I feel like I've just fallen through the rabbit hole and found myself in a backwards, upside down, merry un-birthday world.
Eisner very nearly killed Disney. Sure, he attempted to expand like crazy, and those ventures essentially flopped. Great job w/ Euro Disney there buddy. Meanwhile, he allowed the existing parks to stagnate.
Eisner is the one who fired Pixar and said they could do it cheaper in house. You can thank him for Home on the Range, Bolt, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and every other movie that murdered the Disney brand in the early to mid 2000's and allowed Dreamworks to go from derivative knock off crap like Shark Tale to a major competitor.
Katzenberg often gets credit for being involved in the golden Disney films of the 90s', however I have always failed to understand how he gets credit for movies that were well into production before he ever strolled in. He was known for editing the crap out of these movies. Anyone here care to recall how Robin Williams did the Genie's voice under the agreement that they would not advertise the movie using his name? Katzenberg and Eisner 100$ screwed Williams over on that deal.
The people who made the films you guys all loved HATED Katzenberg. And he was there 100% because of Eisner. Hell, even Eisner realized that Katzenberg was a problem.
Meanwhile, Eisner and Katzenberg are walking around with all this credit for recreating this Disney Golden Age when the concepts and production of several of these films all date back to Ron Miller's time. You know, the guy who funded Tim Burton's work giving us NMBC and everything that was released under Touchstone?
Roy Disney friggin QUIT THE COMPANY and started a SAVE DISNEY campaign. That is how bad Eisner was. How anyone who actually appreciates Disney and understands the history of the company can argue that Iger is worse than Eisner is absolutely beyond me. Iger single-handedly saved the movie division by rescuing the relationship with Pixar and acquiring them. Eisner had not only cut Pixar, but he had killed the traditional animation department. What was left?
Iger knew that Disney was 100% based on characters, and guess what - they didn't have *any* new ones in the pipeline. Pixar saved Disney, like it or not. It gave Disney time to regroup and get back to developing new stories. And what did the go back and develop? Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen. One of which is one of the highest grossing movies ever.
How in the world can the article claim that Disney has lost being "Disney", when Iger has done the one thing that defines Disney more than any other CEO SINCE Disney? All he has done is BUILD their character base. The acquisition of LucasFilms was brilliant. Not only did it bring in a ton of very recognizable characters, it saved the franchise. Lucas was murdering Star Wars. There is absolutely no way the new movies can be worse than the prequels.
Acquiring Marvel was especially brilliant. Disney has a shortage of boys characters. The princesses are bank, but Cars and Planes can only take them so far. Super heroes on the other hand are the boy version of Princesses. Those characters allow them to cater equally to both boys and girls, while giving both of them the fantasies they want to have.
I don't know what those of you who so cleverly call the CEO "Ogre" think Disney means, but I'll tell you what Walt defined it as.
"I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with 'expressing' myself with obscure creative impressions."
-Walt Disney
"We are not trying to entertain the critics. I'll take my chances with the public."
-Walt Disney
My kids LOVE the current Disney movies. They love dressing up as princesses and super heroes. They adore the Disney Jr. shows. My daughter, and so many others, have spent hours dreaming of being Queen Elsa.
You can debate graphs and financials all you want, but there are some indisputable facts here:
Disney is relevant to today's kids
Disney is banking at both the box office and the parks
Roy Disney, nor any other chairman, has ever quit the company to start an entire campaign to "save" the company from Iger.
Under Eisner, especially towards the end of his egomaniac run, Disney was *not* relevant to children (Bolt, Dinosaur, Chicken Little, Home on the Range, Brother Bear, Meet the Robinsons, and I hate to say it, even Treasure Planet all flopped. The ONLY money making movies released during that time period were ALL Pixar). And let me remind you that even as Eisner was getting FORCEFULLY booted out of the company, he still caught wind of Iger trying to bring Pixar back and he went down and attempted to talk the board out of it.
Source:
http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_c...cquisition-of-pixar.aspx#sthash.79h5rkf2.dpbs
Anyone who thinks Eisner was better for Disney than Iger has a little history to brush up on.