Disney to Cut Back on Films & Personnel

NemoRocks78

NemoRocks78

Seized
Original Poster
Disney to Cut Back on Films & Personnel
Source: Variety
July 12, 2006

While Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest set another record on Monday, grossing $18.1 million to beat the previous nonholiday Monday benchmark of $14.4 million set by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, Disney is tightening its belt.

According to Variety, Walt Disney Pictures 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 studio chairman ________ Cook looks to reinvent the architecture of his studio. The 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.
 
erasure fan1

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
I dont think its a bad thing, I for one am under the mindset of quality over quantity. I mean did anyone think stick it would be a hit.
 
CTXRover

CTXRover

Well-Known Member
The risk they run is having 8 flops in one year without 10 other films to be that one surprise hit to pull them out of the hole.

I'd rather see 8 high quality films a year come from the studio than 18 films with only a handful of them being worthwhile seeing. Its a smart, yet risky move. If they do it right, it will pay off big time. If they do it wrong, it will hurt big time.

I'm surprised that all films will now be Disney branded though. I imagine less PG-13 films will be made by the company. While both Pirate films are PG-13, they are the only in the company's history to carry such a rating under the WDP banner. Does this also mean no films carrying an R rating will be produced by the company anymore? I guess they can leave that to the recently downsized Miramax division though.
 
wannab@dis

wannab@dis

Well-Known Member
Seems like a good move to me. Sometimes a hard decision has to be made to bring higher quality back into a process. I don't think all 18 movies would have necessarily been crappy, but there's a better chance of having more hit movies when the same amount of money is spent on fewer films and you can spend more money on marketing. Some of the recent live action films have been much better than their marketing makes them look.
 
wannab@dis

wannab@dis

Well-Known Member
Connor002 said:
Hmm... I'm curious as to whether this will improve quality... or fail miserably...
Click to expand...
Of course there's no guarantee, but it seems like a logical step and it shows a different mindset at work with the Studios. However, as you pointed out, when more money is on the line with any individual movie, there's a bigger chance of losses.
 
Scar Junior

Scar Junior

Active Member
Did anyone notice: once Touchstone started focusing on Television that ABC has been improving... Perhaps that division will be used for television exclusively/almost exclusively.
 
C

CaliSurfer182

New Member
I think that this is a major gamble due to where the movie industry (and its viewing public) are right now. It might equal a better turn around or no turn around at all. So, I guess this is just another thing that we have to wait and see what the results are.
 
SirNim

SirNim

Well-Known Member
Thumbs down to laying people off. :(

Thumbs up to generally improving quality of the product. :)

It will be interesting to see how this turns out...
 
ThreeCircles

ThreeCircles

Member
I don't necessarily think that higher production cost equals better product. Just because a studio pours money into a movie doesn't make it a hit.

How much did Godzilla cost again? :lol:
 
Scar Junior

Scar Junior

Active Member
ThreeCircles said:
I don't necessarily think that higher production cost equals better product. Just because a studio pours money into a movie doesn't make it a hit.

How much did Godzilla cost again? :lol:
Click to expand...

That's so not what I said. Besides, rarely does Disney "pour" money into a film. Yeah it happens, but not often. They need to start spending money on better actors than Brendan Frasier... They need to start spending more money so they can get better directors. Etc.
 
C

clarksfan95

Member
They actually do this all the time, but most people don't even know about it. It's how hollywood and especially animation works. You work for the extent of your capabilities on a project and then you are let go...it happens, they rehire eventually bringing back a lot of the staff that they laid off.
 

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