Major Cuts coming for Disney Studio

[Another Voice]

From this morning's Variety:

Mouse to cut back on pix, personnel
Disney set to slash output, staff

Even as it basks in the box office glory of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," Disney is using the opportunity to tighten its belt.
The Mouse House will announce within the next 10 days that it's cutting back on the number of films it makes to around eight per year -- it currently releases around 18 -- and will substantially reduce its workforce. All movies will be Disney-branded, meaning companies like Touchstone could be vastly diminished.

The cutbacks will be far greater than many anticipated, as Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook looks to reinvent the architecture of his studio. Move reflects an effort to improve the studio's return on investment and get infrastructure back into line.

While Disney's having a grand summer with "Pirates" and with Pixar's "Cars," this year has seen some major misfires: "Stick It," "Annapolis," "Stay Alive" and especially "The Wild."

So while the general population wonders how a studio can claim "money problems" after a record-breaking opening -- "Pirates" took in a whopping $135 million in its first weekend, and business is brisk even midweek as it heads into another huge weekend -- the move re-emphasizes the fact that studios are looking to cut costs amid increasing overhead, production budgets and marketing bills.

I guess that also means we're likely to see "R" rated movies under the "Walt Disney Pictures" banner since Disney remains committed to several of those projects.

 

[DWatWDW]

I hope this means they will be producing the quality movies and dropping the rubbish. None of the flops mentioned appeal to me at all.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

I guess that also means we're likely to see "R" rated movies under the "Walt Disney Pictures" banner since Disney remains committed to several of those projects.

Let's hope that R-rated movies that are already committed will be released under an appropriate banner like Touchstone.

What's interesting about this announcement is that it essentially brings Disney's movie business back to where it was before Michael Eisner and his team came in. The previous Disney management had already launched the Touchstone label (for the PG-rated "Splash"), but essentially Disney only made Disney movies — and not very many of those.

 

[pouncingpluto]

Stick It was not a letdown, in my opinion. In fact, it was FAR better received by the general public than I ever expected. I'm a member of the gymnastics community and am used to every gymnastics movie being released completely STINKING. Stick It is probably the best one to date.

If Disney thought they were going to do better than that with a gymn movie, they were crazy. It's still at #22, after its 11th week in theaters.

 

[firemanx]

heres two articles from the local south florida newspaper on this.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-713disney,0,3959871.story

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/busines...3,0,344001.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines

i think this is great news, and disney will now be more focused on there movies then just putting them out to have a movie in theaters.

 

[DisneyFanGuy]

I always thought it was brilliant to have a second brand, Touchstone Pictures, to distribute more adult fare. So it's an interesting strategic move. The goal must be to broaden the appeal of the Disney Pictures brand beyond family friendly fare. That seems to me to be risky. The appeal to me of Disney has always been that they are "family friendly" in a world that isn't.

It does fit the strategy of being more focused on less product though. You can't argue with that.

 

[raidermatt]

Let's hope that R-rated movies that are already committed will be released under an appropriate banner like Touchstone.

I agree, but its not clear from the article if that will be the case. Of course, nothing will be clear until Disney itself makes an announcement, and even that might not provide all of the answers.

It does fit the strategy of being more focused on less product though. You can't argue with that.

The question is what do you think the real problem has been (now that we can apparently all agree that there is a problem)?

Has Disney been perfectly capable of consistently making successful movies all along, but is just overextending itself with 18 films? If so, then we can assume the films they will cut would have been their weaker efforts, and the move will be a good one, branding issues aside.

Or is the problem that Disney hasn't been able to consistently make succesful movies, regardless of the number it makes? If that's the problem, then cutting back to 8 films might not help things at all. A potentially good film will be just as likely to not get made as a potenially bad film. Things could get even worse since the Disney execs will have fewer films to focus on, and there will be more riding on the success of each one.