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The Disneyland Report > Disney News > Review: Disney War, by James B. Stewart, offers critical look at Walt Disney Company's Michael Eisner Disney NewsReview: Disney War, by James B. Stewart, offers critical look at Walt Disney Company's Michael Eisner By Gregory McNamee LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Back when he was a fledgling artist in the neverland of the Midwest, Walter Disney used to catch mice, keep them in a cage on his desk, and watch them play. His fondness for the critters yielded Mickey Mouse, his first hit character and the source of millions of dollars. One of Disney's successors, Michael Eisner, and the cast of lieutenants he assembled had billions more to play with, having augmented the Disney stable with characters, films, television channels, Broadway shows and assorted other properties. As onetime Wall Street Journal editor James B. Stewart remarks at the end of his long, dishy and often astonishing look at life inside the Magic Kingdom during the past 20 years, Eisner's record is in many respects admirable. Yet Eisner also has insisted, in a turn that would send Disney spinning in his grave, that "We have no obligation to make art. . . . We have no obligation to make a statement." By which, presumably, Eisner meant that the keepers of the Disney brand had only an obligation to make money, even if it meant burning down the barn to keep the mice from fleeing. Walt Disney, Stewart lets us know, was a tough player; he effectively cut his own brother out of a longtime partnership and made millions leasing his own company the rights to use his name. But that was nothing compared to the Machiavellian standards that followed Eisner's arrival in 1984, fresh from successful service as head of Paramount, thanks to which, Stewart writes, "he was an obvious candidate for just about any studio but Disney, which had traditionally resisted hiring outsiders." Eisner made it a point to dismantle the old culture at Disney -- where hardly anyone got laid off or fired and, it seems, hardly anyone worked very hard -- on ascending to power. He made it a point as well to secure un-Disneylike perks and salary for himself and his executives; at one point, Stewart writes, Eisner's former lieutenant Jeffrey Katzenberg brought down $100 million annually. Indeed, the old Disney culture collapsed when people started talking about what they earned. It tumbled into ruin when Katzenberg left Disney to help start DreamWorks, which made hot properties, for the first time, of the long-despised animators on the back lot, the untouchables of Eisner's regime. Much of the news that has come thus far from Stewart's wholly newsworthy book concerns Eisner's dealings with Michael Ovitz, the onetime king of Hollywood agents. Although Ovitz was "not sophisticated about matters of corporate management," Stewart writes, he was sophisticated enough to see that Eisner, a supposed close friend, began to betray him as soon as he was hired. Strangely, Stewart reveals, Eisner, who had worked hard to bring Ovitz on board, instantly regretted doing so: "I think I just made the biggest mistake of my career," he confided. The Eisner-Ovitz battle unfolds with tragic sureness in Stewart's hands, and Eisner does not look good in the telling. He would make many other big mistakes, Stewart writes. A capacity for inhuman deeds seems a job requirement for corporate higher-ups these days. What is unforgivable is poor judgment that costs the company and its shareholders money. Eisner, Stewart asserts, turned down "The Lord of the Rings," the fabulously profitable "CSI" franchise, "Fahrenheit 9/11" and other lodes of gold. Moreover, he seems not to have understood the value of what he did have, dismissing "Finding Nemo" as a certain failure and complaining of the blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" that Johnny Depp came off as effeminate. And, of course, it cost a fortune to get rid of Ovitz. Eisner hired or approved the hiring of one disastrous, expensive executive after another. He let Disney's gold-standard brand get tarnished one time too many -- until, in a humiliating moment, Disney's board, spearheaded by a vengeful Disney heir, stripped him of the chairmanship last year. Early on in Stewart's research, Eisner pegged his book as "turning into 'Barbarians at the Gate."' The comparison is apt, though RJR Nabisco at least had some kind of management. This is an extraordinary, morally charged tale of money, art, power and betrayal -- all the makings of a magnificent movie, if full of characters that would scare Cruella De Vil. Return to Disney News.
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