Jobs Jabs Disney As Pixar Earnings Soar (Disney Schadenfreude: Steve Jobs Humiliates Eisner)

Associated Press ^ | February 4, 2004

[Bogey78O]

The only thing Brother Bear had in it worthwhile was the 2 Moose. Otherwise it was a boring preachy film. Treasure Planet was pablum.

The animation was generic ad could have been a TV movie. I blame the fact that they're dropping their traditional animators.

Just look at their last good movie, "Lilo & Stitch". An interesting story with universal themese that was very playful and light-herted. It used a very colorful watercolor set-up. It was a good movie. Since then Disney's tried to be as uncreative as possible, sadly.

[Timesink]

Schadenfreude

This is the New York Times Disney Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.

---

[montag813]

Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha

Haha. I remember her from my New York consulting days. Ms Mucha was Chief of Staff for Sen. Alphonse D'Amato for years, and then a senior official in George Pataki's first 2 campaigns. A good lesson for you budding politicos on how to play the game. Be patient, be loyal, be confident, and you can get a cushy blue chip job yourself when you get tired of politics.

[dfwgator]

Pixar saved Disney's bacon. I have all 5 Pixar movies on DVD and I never get tired of watching any of them. I still get a bit verklempt every time I watch the beginning of Nemo.

[KellyAdmirer]

Disney has had creative slumps before and survived. Pixar is in the midst of a phenomenal run, but all good runs end, and theirs very well may end around the time of the end of its Disney deal.

If Disney is so worthless, why did Pixar just spend ten months in exclusive negotiations with it? Answer: because Jobs made a bad deal with Disney originally and was trying to get out of it. Disney isn't stupid. Disney may have creative slumps, but it is run by good businessmen, current attacks on Eisner notwithstanding.

Jobs is simply annoying and ungracious. His good run will end someday, too.

[isthisnickcool]

Jobs is simply annoying and ungracious.

To say such a thing about Steve Jobs is fatuous.

[martin_fierro]

Meega nala Kweesta!

[ambrose]

``The truth is there has been little creative collaboration with Disney for years,'' Jobs said. ``You can compare the creative quality (of Pixar films) with the creative quality of Disney's last three films and judge each company's creative ability yourselves.'

Jobs is right, of course.

[ambrose]

[KellyAdmirer]

Hmmm, well, he's overhyped, arrogant and overworked, too.

[churchillbuff]

Disney may have creative slumps, but it is run by good businessmen, current attacks on Eisner notwithstanding.

Do you own Disney stock? Your supportive statements about Eisner and his team persuade me that you don't. Because the stock is at the same price it was in 97 or so. It didn't follow the market up during the boom, and it tanked hard after the general bust. Having Disney stock has been owning dead money for nearly a decade. Please list for me all the brilliant business moves that make you admire Eisner -- but that apparently haven't been recognized by the market. I'll give you a paste-it and you still could't fill it up. EuroDisney? CaliforniaAdventure? "Hercules"? "Atlantis"? Flop, flop, flop. There are some good, business-savvy summaries of Eisner's ineptitude as exhibited in the 10 years since the death of Frank Wells, at www.savedisney.com. You might want to read that site before rashly posting any more criticisms of Jobs or other Eisner critics.

I suspect if you'd placed any portion of your kids' college fund in Disney stock you'd be a lot less critical of Eisner's critics.

[staytrue]

CNBC made up a good line regarding Disney. They called it "Losing Nemo".

[churchillbuff]

Jobs is right, of course.

I'm hoping that Jobs is working with Roy Disney to pry Eisner's cold clammy fingers off of Disney and get new management - - and then Pixar can come back.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Jobs has got a point, the strategy at Disney in the last few years has been to milk every movie that remotely had any success with endless Straight To Video sequels plagued with uncreative cookie cutter plots that they want $20 for, on obselete VHS technology. None of these sequels have been anywhere near the quality of the original but they keep cranking them out.

The act is getting pretty old.

[KellyAdmirer]

Didn't follow the market up? I show a double top in 1998 and 2000 after a crazy run-up from 1994. I also show a very nice uptrend during the recent market run-up since last March off its lows under 15, when it was a screaming buy.

Where it was in 1997? IBM is about where it was in 1999, GE where it was in 1998, MCD where it was in 1995, KO where it was in 1996, GM where it was in 1993 - by your reasoning, I suppose those are all run by incompetents, too. Anyone can play that game, these companies go through swings and cycles and saying it is the same price as five or ten or however many years ago is meaningless. Oh, it pays a fair dividend, too.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Its getting so old that the Disney Channel has nothing but Canadian content these days. LOL.

[Grampa Dave]

``The truth is there has been little creative collaboration with Disney for years,'' Jobs said.

Disney under Eisner has become a left wing/politically correct organization.

Money that should have been spent on creativity was wasted on political donatations to the left, politically correct driven management and hiring the meanest trial lawyers available.

Disney with its poor performance the past 5 years should be dropped from the Dow Average. Then it's phoney value would drop even more. Every time a DIA index stock or S&P 500 stock index is bought, Disney benefits.

[churchillbuff]

You don't own the stock -- so I thought. Don't compare it to McD- -- compare it to the S&P, the Dow or the Nasdaq. Money in an index fund far outpaced money in Disney. Disney's been a consistent dog -- indeed it's been on the "dogs of the Dow" lists for many years (partly disproving the theory that you should buy the worst performers because they'll come back).

Also, where are those brilliant business moves by Eisner that I asked you to list? And please don't say Lion King -- he drove Katzenberg (creater of LK) away. Or Lilo - he just shut down the team that made it. ---

And please go read Michael McConnell's rundown of Eisner failures at www.savedisney.com

[HAL9000]

His good run will end someday, too.

It's entirely possible that Pixar could produce a dud someday. The important thing for Pixar is to increase their output of movies so that they don't have to wait two years between films to recover. If they can do that - and there is every reason to believe they will - their good run could last for decades.