Anyone read "Disney War"?

[Need An E Ticket]

By James Stewart.

Please move this thread if this is the incorrect forum.

It was at the Dollar Store and I picked it up and read it. It made Eisner and Iger out to be pretty bad people, especially Eisner.

Just curious if anyone has read and what their thoughts are. I have not read any other of Stewarts' books so I don't know if he is one to just stir things up or if he is a mostly factual author.

 

[bradk]

i read it some time ago and found it to be pretty balanced. i don't recall it making eisner out to be a bad guy tho. on the contrary, it demonstrated that when it came to show, eisner was all about spending money (his 'first' act was to green light splash mountain afterall which had been shelved for budget reasons) but he made sure everyone was accountable behind the scenes. which is fairly contrary to the overall consensus that he was just a penny pincher.

eisner isn't perfect, but he was what disney needed at the time and who he was and the people he surrounded himself with helped the company overcome its struggle to survive and grow into a much larger empire. whether people agree with his direction is another story. but he brought about a lot of great things, he just didn't necessarily keep them around.

 

[deej696]

I read it and also found it to be a much more balanced account of things, than Eisner's own book "A Work in Progress." It is clear, that Frank Wells was very much Eisner's counter balance. Together they did a lot of great things for the company, but obviously they had their flaws.

It was troubling to me how everyone that showed promise in the company were eventually pushed out by Eisner, out of fear, greed, or both. The book only cast Iger in a negative light, because that was the light Eisner gave him.

Brad makes a great point, that Eisner was what the company needed at the right time. He and Wells saved the company from the raiders, but it was not all roses as Eisners book and every annual report from the company during his tenure would make it out to be. The largest examples would be Euro Disney, the Katzenberg/Ovitz drama, and the Fox Family acquisition.....all colossal errors in judgement...

 

[slug]

By James Stewart.

Please move this thread if this is the incorrect forum.

It was at the Dollar Store and I picked it up and read it. It made Eisner and Iger out to be pretty bad people, especially Eisner.

Just curious if anyone has read and what their thoughts are. I have not read any other of Stewarts' books so I don't know if he is one to just stir things up or if he is a mostly factual author.

I read it years ago. I loved it. I thought it was very fair.

It dis portray Eisney poorly, but it sounds like he deserved most of it. He had a great run and did some wonderful things. I have no problem with him. But he saw Disney as his own and treated it as his own personal company, when in reality he was responsible to the shareholders. The Ovitz fiasco was embarrassing and Eisner's lowpoint.

 

[bradk]

i think the wells point is what really drives it home. eurodisney is a classic example of how eisner had no issue with spending money. it bled. but how much of it is eisner's fault is really unclear. despite micromanaging, it's not unreasonable to expect some amount of denial on his part and reluctance on the part of others to tell him no. things may have gone quite differently if someone had the guts to tell him the truth.

but the reality is i did my time in the entertainment biz (one of the people i 'worked with' is now head of a major television network, although i add i don't believe the following to apply to him) and i know how some of those alpha dogs are and what their unrealistic expectations can be and how people bend over backwards for them (which is unapparent to me because i consider a job to be a job and not my lifeforce). so when you're surrounded by yesmen, you have the ability to veer yourself well off course.

some people even nitpick the guy for hosting the wonderful world of disney.

my only real gripe is when people freely blame him for everything they don't like but readily give completely unrelated people credit for things they do like.

he did wonders at ABC, he did wonders at Paramount. and he saved Disney. even if you argue that it wasn't him but the people he surrounded himself with, he knew who to stick around. Katzenberg was a windfall, but you'd have to know that'd never work. the geniuses in the business are all looking out for themselves and their own names, not for somebody in a suit above them.

 

[Need An E Ticket]

I agree it was what Disney needed when he first came on board.

But if the book is factual, I have to disagree about ABC. The chances that he had that he did not take: Survivor, CSI and others I can't remember right now. I think that the younger Eisner may have taken a chance on them. The people he brought on then got rid of.

And he opened the purses for the ABC family channel. And that was a huge fiasco.

The book brought out some things that I did not know, I enjoyed it and it only endears me more with the Parks and movies.

Well worth the dollar I spent

Anyone know what Eisner is doing now?

 

[Brian_WDW74]

Please move this thread if this is the incorrect forum.

Consider it moved. You will now find this thread on our Theme Parks Community board.

 

[deej696]

Anyone know what Eisner is doing now?

He runs his own investment company, which recently purchased Topps, the baseball card company. Perhaps a throwback to the big kid that Eisner often seemed to portray...