What would Disney's answer be to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter?

[MJMcBride]

http://www.mouseextra.com/2007/07/05/what-disney-can-do-to-stem-the-potter-tide/#comment-1611

here's something of mine on the topic.

 

[EUROPACL]

WOW AV is my guilty pleasure...I love reading his stuff. Its horrible Disney wise but great reading.

 

[mello]

Thank you for the education. You did a great job on the readers digest condensed version lol. Very interesting stuff.

The Swan and Dolphin Hotels, whatever you think of them, were major buildings in the world of high fashion architecture. Suddenly Eisner found himself being hailed as a hero, as a Patron of the Arts, and as Benefactor of Merit, and all the other accolades an industry throws on someone who gives them lots of undeserved money.

I like that - whatever you think of them. I think they might be kinda pretty in the right setting, but where they are is definitely NOT the right setting. Here you've got a turn-of-the-century boardwalk/beachy theme going on, and then you look off to the side and BAM! The 20th century hits you over the head like a rock! Jarring and audacious. Just mho.

P.S. Bob "The Poddle" Iger was an executive at ABC long before Disney bought CapCities. He ran the network for over a decade. If the executive ran a single business unit so poorly that it directly lead to a decade's long crash in the stock price, calls for his removal, and year after year of disasterous ratings and earning...what makes you think he's going to run the parent company well?

Well... nothing really makes me think that. Wonder what makes the powers-that-be at Disney think that??? Are they all of that mindset now?

I knew that Eisner cared only about profits, so I figured any change would almost have to be for the better, and we have seen a few small changes creatively, so one would hope that might be a good sign. But what you tell of Iger's past doesn't sound too terribly hopeful either.

Now I have more questions:

Where was/is the family during all this turmoil? Is there nobody left of the family except Roy? It seems there should be somebody left somewhere who actually cares what happens to the company, the parks, and Walt's ideals. Is that not the case?

Anyway.... I know this may be a naive attitude, but maybe, just maybe, those strokes of good fortune for the parks were part of a greater design, or a manifestation of the real Disney magic, or something that goes beyond what we humans understand, as a way to keep some good in the world somewhere. Again I know that sounds silly, especially in print, and I know lots of folks would take exception to that for a number of reasons, but i don't know.... I may be terribly misguided, but I just think we just have to have hope that "Good" will prevail, kwim?

 

[Disney Padawan]

WOW AV is my guilty pleasure...I love reading his stuff. Its horrible Disney wise but great reading.

I second that.

Where was/is the family during all this turmoil? Is there nobody left of the family except Roy? It seems there should be somebody left somewhere who actually cares what happens to the company, the parks, and Walt's ideals. Is that not the case?

Anyway.... I know this may be a naive attitude, but maybe, just maybe, those strokes of good fortune for the parks were part of a greater design, or a manifestation of the real Disney magic, or something that goes beyond what we humans understand, as a way to keep some good in the world somewhere. Again I know that sounds silly, especially in print, and I know lots of folks would take exception to that for a number of reasons, but i don't know.... I may be terribly misguided, but I just think we just have to have hope that "Good" will prevail, kwim?

Mello, you took the questions right out of my keyboard!
Also, It may sound a little silly on print like you said but I believe in what you're saying. Though I'm not liking what I'm reading about Iger, I always feel that there's hope for the future. To put it more logically, Iger & the higher ups should know that the parks are their bread & butter so it's in their best interest not to fudge with them!
Unless they plan on making improvements, that is.

 

[DancingBear]

Here you've got a turn-of-the-century boardwalk/beachy theme going on, and then you look off to the side and BAM! The 20th century hits you over the head like a rock!

Just a note that the S&D opened several months before the Yacht and Beach Clubs, and several years before the Boardwalk. Is it equally jarring for you to be looking at the Polynesian and then turn your head and see the Contemporary?

 

[Another Voice]

Thanks to everyone for compliments. There’s a lot of Disney history that never made it into the corporate reports or the glowing business books. I’m just doing my little bit so that people can understand what is really happening. Disney is a large part of people’s lives, and the country’s culture. It’s important to keep who they are and what they do in perspective.

Where was/is the family during all this turmoil? Is there nobody left of the family except Roy?

