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News The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors Extends Robert A. Iger’s Contract as CEO Through 2026
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
Wells reported to Eisner .
He did, but he also relied on Wells qua bit. bit. Ultimately, in any work relationship, someone has to have the final say.
What would happened if Wells lived. Out of the 5 occupants in the helicopter that crashed after the group went helisking 1 survived.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I agree he was much worse post-Wells, but we still got some really great stuff that we would have never gotten under Iger.
Eisner at least saw the parks and resorts as something more than just a place to promote Disney media content, despite other flaws.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Eisner, in my opinion, is responsible for creating the elaborate “Disney Resort” concept with parks and themed resorts.
He understood the parks really well.
It’s anyone’s dream to give Tony Baxter a huge budget and say “build the best castle park possible” - unfortunately, it took a while for Paris to get its audience and that somewhat forced Eisner to cut budgets to a deadly point, literally.
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
For sure. The resorts from his era set our expectations, which they now fail to match.
Stripes
Premium Member
Virtually all of that took place while Wells was president. I would argue there were some substantial misses in terms of the end result too. I’m not a fan of most of Disney’s 90’s offices or the Swan and Dolphin. The Boardwalk is not a well-designed resort, IMO. Wilderness Lodge is a hit though, I’ll give Eisner/Wells credit for that one. Aulani is even better though and Iger gets credit for that.
Obviously not important to the company’s success. Thank goodness the Disney relationship was ancient history prior to the Weinstein scandal becoming public. On the other hand, Eisner burned the bridge with Steve Jobs and Pixar. Iger single handedly rebuilt that bridge despite Eisner interfering after he was out of the company to prevent that from happening. Eisner apologized to Iger later and admitted that Iger was right.
Post-1994? There’s Soarin’ over California I guess. And Everest.
DAK has a well-executed theme. Great park. Not much to do when it first opened though.
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DisDude33
Well-Known Member
There still isn’t much to do compared to the other parks but that doesn’t really bother me personally. It’s the only Disney park I enjoy being in without a plan or reason.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Test Track, Mission Space, Kilimanjaro Safaris, rock n roller coaster,
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
You're all discussing what eras of Disney were good and such, but here's something that's really clear now...
Even the Disney of the early 2010s that gave us Frozen 1 and Mystic Manor is gone. That's how entrenched the franchise mandate has become and how much the company's creativity is dried up in the last 10+ years.
And anything that doesn't adhere to the mandate must go. Park infrastructure, the back catalog, everything.
It's the opposite of what a creative driven company does, led my a man who genuinely believes he's making creative decisions when we green lights Toy Story 9.
Even the Disney of the early 2010s that gave us Frozen 1 and Mystic Manor is gone. That's how entrenched the franchise mandate has become and how much the company's creativity is dried up in the last 10+ years.
And anything that doesn't adhere to the mandate must go. Park infrastructure, the back catalog, everything.
It's the opposite of what a creative driven company does, led my a man who genuinely believes he's making creative decisions when we green lights Toy Story 9.
britain
Well-Known Member
Correction, they don’t even think they are being creative. They pride themselves on being responsible corporate stewards of valuable IP.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
A good point. Extremely depressing but true.
At least cars land we got 2 flat rides, unique character meets, and a true e-ticket.
Stripes
Premium Member
Illuminations just gave us Despicable Me 4, a mediocre film that has made nearly $1 billion at the box office. It is the sixth film in the franchise. Illumination is based in France and makes films with much lower budgets.
The Wild Robot, from Dreamworks, is a strong contender for best animated film this year and is sitting at $200 million. It is not expected to approach Despicable Me 4’s box office.
Dreamworks is outsourcing their animation outside the U.S. for all of their future films, leaving Disney Animation and Pixar as the only remaining fully in-house large animation studios in the U.S.
Any new original content from these animation studios will be created with the hope that it becomes a franchise that will sell merchandise and future sequels will make even more money than the original film at the box office.
Audiences have changed. Disney is not immune to this reality. If Eisner was CEO now, I have no doubt he would be pushing the IP mandate.
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BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I disagree on the movie/Frozen comment. Full original attractions are a thing of the past, but there is still lots of creativity in animation. There still needs to be some sort of content engine.
