What film companies are considered Disney ?

[KNWVIKING]

Since I started frequenting this board I've started tracking movies over a boxofficemojo. I know pixar & Disney have and are colaborating on movies-at least for the mean time. But I know there are other brand names making movies for Disney and just wanted to make myself a list.

 

[YoHo]

Disney
Touchstone
Miramax
Dimension
Hollywood studios

 

[Another Voice]

The Walt Disney Studios “owns” three primary production companies: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. These companies essentially finance and make movies.

Disney also owns a couple of distribution companies, the primary one being Buena Vista Distribution. In theory this company doesn’t make movies; instead it “buys” and books them into theaters, airlines, and so forth. In addition to releasing stuff made by the three "in-house" production companies, Buena Vista also buys films from outside – I think ‘Spirited Away’ was one such deal.

Disney also owns Miramax Films and runs it as a subsidiary. Essentially, Miramax can go off a do what it wishes; it just has to turn over it’s profits to Disney at the end of the year. Miramax was started as a distributor: it went out and bought small art films and got them into theaters. It was extremely successful at it and moved quickly to become a production company on it’s own by financing and production its own films. It also does a lot of “joint distribution” work with other studios. Another studio will co-finance the film with Miramax and split the distribution profits. Miramax has a lot of these deals with Universal and some with Paramount and others. Whether you count these films as “Disney” is a question. Miramax also has a subsidiary of its own called Dimension Films. While the big brother runs Miramax for prestige art house flick, Dimension is run by the little brother for straight exploitation: horror flicks, low budget action, sex “comedies” and such.

There are also several independent production companies that have a “first look” deal with Disney. That’s Hollywood talk for a practice that when someone like Jerry Bruckheimer of Bruckheimer films wants to make a movie about a giant asteroid heading to Earth, he first goes to Disney to see if they want to finance it. Should Disney say “no” to a project, Jerry is able to shop it around. That’s how ‘Black Hawk Down’ moved over to Columbia Pictures.

Remember that every company name you see attached on a movie means that someone got paid money. There is a tremendous incentive to form all kinds of little production companies – more pieces of the pie. To really figure out what is “Disney”, you almost have to go on a film by film basis.


P.S. Pixar is a separate, publicly owned company. All they have with Disney is just a contract to deliver a certain number of films. Nothing more.

 

[wdwguide]

Then there's Shining Excalibur Pictures, which Disney formed just so that Kids could get into theaters without people associating it with Disney.

 

[KNWVIKING]

We've discussed the mega bucks TP has lost,but all things considered it appears Disneys combined film efforts are making money. Seems like for each TP there is a Signs, for Gangs there is a Chicago and then a handfull of modest little money makers.

 

[Golter]

Gangs, though not a blockbuster, will turn a profit when it is all said and done.... Not what they were expecting, but certainly not a TP.

 

[KNWVIKING]

Well, Gangs is mostly out of the theaters now with a gross of 74 mil. Production & Marketing estimates are 135 mil. Chicago is at 95 mil with P & M of 75 mil. I think it will take in another 10-20 mil, maybe more after the Oscar's.

 

[Another Voice]

Well, in the last annual report the Company says that the Studio Entertainment Group (which includes theatrical, home video, live stage and Miramax) earned only $273 million dollars on revenues of $6.7 billion dollars. I'd hardly call a 4% return a modest string of successes – Disney could have made more profit it had made home loans instead of movies*. And also remember that the first day of 'Monsters, Inc.' DVD sales were close to $100 million alone, you have to wonder why profits were so low.

And there's another interesting little bit. The costs of mega movies like 'Pearl Harbor', 'Bad Company', 'Treasure Planet', 'Gangs of New York' aren't even fully recognized in the year, the rest is amortized over the hoped for life of the movie. What you're seeing is all of the revenue for 'Gangs' and only part of the movie's cost. This, of course, makes this year's profits look higher.

'Gangs' will simply never make a profit. It cost too much, too much to market, too much to buy all those award nominations, too much to pay off all those bruised egos – and took in far too little at the box office (which directly translates into home video performance). The announced production costs were $120 million, the Hollywood buzz says it's really slightly north of $150 million. Marketing adds another $50 - $80 million to that as well. Then there are all those other costs...

The lesson Disney needs to draw from it recent movie performance: well made modest movies are winners: 'The Rookie', 'Signs', 'Lilo and Stitch'. Big time executive ego blockbusters: 'Bad Company', 'Reign of Fire', 'Gangs of New York', 'Treasure Planet' -- are losers.


* Disney made 18% from the parks, 16% from stores & product licenses, and even managed 10% from struggling ABC and cable. In fact, Consumer Products had just one third of the revenue that Studio Entertainment had - yet CP had a higher profit in real dollars.

 

[airlarry!]

M. AV:

I'm sure you've read Jim Hill's backstory on the development of TP....how the two guys with the great movies with Disney had been begging to make this movie.

And I've always thought it was a great idea for a movie, but that the implementation was just a little too dark. I don't know if it was my local screen or not, but the movie just seemed dark and hard to watch.

I notice you say 'egos' ruined the movie. I was curious what is your opinion as to what was wrong with the movie AND what went wrong with the making of the movie.

My guess is music and the weak story between The Main Guy and his mom.

 

[Another Voice]

I could probably write a fairly good book on why 'Treasure Planet' failed. None of it has anything to do with dark animation or competition at the box office. Just to be short, I won't elaborate much on the three primary problems with film itself: action/adventure doesn't "work" in an animated format; the background was confusing, silly and served no point; and the story (as opposed to the plot) was so weak it nearly did not exist at all.

But the real problem, in my mind anyway, is how this movie got made in the first place. This is really the core of the "ego" problem – bad ideas develop and no one has the insight or the guts to stop them. A project gains a certain momentum and things push ahead even though every one involved knows it's really bad.

"Egos" appear on both the production and the executive side of the film. It's an extremely common problem. Making a film requires a lot of people. Good filmmakers know when to listen and how to take advice. The two directors of 'Treasure Planet' have made some very good films before, but they did so with a tremendous input from others in terms of story and music (which was so integral it was the story as well). They lacked that "outside support" on 'Treasure'.

There's also a chance (but I don't know one way or the other in this case) that Auteur Disease hit certain people – a belief that THEY know how to make movies and that THEY don't need anyone telling them what to do and that THEY are a genius. In most circles these days it's called George Lucas Syndrome after its most famous victim. Admitting that one might not have all the answers and that ideas from other people might be better does require one to take a couple blows to the ego. Some people don't have that skin thickness.

There are egos among the executives as well. The people in the suits don't have any better ideas about what will make a good movie than those with a camera or a pencil. But in order to keep the corner office with a hot tub, they have to pretend they know. They're also the ones called to bet $140 million that a script called 'Treasure Planet' will make a completed movie which returns $200+ million at the box office. That's a lot of money and a lot of stress. Most of them choose the safe route.

Filmmakers who have had past successes are considered "safe" because you can shift blame for a failed project. Say a suit agrees to make Movie X with a talented but unknown director. The movie turns out bad and tanks at the box office. His bosses will immediately blame the suit for picking someone who was obviously a bad director. But if the suit goes with Big Time Name, that same suit can turn around and say, "how was I supposed to know, the guy's last project made $150 million its first weekend!". The only objective measurement in Hollywood is money.

Playing the odds, catering to personalities, relying on clever marketing campaigns are all much easier than trying to make a good movie. Producing quality requires a tremendous amount of hard work and it always bruises a lot of egos in the process. 'Treasure Planet' failed because no one was willing to risk getting hurt by either asking for help or by telling someone "no".