There is one constant throughout the entire history of the Disney organization – the struggle between brothers Roy and Walt. This struggle continued even after their deaths and continued on with the children. I don’t have time to go into the period that followed Walt’s death, but the end result was the Roy side of the family was soon frozen out of the Disney organization.

Roy went off to make his fortune. By the mid-1980’s he had some hits, and too many misses (Polaroid, LA Gear). His largest remaining asset was his stock in Walt Disney Productions. But years of indifferent management had let the stock wither in price. Roy wanted money, and so he needed a strong Disney.

Worse than that, his arch-nemesis – Ron Miller, husband of Diane Disney and Walt’s “favorite” in Roy’s eyes – had finally knocked over the Old Guard at the company. Ron understood too that Disney needed help and began a massive campaign to move the company forward. It was Ron Miller that start most of the big projects the Michael Eisner would latter assume credit for: expansion at WDW, the move into cable, a return to television, launching mainstream movies through Touchstone Pictures, the beginnings of The Disney Story, the acquisition of outside properties (movies, books, etc.), Tokyo Disneyland and planning for Europe, and on and on.

Naturally, Roy thought he could do it better. He began discussions with outside firms to buy Disney and install a new management team. Word soon leaked out. If Disney’s troubles and potential were obvious to Ron and Roy – they were now also obvious to rich financiers. These people had the money to pull off a take-over and they sure didn’t need the baggage that Walt’s “idiot nephew” brought along.

The various greenmail and takeover attempts are richly documented in Storming the Magic Kingdom. I don’t have the reference right now, but if you have the chance you should read this book. It remains one of the best books about the workings of Disney ever written and makes a great companion piece to Disney Wars.

In the end, the Bass Brothers of Texas won the battle to buy Disney. They handed over control to Roy Disney and his team. Roy’s first task was revenge. Any trace of Ron Miller and the “Walt” side of the family was quite literally crushed. There are tales at Disneyland of a tearful Lillian Disney picking through Walt’s apartment on Main Street to collect Walt’s belongings (which had been left there so that Walt would always have a home at Disneyland) and over loud arguments in ‘The Walt Disney Story’ about what was “Walt’s property” and what was “Disney’s property”. Every where there was a picture of Walt, a picture of the same size of Roy O. suddenly appeared. Ron Miller, Diane and Lillian retired from the company and officially become unwelcomed at any Disney function. It wasn’t until decades later, when Roy needed Diane’s stock to help unseat Michael Eisner, that it’s said Roy and Diane even spoke to each other.

And with that – Roy was gone. During the time he spent in exile, Roy had developed a taste for the good life. He had a castle in Ireland. He raced massive sailboats. He traveled the world. And he really couldn’t give a flip about the company his father helped build. Now that it looked like the money would flow, he went back to his old ways. Months playing feudal lord in Ireland, sailing yachts to Hawai’i and Mexico. He’d show up for a board meeting, but he was also well paid for that.

So selling EPCOT Center, closing Animation or whatever – Roy only really cared that his boat floated on a sea of cash.

 

[mello]

I actually wondered about that when typing out my thoughts on the S&D. So the Boardwalk and Beachclub are actually the offending anachronisms! Ah well, I still like their architecture better, though I know that's simply a matter of opinion, and it likely shows me for an unsophisticated tasteless provincial, lol.

Just a note that the S&D opened several months before the Yacht and Beach Clubs, and several years before the Boardwalk. Is it equally jarring for you to be looking at the Polynesian and then turn your head and see the Contemporary?

Yes, actually it is! In fact, I like the looks of the Swan & Dolphin better than the looks of the giant toaster! However, the toaster is farther away from the Poly, and somehow the monorail going through it redeems the whole thing.

 

[mello]

How very, very sad.

So let's see if I have this right: as things stand at the present, Roy and Diane are barely on speaking terms, each still hold large amounts of stock, but neither one is really involved? And Iger, (who is apparently from the same cloth as Eisner?) was chosen by whom? The board? The shareholders in general? Someone else? Why would Roy and/or Diane care about unseating Eisner only to have him replaced by someone very similar?

Sorry for all the questions. But this is a fascinating (if rather depressing) subject. I will definitely have to get the books you mentioned.

