepting mediocrity."

... "I was trying to establish a direction for Disney. Also, $7.3 billion was "just around," Iger quipped, then correcting himself, "actually $1 billion (was) in cash."

What I've never gotten in the Hollywood culture is studio management's slavish reliance on a few entities' successes. They'll pay billions for a successful track record from outside, but won't risk a fraction of that on talented nobodies that already live within their golden walls.

In the past half-century, few executives have trusted their own judgement and gut instincts and rolled the dice on unproven Spielbergs or Camerons. Ninety-eight percent of the time, they want the creators who have been validated elsewhere, no matter what the cost.

But who am I kidding? Of course I understand why this happens. Even high-level suits can lose their high-grade executive jobs and big salaries if they engage some obscure director or screenwriter who then crashes and burns with a high-profile project. But when an expensive talent with a long track record flames out, that's different. The exec is immunized. He went with the safe, obvious choice, so how can anyone blame him for the resulting failure?

It even happens -- maybe especially happens -- with highly-placed CEOs like Robert Iger.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

**... "When I came into the job, I weighed the options. I felt that losing the relationship with Pixar when their contract expired would be a shame. And so we brought into the company a culture of innovation, of never accepting mediocrity."**

HE brought that into the company?

Uh, Bobby boy...Walt says hi.

Anonymous said...

Disney's again making the BIG mistake of isolating different aspects/groups of demographic groups in the MISGUIDED hope of creating seperate markets for each and marketing them TO DEATH.

The "heritage" he speaks of is THE FAMILY. The best and biggest market of all. Sadly, they're madly intent on seperating the family by making films that appeal only to small segments rather than the WHOLE FAMILY.

Anonymous said...

What I've never gotten in the Hollywood culture is studio management's slavish reliance on a few entities' successes. They'll pay billions for a successful track record from outside, but won't risk a fraction of that on talented nobodies that already live within their golden walls.

If you're desperately trying to compare Pixar to Marvel or the Muppets just to keep arguments current, uh-uh:
There was the general feeling (pun intended) that it was Eisner's personal vendetta against Pixar that was digging a huge hole for the company that it would never get out of if they dug any further, and getting Pixar back under roof wasn't so much a sale as peace talks: The War Is Over, If You Want It.

Now, if you still want to whine about Marvel, there's reasons for that, too--It could have been any studio that gave the company a competing movie-production corporate base as much as Disney (although be grateful it wasn't Warner again); does the fact that it was suddenly make it E-VIL?
As for the Muppets, however...don't blame Bob for another man's little train going round the bend--Lord help us, Mike turned into a looney.

Anonymous said...

^^As for the Muppets, however...don't blame Bob for another man's little train going round the bend--Lord help us, Mike turned into a looney.

Word.

Anonymous said...

I guess Dick Cook's immunization finally ran out.

Anonymous said...

Immunization?! What, did he get polio or something?

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