Animation & Walt

[Captain Crook]

airlarry, while I thought this had been covered pretty well, I will say again. Walt produced a number of films that cost so much and made so little (or lost money) in their initial run that the future of Disney was in serious jeopardy on more than one occasion. Now a movie that doesn't sell during its first release has got to be considered a flop...And I don't know why you're saying I can call you on the carpet for I don't think these films will endure as Walt's classics have. I have never said today's movies are better and again I have not claimed Eisner to a better filmaker than Walt, for that matter AV has me convinced that Eisner is not really a filmaker at all...

 

[Another Voice]

There’s an implication here that Walt’s flops put the company in danger. Perhaps true, but that’s how Hollywood operated. All of the studios lived a form of paycheck-to-paycheck existence. That’s why it was always so hard for studios to receive financing or even go public – they were bad investments. Even as recently as the 60’s and 70’s single films took down entire studios (‘Cleopatra’ & 20th Century Fox and ‘Heaven’s Gate’ & United Artists are the most notorious). My grandmother would tell stories of people rushing out of Warner Brothers on payday because no one was sure their paychecks were going to good on the following day.

Yes, Walt gambled from time to time and sometimes he lost. But that too is the nature of the business and I challenge anyone to find a filmmaker that hasn’t made a fair number of flops. Even Mr. Spielberg has ‘1941’ stuck on his resume. But the thing that airlarry’s list shows is that Walt’s flops are still making money today. How many movies from the 1930’s and 1940’s can make that claim? How many studios can still generate profits from their library more than half a century old ?

To imply that Walt somehow messed up, put the company in danger, and is responsible for the sorry shape that The Walt Disney Company is in today - that simply does not hold water. Walt’s studio survived and remained independent while all of his contemporaries crumbled. Disney survived the great first wave when Gulf+Western, Transamerica and all the other conglomerates invaded Hollywood. Giant studios like Paramount, MGM, United Artists and Universal did not. How does this indicate that Walt jeopardized the future? It seems to me that Walt did pretty good.

We’ll see how many more weeks Mr. Eisner can keep Disney independent.

 

[Captain Crook]

AV, I dispute very little of what you've said but you do start to make too many assumptions, again. Your history of early movie making is great. Seriously, I love to learn these things, but it isn't relevent in reposnse to the simple comments I've made (Walt made movies that were unsuccessful).

Further, We all agree that Walt's genius has shone through, but that too doesn't change the fact that a few of them nearly cost him the farm (that they didn't certainly is to his credit).

There are meant to be no implications that Walt "messed Up" and is to blame for the current shape beyond the fact that it was he who took the Company public.

As to how long Eisner & Disney can stay independent, I've started a thread on that and welcome your insight there...You've heard someting, I can tell!

 

[airlarry!]

I just had to giggle...saying Walt made movies that were unsuccesful and pointing at Bambi & Fantasia is so...so...Eisnerlike.

Yes. They were *losers* in the short-term. But isn't that what Eisner is being accused of--just looking at things in the short-term?

As much as I love Atlantis, I have to ask myself, will it become part of the vernacular, part of a treasured childhood like Bambi's 'stepping' scene?

Walt made enough mistakes in his lifetime, without us --ahem-- looking at Eisner's mistakes and trying to find parallels in Walt's universe. Tongue-firmly-in-cheek, of course.