 

[Another Voice]

Bob Iger was groomed to be CEO by Michael Eisner. That's were the "poodle" part comes from. Everyone around the company suspected this was Eisner's survival plan. After his heart attack, there was a lot of pressure from Wall Street and the Board to start planning for other people to take over, just in case. Eisner saw this is a coup and fought it for years. Then he selected Bob Iger, the leader of Disney's disasterous ABC unit. The ploy was clear - as much as you might hate Micheal Eisner, he was still better in the job than Iger would be. That trick probably added three to five years to Eisner's rule.

For a lot of information, please read Disney War. The book came out before everything was settled, but gives you a very good idea as to what was going on all during this time. The board was handpicked by Eisner and there was a ruthless extermination campaign against any opposition - this was when Eisner kicked Roy E. Disney off the board.

What appears to have finally happened in the was a back-room deal between Eisner and Roy. Eisner would leave with a huge mountain of cash, Roy would return to the board in a "special status" with a huge mountian of cash...and Diane was sent back to the winery (it's rumored she's so disgusted with THe Company that all her efforts are directed at keeping her father's reputation from being ruined). Roy never really cared about that side of the family, they were a tool for his second take-over attempt.

Right now the feeling is that no one is really running the company. Each of the business units is moving off in different and wild directions: Attracitons planning hotels in Detriot, Products launching 'Faries' and giving away the Stores, the Studio seems to be back to the horrid days of the 1970's live action flicks - Underdog is not the product of a successful movie studio.

 

[mitros]

Bob Iger was groomed to be CEO by Michael Eisner. That's were the "poodle" part comes from. Everyone around the company suspected this was Eisner's survival plan. After his heart attack, there was a lot of pressure from Wall Street and the Board to start planning for other people to take over, just in case. Eisner saw this is a coup and fought it for years. Then he selected Bob Iger, the leader of Disney's disasterous ABC unit. The ploy was clear - as much as you might hate Micheal Eisner, he was still better in the job than Iger would be. That trick probably added three to five years to Eisner's rule.

For a lot of information, please read Disney War. The book came out before everything was settled, but gives you a very good idea as to what was going on all during this time. The board was handpicked by Eisner and there was a ruthless extermination campaign against any opposition - this was when Eisner kicked Roy E. Disney off the board.

What appears to have finally happened in the was a back-room deal between Eisner and Roy. Eisner would leave with a huge mountain of cash, Roy would return to the board in a "special status" with a huge mountian of cash...and Diane was sent back to the winery (it's rumored she's so disgusted with THe Company that all her efforts are directed at keeping her father's reputation from being ruined). Roy never really cared about that side of the family, they were a tool for his second take-over attempt.

Right now the feeling is that no one is really running the company. Each of the business units is moving off in different and wild directions: Attracitons planning hotels in Detriot, Products launching 'Faries' and giving away the Stores, the Studio seems to be back to the horrid days of the 1970's live action flicks - Underdog is not the product of a successful movie studio.

AV, thanks again for an outstanding look into what is {or isn't} going on at Disney. Appreciate the insights..........

 

[mello]

You've been most informative. I'm definitely going to order that book.

 

[Disney Padawan]

It was Ron Miller that start most of the big projects the Michael Eisner would latter assume credit for: expansion at WDW, the move into cable, a return to television, launching mainstream movies through Touchstone Pictures, the beginnings of The Disney Story, the acquisition of outside properties (movies, books, etc.), Tokyo Disneyland and planning for Europe, and on and on.

Another Voice, thank you for all your insight & knowledge, it's so sad to read in a way, but thanks for enlightening us.
So Miller is the one who came up with all those ideas? If he started all these big projects then what the heck did Eisner do!?!

Bob Iger was groomed to be CEO by Michael Eisner. That's were the "poodle" part comes from. Everyone around the company suspected this was Eisner's survival plan. After his heart attack, there was a lot of pressure from Wall Street and the Board to start planning for other people to take over, just in case. Eisner saw this is a coup and fought it for years. Then he selected Bob Iger, the leader of Disney's disasterous ABC unit. The ploy was clear - as much as you might hate Micheal Eisner, he was still better in the job than Iger would be. That trick probably added three to five years to Eisner's rule.

