Blog

Category: Business

Disney Loses Dick Cook

20 September 2009

Earlier this month, I pondered whether Disney’s deal to buy Marvel Comics signaled an end to Walt Disney’s legendary commitment to creating wholesome stories—with characters in motion pictures and theme park attractions that evoke childlike wonder. Now that Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook has apparently been ousted by Disney’s Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger, we may be closer to having an answer.

The most interesting report comes from CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, who suggests that Disney’s movie slate may rely increasingly on others, reinforcing my concern that Walt’s original creative philosophy is being incrementally phased out or rejected by Mr. Iger. This would be a mistake in creative and in commercial terms, leaving Disney no more distinct that any other Hollywood studio and making the Burbank, California-based studio merely another entry in delivering me-too cultural cynicism. Disney was already well on its way with a mediocre slate of forgettable movies—Enchanted, Up, Pirates of the Caribbean—while Dick Cook was in charge but the honorable chairman, who worked his way up from Disneyland cast member during his 38 years at Disney, understood Walt’s benevolent sense of life and the need to make movies in a private, proprietary artistic system that nurtures and cultivates the individual’s creative vision (Frank Marshall’s man-dog Antarctica adventure Eight Below comes to mind). He built solid relationships with artists based on trust and respect and he deserved better than an abrupt departure.

If Boorstin’s sources are correct that a scaled back studio leaves Disney free to create fewer bigger, better movies, I see no reason why Dick Cook could not have made that happen—unless Cook had some fundamental objection to corporate plans for the studio. Movies such as The Proposal prove that quality pictures can be made, marketed, and sold to the public and Disney can’t be counted out. The number of recent missteps—overexposing its products and depleting the sense of magic and mystery at the recent self-promotional D23 exposition, bland, bleak movies such as Up and Wall-E and the dreadful decision to release Mel Gibson’s primitive horror movie Apocalypto after his anti-Jewish tirade—is offset by good calls on High School Musical, dumping Walden Media’s Christian Narnia movies, and remaking Disney’s California Adventure as a tribute to Walt Disney and early 20th century Americanism. That mixed record and risky moves such as Disney’s train tour for the expensive A Christmas Carol, pushing cash-strapped consumers to buy movies on the pricey Blu-Ray discs, and upcoming remakes Tron, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (with Terminator: Salvation director McG on board, it might be good) and the new picture, Surrogates, Disney’s future as a great, American movie business might be in jeopardy. Dick Cook’s departure makes that look more likely. Knowing who replaces Dick Cook, who worked his way from Disneyland to promoting the studio’s most imaginative recent achievement, The Little Mermaid, and creating Disney’s Soda Fountain and Studio Store, will provide a leading indicator. In the meantime, Disney has lost one its best minds.

Read my 2007 interview with Dick here.

Is Marvel Comics Deal the End of Walt’s Disney?

1 September 2009

Disney Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Iger, briefly profiled in Newsweek in this gushing piece, announced yesterday that the Walt Disney Studios is acquiring the lucrative new Hollywood mini-studio Marvel Comics (Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men) for $ 4 billion. Marvel’s a solid player with potential and Disney is one of the best studios and both have their own relatively consistent brands.

What does one add to the other in creative terms? Disney’s driving philosophy had been, until recently, an American, which is to say benign, sense of life expressed with positive characters in story-driven material, whether in a theme park (Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure) or in a movie. Marvel’s brand of comic book characters is rooted in marginally heroic, or at least not completely anti-heroic, cartoon figures (The Incredible Hulk) with broad appeal. Both derive success from plots that seem to attract general audiences.

Unlike Pixar Animation Studios, which Disney also acquired under Mr. Iger, Marvel’s catalog does not possess a quality that can easily or identifiably be assimilated into Disney’s wholesome, family entertainment. Sure, the Marvel pictures are noticeably less cynical than the competition, but that’s not saying much. This move further dilutes the Disney brand and may make the studio more relevant in the short term at the expense of being markedly less original in the long term. It has been 15 years since The Lion King, 20 years since The Little Mermaid, and 65 years since Disney released the classic Dumbo in movie theaters. I doubt that the un-Disneylike Enchanted, Pixar’s middling Up, or anything with Hannah Montana will be remembered with as much affection. While Marvel makes good popcorn movies, their stories hardly express childlike wonder, adventure, and innocence, something Disney used to imagine and reimagine in timeless tales. Besides, with politically correct Disney’s ban on smoking in movies, it’s hard to imagine Iron Man’s alter ego, Tony Stark, lighting up the occasional cigar, which raises the question of whether this hyped deal may end up as a lose-lose proposition that signals the end of the legendary Walt’s creative influence in an age of dying Americanism.

Pittsburgh, Television, and an Update

21 April 2009

Blogger Aaron West’s first blog post is an excellent tribute to an historic city of capitalism, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the businessman once thrived. The post is a desperately needed reminder about what makes America great. Once a bustling boomtown, Pittsburgh is no longer at the center of American industry. But the metropolis evokes the best of our nation’s Industrial Revolution. Built into the rolling, green hills of western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh rises as a triangle of skyscrapers at the intersection of two rivers, which merge to become one, wide river, the Ohio, which flows into the West. Aaron’s post, citing industrialists Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan, pulls an excerpt from a book published in 1907, which captures the spirit of Pittsburgh: “Without a single exception, the steel kings and coal barons of to-day were the barefooted boys of yesterday. In this respect no other city is as genuinely republican, as thoroughly American, as Pittsburgh.”

Another byproduct of Pittsburgh capitalism, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), bearing the names of Andrew Carnegie and banker Andrew Mellon, recently sponsored a thoughtful discussion about making money in arts and entertainment, “The Future Business Model of Television” (Pittsburgh is also the site of the world’s first television station, KDKA). The event was hosted by Heinz College’s Master of Entertainment Industry Management program in Hollywood and included NBC Universal’s Chief Marketing Officer John Miller, Fox’s Marcy Ross, William Morris Agency’s Steven Selikoff, head of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences John Shaffner, and producer and former Warner Bros.’ executive vice-president for production, Judith Zaylor.

The event, held at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California, was moderated by Wayne Friedman. Miller recalled that, when Dallas aired on CBS, everyone freaked when they learned that Larry Hagman, who played the male lead, earned $ 50,000 per episode, and he observed that the government might invoke national security and take over local television programming, which is struggling. Zaylor explained how the Sarbanes-Oxley law, which imposes regulations on business, has seriously damaged the ability to produce TV content and everyone talked about the success of Fox’s American Idol, studio cost-cutting and so-called reality TV programming, which, as Shaffner reminded those in attendance, echoes the early days of TV, which was dominated by wrestling, boxing and talent competitions. TV is experiencing a tremendous business model change and the panel reflected the current state of the industry as a work in progress, ripe for new opportunity.

Readers of this blog may notice a few new features. I have added an ability to search the blog, which, it is important to note, is a separate function from searching the site. Please note that the blog search field is located on the right-hand navigation bar (the site search remains at the top of each site page). Another feature is the ability to subscribe to my blog using a feed (see Feeds on the right) and there is now a Permalink at the end of each post, to make it easier to link to an individual post. Also new: archives, arranged by month and year, categories, and an index of blogs (see Blogroll at right, though Feeds and Blogroll only appear on the main blog page). I do not plan to include Comments, which, properly implemented, is extremely time-consuming. Of course, there is more to the site than this Blog, so feel free to scout the subjects under Writings (Books, News & Ideas, War, Health Care, Music, Travel, Interviews and Movies) for something of interest.