Do you like a mystery? I thought so! Here's a good one. If you ask anyone around the Hollywood water cooler about who is the envy of tinsel town, most people would say it's Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. His handling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been little short of genius from a box office perspective, taking obscure properties like Guardians of the Galaxy and making them household names, and boosting even mediocre material like Ant-Man to "Hey that was really fun!" reactions. But is this true?
The Walt Disney Company has a sneaky way of funneling money from its employees into the pockets of U.S. Congresspeople.
The post Why Is Disney CEO Bob Iger Asking His Employees For Money? appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
The silver lining: Brad Bird is returning to animation.
CEO Bob Iger has driven the Disney Company to record profits. But how long will his strategy work?
Last week Bob Iger said that he had signed a two-year contract extension that will allow him to remain as CEO and chairman of the Walt Disney Company until June 2018.
Believe it or not, he doesn't think it's a live-action "Dumbo."
Good long-read in Businessweek about how Disney bought the Star Wars franchise and Lucasfilm. The article is short on major revelations, but contains some cute stories, like an overview of the meeting in which Disney CEO Robert Iger first asked George Lucas if he’d be interested in selling Lucasfilm:
In May 2011, Iger flew to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for the opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, an upgraded Star Wars ride offering patrons the illusion of traveling through space to visit planets like Tatooine. Lucas was deeply involved in the attraction, personally reviewing its progress every two weeks for several years.
On the morning of the Star Tours opening, Iger met Lucas for breakfast at the Hollywood Brown Derby, one of Disney World’s restaurants. It was closed for the occasion so the two men could speak freely. Fresh from his daily workout, Iger ordered a yogurt parfait. Lucas treated himself to one of the Brown Derby’s larger omelets. The two exchanged pleasantries. Then Iger inquired whether Lucas would ever consider selling his company. Lucas replied that he’d recently celebrated his 67th birthday and was starting to think seriously about retiring. So perhaps the sale of his company was inevitable. “I’m not ready to pursue that now,” he told Iger. “But when I am, I’d love to talk.”
Disney’s $4.05 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm has generated more questions than answers. The Mouse has made it clear that they bought Lucasfilm for one thing, and one thing only: the Star Wars property.
But Lucasfilm’s business also includes other components such as Skywalker Sound and the visual effects studio Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). The fate of these entities remains unknown and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.
For example, what to make of ILM’s promising start as a producer of animated features? Don’t forget that ILM’s first original film Rango won an Oscar earlier this year for Best Animated Feature. But Disney already owns its own feature animation studio as well as Pixar. It hardly needs a third studio, especially one that offers an original take on computer animation that could make the work of its other studios look formulaic by comparison. In other words, it’s a likely bet that ILM won’t be making any more animated features of its own.
However, ILM will likely continue creating the visual effects for the Star Wars films that Disney plans to start releasing in 2015. According to Variety:
On the Star Wars movies, Lucasfilm has long relied on having the resources of ILM inhouse to control vfx costs. A Lucasfilm spokesman said [Kathleen] Kennedy will continue to have autonomy to use ILM on future Star Wars films. However, that doesn’t guarantee that all work will be done in San Francisco. ILM has offices in Singapore and Vancouver and has alliances with companies in Beijing and Europe. It will continue to leverage those alliances and offshore locations to keep costs down.
And what about the visual effects work that ILM creates for other studio’s films? In his initial statements, Disney chairman-CEO Robert Iger gave a less than ringing endorsement of ILM’s business model.
The LA Times quoted Iger saying, “Our current thinking is that we would let it remain as is. They do great work. They do work for multiple studios. It’s been a decent business for Lucasfilm and one we have every intention of staying in.” The emphasis on the words ‘current’ and ‘decent’ are mine, and it’s not too difficult to read between the lines, especially when the NY Times added that Iger wants to “reap the value” it can from ILM.
History is not on ILM’s side either. In 1996, Disney acquired another respected visual effects studio DreamQuest. It merged it with its own in-house computer animation department and renamed it The Secret Lab. The Lab’s most notable effort was the feature film Dinoasur before the division was shuttered in 2002. It will be tougher to dismantle ILM, but there’s a good chance that Disney will explore some type of reorganization/merger/consolidation/sale of the studio in the coming years.