For a lot of information, please read Disney War. The book came out before everything was settled, but gives you a very good idea as to what was going on all during this time. The board was handpicked by Eisner and there was a ruthless extermination campaign against any opposition - this was when Eisner kicked Roy E. Disney off the board.

What appears to have finally happened in the was a back-room deal between Eisner and Roy. Eisner would leave with a huge mountain of cash, Roy would return to the board in a "special status" with a huge mountian of cash...and Diane was sent back to the winery (it's rumored she's so disgusted with THe Company that all her efforts are directed at keeping her father's reputation from being ruined). Roy never really cared about that side of the family, they were a tool for his second take-over attempt.

Right now the feeling is that no one is really running the company. Each of the business units is moving off in different and wild directions: Attracitons planning hotels in Detriot, Products launching 'Faries' and giving away the Stores, the Studio seems to be back to the horrid days of the 1970's live action flicks - Underdog is not the product of a successful movie studio.

This should scare the daylights of any hardcore Disney fan, I guess ignorance is bliss. I have a few questions for Another Voice or anyone else who might know.
Do you know how many board of directors that Eisner picked still have their jobs?
You mentioned it is rummored that all of Lillians efforts are to keep her father's name from being ruined. Would you know what she's been doing to prevent this?
Lastly, since Ron, Diane, & Lillian retired from the company, do they have any chance now at taking it back? What would they have to do to accomplish this?
Once again thanks for all the info.

 

[EUROPACL]

!
Lastly, since Ron, Diane, & Lillian retired from the company, do they have any chance now at taking it back? What would they have to do to accomplish this?

Disney is a publicly traded company that has grown huge and would require billions of dollars in order to buy it back....but if you mean like a controling intrest in stock or something along those lines....then Eisner still ownes a lot of stock and Jobs is the largest single share holder now thanks to the Pixar deal.

 

[mello]

Disney is a publicly traded company that has grown huge and would require billions of dollars in order to buy it back....but if you mean like a controling intrest in stock or something along those lines....then Eisner still ownes a lot of stock and Jobs is the largest single share holder now thanks to the Pixar deal.

What is known about Jobs???

 

[mello]

This should scare the daylights of any hardcore Disney fan, I guess ignorance is bliss.

You're right there

 

[ChrisFL]

What is known about Jobs???

he's the Apple guy

 

[mello]

he's the Apple guy

I've been reading up on him. Interesting guy. I found the following words/concepts describing him: entrepreneurial zeal, driven, aesthetic, passion, quality over quantity, benevolent benefactor, terrorising, innovation, control, attention to detail, aggressive, etc.

Sounds like he'll be good for the media side of things, but in all the articles there was no mention of the parks at all.

 

[YoHo]

Jobs is probably the only person on the Disney board capable of understanding the direction that the company needs to go in. The question is how much does he care?

As for What Eisner did. He went to power lunches and acted like a big shot. It can be said that he turned around WDW's Resturants, but that wasn't so much intentional as a function of his upperclass east coast snootiness. Still, us plebes should be happy we got that much.

When Michael Eisner had Wells controlling him and enough old school Imagineers to keep things reasonable, AND, before Euro Disney scared him, his ego could be used to the benefit of Disney fans, but that kind of thing was bound to fall apart. And it did spectacularly. So now we're left with an ineffectual CEO and a bunch of squabbling mini-eisners fighting over the scraps as the film division turns out junk, WDW is hacked to pieces and ABC sucks all available money up like one of the giant post parade vacuums of doom.
We all cling to Emeryville praying that Lasseter and Catmull will save us, but they just don't have the influence. Too many people need to clean out their desks.

 

[EUROPACL]

What is known about Jobs???.

Jobs...if there is anyone with a bigger Ego than Eisner its Jobs (Good and Bad).

Jobs has made two of the biggest Tech Blunders ever the Apple Lisa and the fact he wanted to control the hardware end of the PC market. (Thats why there is an IBM PC Clone on 90% of the desk insted of an Apple).Even though the Apple PC has always been reguarded as a better machine and for years had a better Chip.

On the other hand he has hit home runs with iPod, Pixar and now the iPhone. Jobs is a very creative guy...maybe not the best biz sense sometimes...but Walt had the same label.