Unless I’m missing your point; we just got Encanto and Elemental. If it’s less financially successful efforts, the net widens. Not to mention the back bench of Pixar films that weren’t theatrically released. WDAS is seemingly worse right now into the sequel mandate, but Pixar more recently had been better than the earlier 2010’s.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Corporate America has and is changing - they are too focused on profits above all else.
Boeing is a prime example.
I’m hoping the pendulum starts to swing back soon.
Stripes
Premium Member
I think the general public finds comfort and joy experiencing familiar stories. Thanks to Eisner’s stewardship of Disney during the renaissance years and the Iger era, Disney now owns a vast number of familiar stories. Why not take advantage of them?
In the Eisner years, Disney still relied heavily on IP. Twilight Zone. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Toontown. Buzz Lightyear. The Great Movie Ride. RnRC Aerosmith. It’s Tough to be a Bug. Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Tarzan’s Treehouse. Splash Mountain. Alien Encounter.
Now, we did get Journey into YOUR Imagination (bye Dreamfinder), Test Track (bye World of Motion), Mission: Space (bye Horizons), Everest, Kali, and Kilimanjaro Safaris as well.
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Stripes
Premium Member
Boeing is the beneficiary/victim of the military industrial complex and one of just 2 players in the large commercial airplane manufacturing sector (and for this reason they will get orders from airlines even if they aren’t putting out a better product than their competitor because the airlines don’t want to negotiate with a monopoly.)
They are more insulated from the pressures of competition than the vast majority of companies. Certainly more insulated than Disney.
Mr. Sullivan
Well-Known Member
I really can't believe Eisner has gone through this George W. Bush-like revisionism now that he's out of the spotlight.
It's like people just simply don't remember or don't wish to acknowledge the problems simply because they don't like what they have now. Make no mistake, I don't think the company is at all in it's peak days at the moment, but you're kidding yourselves if you think Eisner's got nothing to do with that.
At the end of the day, the company would not be run like it is today had Eisner not led it into a dark age. Every single thing Disney does today is because the company and its board lives in fear of getting back to how things were when Eisner was forced out. He had his time of brilliance, absolutely, but by the end, Eisner was a cancer eating away at the company.
Disney was failing on all levels by the end of his run. The animation studio was in tatters, the parks were aging and stagnating, and the wheels of the whole operation were falling off. For all of Eisner's ideas and ambitions, he just couldn't ever figure out how to make it all work harmoniously. He had only two modes: spend as much money as humanly thinkable on a massive project that turns out great but sticks a knife into the company's chest, or work so on the cheap that the books are protected by the project is an absolute joke. He couldn't make those two things meet in the middle.
Iger is simply a response to Eisner. The company's decisions today exist as a result of the hole they were dug into then. Now, that is not to say Iger's done a perfect job of things. He hasn't. He's made a ton of mistakes, and that's been even more true since his return. But the one mistake he hasn't made (yet anyway) is losing control of everything so severely that Walt Disney's own family has to step in for fear that the whole thing was going to collapse.
It's like people just simply don't remember or don't wish to acknowledge the problems simply because they don't like what they have now. Make no mistake, I don't think the company is at all in it's peak days at the moment, but you're kidding yourselves if you think Eisner's got nothing to do with that.
At the end of the day, the company would not be run like it is today had Eisner not led it into a dark age. Every single thing Disney does today is because the company and its board lives in fear of getting back to how things were when Eisner was forced out. He had his time of brilliance, absolutely, but by the end, Eisner was a cancer eating away at the company.
Disney was failing on all levels by the end of his run. The animation studio was in tatters, the parks were aging and stagnating, and the wheels of the whole operation were falling off. For all of Eisner's ideas and ambitions, he just couldn't ever figure out how to make it all work harmoniously. He had only two modes: spend as much money as humanly thinkable on a massive project that turns out great but sticks a knife into the company's chest, or work so on the cheap that the books are protected by the project is an absolute joke. He couldn't make those two things meet in the middle.
Iger is simply a response to Eisner. The company's decisions today exist as a result of the hole they were dug into then. Now, that is not to say Iger's done a perfect job of things. He hasn't. He's made a ton of mistakes, and that's been even more true since his return. But the one mistake he hasn't made (yet anyway) is losing control of everything so severely that Walt Disney's own family has to step in for fear that the whole thing was going to collapse.