The same questions exist to a lesser degree for Lucasfilm’s storied gaming division, LucasArts. That division has struggled in recent years, as the LA Times reported:
LucasArts is currently operating without a permanent president and has not made a new game since 2010′s poorly received “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.” This year it announced a new title in the works, “Star Wars: 1313,” but because that game is intended to carry dark themes and be rated M (the video game equivalent of R), it may not fit into Disney’s intent to position “Star Wars” as a family entertainment brand.
Despite its recent missteps, LucasArts (and now Disney) owns a back catalog of beloved gaming classics like The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Maniac Mansion. It’s hard to imagine what Disney will do with those titles, though Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert tweeted a tongue-in-cheek suggestion earlier this week:
Finally, the question that many are asking is how George Lucas will spend his newly earned wealth. Lucas, who was already a billionaire before the sale, is now officially the wealthiest artist in the United States. Because he owned 100 percent of Lucasfilm, he will receive the entire $4 billion himself, roughly half in cash and the rest in Disney stock, turning him into Disney’s second-largest non-institutional shareholder with approximately 2.2% of the company.
It might be expected that Lucas would spend his money on silly douchebag toys—Lucas has reportedly spent millions on picture frames for his vintage European movie poster collection—but instead he plans to do something far more worthwhile with the bulk of his cash: philanthropy.
Education is a passion for Lucas, and he made a pledge in 2010 to dedicate the “majority of my wealth to improving education.” After this week’s sale to Disney, Lucas reiterated that goal. “As I start a new chapter in my life,” he said, “it is gratifying that I have the opportunity to devote more time and resources to philanthropy.” If he ends up following through on the pledge, this may end up being one of the few corporate mergers that has a happy ending after all.
As expected, today’s firing of Disney Studios head Rich Ross has Tinsel Town buzzing, and a picture of a Mouse House in disarray is emerging. Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige has been named several times as a potential replacement, but Nikki Finke’s must-read analysis also confirms what we wrote about last year: legendary skinflint Ike Perlmutter is very much in the mix at Disney, and his personal dislike of Ross certainly didn’t help matters. (Ross was also on the outs with Pixar’s John Lasseter, according to Finke.) But even Disney chairman Bob Iger is feeling the Ike pinch:
Ross arrived at a watershed time for the studio: shortly after Iger entered into the 2009 deal with Marvel. The comic book, TV, and film entertainment company’s Israeli owner Ike Perlmutter is not just a notoriously tough customer but a budget-obsessed megalomaniac besides a recluse. He has taken control of Disney’s consumer products division already (firing here, fixing there), and my sources tell me he is making Iger’s life miserable with back-seat managing of everything, especially Walt Disney Studios. (“Iger has real problems with Ike. That’s the real story,” one of my insiders tells me. ”Bob thought he could handle him. But Ike is uncharmable.”)
Whoa.
Uncharmable. That’s one way to put it.
Although Marvel’s publishing business is still being more or less left alone to do its comics thing, it is increasingly in the middle of Disney’s New York real estate problem. Disney Publishing’s lease on its New York office is up and a new home is being sought. Much of the staff was relocated to White Plains several years ago, but the editorial offices are still in New York. Ike has reportedly volunteered to have them move into Marvel’s midtown offices—offices which are already “snug”, shall we say. The plan hasn’t been approved—Disney has an entire department given over just to moving people around and they operate with military efficiency. They might even require more than one bathroom for their floor plan.
But there’s another story we’re hearing of late: that Disney may move ALL of its East Coast publishing back to Burbank. The only reason Disney ever had a substantial New York publishing base was because of Hyperion Books, the traditional book publishing arm that was created by Michael Lynton more than 20 years ago. You just can’t have a literary publishing house located in LA. So offices in the trendy Flatiron district were set up. Disney’s magazine division (where The Beat was then employed) moved East a few years later, but since then Manhattan real estate prices have led the personnel to be moved away, bit by bit, to less spendy climes like White Plains and Northhampton.
Moving everyone West would cost a fortune. But not everyone would make the move.
At any rate, while it’s clear that JOHN CARTER is the sword that finally felled the unpopular Ross, the Disney-Marvel-Pixar three-way looks very unstable until a suitable studio head is found…and those aren’t easy shoes to fill. Meanwhile, Ike’s influence on the rest of Disney is growing and growing. He is, as we often point out, the numb
Bob Iger, we hardly knew ye. Last Friday, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that he will step down as chief executive in 2015. Prior to that, Iger will add the title of executive chairman in March 2012, and will remain in that role until June 2016, at which time he will retire from the company at the age of 65. The announcement of his impending departure was a surprise to the business world, but according to the Wall Street Journal’s analysis, the decision to also make him executive chairman “was a sign the board is eager to lock Mr. Iger in for a significant period of time, while also assuring an orderly transition when he departs.”