...but as AV pointed out Disney is in free fall mode right now with all the units going in different directions.

 

[Another Voice]

Sorry, but the real world calls. This is rather rushed, but it gets my general point across.

Walt left Disney with one giant problem. That was the idea that one guy ran the entire show.

Walt knew better, and he expressed it many times himself. But the power of marketing and promotion is so strong in Hollywood and in entertainment, and Walt had gone along with it for so long, that it’s hard to avoid.

Walt wasn’t a good animator. He was a good storyteller, but he couldn’t design a ride from scratch. He knew little about merchandise, he knew a lot about what made people tick, what they wanted and what they dreamed about. He always thought of himself as an average person, but yearned to be part of the Hollywood Elite that never would accept him.

But Walt knew talent. He surrounded himself with the best people he could find. He also knew how to motivate them. He was unrelenting about demanding more, about demanding sacrifices from his staff. This would drive some people insane; it would drive others to greatness.

In short, Walt didn’t make a lot decisions around the company. Instead he was the one that set the bat that everyone else had to live up to. He was the one who pointed the direction to go; everyone else had to get the company moving that way. Walt brought both common sense and ambition to the company. He was a leader – he inspired more than he directed.

All too often today, the people running businesses don’t see themselves as leaders, but as despots. Michael Eisner would do everything from editing jokes in scripts to picking out draperies and carpeting for hotels at WDW. He commanded what was to be done.

The central attraction at the Disney/MGM Studios had been named ‘Great Moments at the Movies’ – after his son asked if it was a ride or a show, Eisner ordered the name changed to ‘The Great Movie Ride’. If his son was confused, then certainly the less well educated people going to the theme parks were going to be hopeless baffled. People at WDI were shocked, no had problems with ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or ‘Haunted Mansion’…they never needed to name it ‘Space Mountain Roller Coaster in the Dark’. The guests understand names and titles. But Eisner refused to change his mind. Despite having no experience with theme parks, or with being a normal tourist or what life was like outside his upper-upper class cocoon – his ordered had to be followed.

Walt knew how to listen to people. Sure, he hated to be contradicted and his stink eye had a well deserved deadly reputation, but he knew that the end product – the movie, the show, the ride – mattered more than his personal opinion about something. Underneath all the bluster and the promotion there was enough self-doubt to allow Walt to change his mind. That doesn’t exist in people like Michael Eisner. Filled with the certainty of their own talent (usually achieved be being separated from the real world). Other people exist simply carry out directives.

Most people don’t really care about Walt’s management style. They just assumed one person ran the show. Show when Michael Eisner told the world he was a one-man band, most people thought that was exactly what Disney needed. For a while it worked – Disney was filled with thousands of amazing hard working and talented people. They were the ones that created Beauty and the Beast and ‘Cranium Command’ and all the other highlights of the second great Disney period.

But soon Eisner’s real nature shown through and the company suffered. People were content just to get rid of him, but people are still under the delusion about The Great Businessman. Everyone is looking to Bob Iger as the one person show. Sadly Iger can neither inspire nor can he command. So now people have once again asked for a central figure to step forward…people like Steve Jobs.

But what Disney really needs is some one who can inspire. Some one top point the way and guide other people in that direction. I don’t know if that person can be found, I know for a fact the current Disney organization crushes people with those traits. The business units are all now run like Eisner ran the corporation – directives from one top.



I don’t write these things to be depressing. I don’t write these things because I wear rose colored glasses about the past. There is a reason why things happen at Disney – a reason why California Adventure is a ghost town, why there are three hour lines at Disneyland. There is a reason why we won’t see a fifth park at WDW, and reasons why that is a good thing. To find those reasons, all we have to do is learn from history.

Walt made mistakes; Eisner/Iger did good things. But on the balance there is one philosophy that built tremendous successes, the other one created massive problems. The causal fan doesn’t see what’s going on deep behind the scenes, they know little of what is truly possible. They proclaim something like ‘Expedition: Everest’ a major wonder. In reality, it’s a major mistake.

The more people understand, the higher our expectations for Disney will be. They have no “Walt” anymore to set their standards – but we the guests can. If they want our money, they must meet those expectations, better yet they must exceed them.