The paper reports that the top two candidates to replace him in 2015 are Thomas Staggs, who used to be the company’s chief financial officer and now runs the theme park division, and Jay Rasulo, who used to run the theme park division and currently is the company’s chief financial officer. As for Iger, the WSJ suggests that he has “often privately expressed interest in government and politics,” but that “politics isn’t the only option Mr. Iger is considering.”
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Post tags: Bob Iger, Jay Rasulo, Thomas Skaggs
Sea changes at Disney (In with Marvel, out with studio head Dick Cook. Major shift is afoot at Disney. The Daily Beast rounds up Hollywood's on-record dismay at the "unceremonious termination." Variety looks back at other storms Bob Iger has... Read the rest of this post
I should register the domain name for Blooding Cool immediately.
I’ll keep running stories about Ike Perlmutter, Some will be positive. Some will be negative. It all depends on what he gets up to.
@Rich Johnson: I just naturally assumed that the post being riddled with typos was a joke at your expense.
My money is on Ike as the culprit. Seems like something obsessive, spiteful Ike would do. He has motive and opportunity. East Coast is his domain. and sources there most likely work for him. As for Arad getting credit lol. I read the Sony/Marvel exchanges in the Sony leaks; when talking about Amazing Spider-Man 2, they imply Arad was probably an idiot that never knew what he was doing.
Perlmutter also gave millions of dollars in support of Drumpf. When BC (I think) broke that story, it got a pretty strong reaction from folks, including some who work for Marvel publishing.
Perhaps that caused enough hassle to have someone decide BC could be fed a new narrative.
I’m shocked that Rich Johnston managed to leave a comment above with no typos in it.
@Skottie: Look at his punctuation and you’ll see that you are mistaken. :-)
@Genius Jones
Do you Ike Perlmutter personally? Or do you just base your judgment on hearsay and the perceptions of people who might or might not know him, but are nonetheless quoted in articles. How do you know he is obsessive and spiteful? After all, Ike himself NEVER talked or defended himself (a wise thing probably). Could you imagine, that Feige got really fond of having power and that he wanted more and more? Could you imagine that he actually is scheming in the background to contribute or establish the Ike-bad-guy image? You are so easily to manipulate. You just base your judgment on whatever you read in the media. But I am sure Feige is not lamb, after all he was the one who basically back-stabbed Ike after Ike was too uncomfortable for him. Now we have a Marvel studio which is run by Feige and every single movie is produced exclusively by him and by him only! That is going to kill the MCU eventually. Inbreeding, closed systems and dictatorships never end well. “Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. – and my bet is that Feige is lusting power more than Ike. I am sure both men have their issues and perceptions and this conflict should have been handled in a more intelligent way than what Disney came up with. .But one thing is for sure, the real world is not as simple as a comic book where there is a good guy and a villain, even though Feige might see himself as the superhero now who successfully slew the villain.
@Heidi McDonald
Do you really think the world is as simple as having a good guy and a bad guy? The real world is NOT a comic book where those lines are so clear. There is more than just black and white, that is why I appreciate Johnston’s article in BC very much. Finally someone who tries to shine some light on the bigger picture and not always simply giving in to the primitive good versus evil scheme. Perlmutter is not the bad guy at all. Neither is Feige, but both have their issues and their perceptions and unfortunately Disney chose the most primitive and stupidest solution to “resolve” the conflict. And because their solution was so unenlightened, we are still discussion it, and the Civil War is still going on. I would love it if you could stop from trying to find a good and a bad guy in this situation, but rather try to give a balanced view, so that people can stop playing the blame game, scapegoating and beating up the one person who has never actually said anything to defend himself, but was labelled because of some “sources” take things out of context, project their own perceptions on to it, or are simply disgruntled like those Disney employees. I am sure the big, bad Ike persona which was created by the media (and maybe Feige himself?!) is not even close to the reality of who Perlmutter is.
@Skottie and comicsatemybrain
Is mocking a writer who tries to give some more, and very interesting insights into a story which keeps as all busy the only thing you are capable of? I surely hope you never make a mistake, and that whatever you do serves the public only half as much as what Rich Johnston does. You are unkind and disrespectful.
@sarsar:
“Inbreeding, closed systems and dictatorships never end well. ”
—you ACTUALLY wrote that sentence in defense of Ike Perlmutter…