DISNEY HEIR ZINGS EISNER, PUSHES FOR HIS MOUSTER (Roy cites cultural decay)

NY POST ^ | February 5, 2004 | PAUL THARP

[Liz]

Citing "Disney's cultural decay," Roy Disney is escalating his battle to boot Michael Eisner from the Walt Disney board for squandering $25 billion on a series of flops.

Roy Disney, 74, nephew of the studio's legendary founder, formally opened his campaign Tuesday to get institutional investors to reject Eisner's re-election to the board.

[Liz]

Roy Disney, one of the largest shareholders with about 17.3 million shares, left the board last year after it forced an age requirement on him. Gold also resigned from the board. The insurgents also claim that any director who has disagreed with Eisner's rule has been forced off the board and that there is no separation of Eisner's roles as chairman and CEO. The group said there were also "serious governance deficiencies" and a lack of board independence. For example, the company's "succession plan" consists of a sealed envelope to be opened in the event of Eisner's death.

[Savage Beast]

Conteporary Disney has little of the imagination, creativity, and magic that Walt gave to it.

[Cicero]

I certainly agree that there is cultural decay, and I'm sure Roy Disney agrees. But his appeal to the shareholders is basically financial. Eisner has run the company badly, wasted and misinvested money, and driven out talent.

He doesn't dare say much about cultural decay, or they'll use it against him, claiming that he's just an old fogey conservative.

[martin_fierro]

"Mouster." Guffaw.

[The Great RJ]

Eisner's leadership has not only lead to finacial reversals for Disney it has also turned Mickey Mouse into a sewer rat.

[looscnnn]

"its breakup with hit factory Pixar Animation Studios."

I could not believe that Disney would have let this happen, considering the fact that they were the ones to produce hits. Disney did not want the deal Pixar was asking for because Disney would have gotten less money, well they ended up loosing Pixar and any money they would have gotten from the movies. Kinda like pointing a gun at your head because you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot.

[Mamzelle]

Mickey Rat--hm, just had a vision of Minnie Mouse flashing her boob in public...wonder why Eisner didn't think of that before Janet?

Would be a funny photoshop moment.

[Liz]

The Post gets carried away sometimes (snicker).

[kylaka]

Eisner deserves to be Mousted for sure. Then Clinton will tell him to put some Mice on it.

[Kieri]

I could not believe that Disney would have let this happen, considering the fact that they were the ones to produce hits. Disney did not want the deal Pixar was asking for because Disney would have gotten less money, well they ended up loosing Pixar and any money they would have gotten from the movies. Kinda like pointing a gun at your head because you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot.

What's scary is that Disney gets to keep the rights to produce sequals to the Pixar features. Disney notoriously produces sub-standard, stupid direct-to-video crap, including "Cinderella 2," "The Little Mermaid," "Lilo and Stitch 2," and so on. I'd hate to see the wonderful "Toy Story" franchise degrade into the swamp known as "The Land Before Time, 12,985 - Little Foot's Evolutionary Dead Ends."

[Dante3]

Exactly.

[looscnnn]

"What's scary is that Disney gets to keep the rights to produce sequals to the Pixar features. Disney notoriously produces sub-standard, stupid direct-to-video crap, including "Cinderella 2," "The Little Mermaid," "Lilo and Stitch 2," and so on. I'd hate to see the wonderful "Toy Story" franchise degrade into the swamp known as "The Land Before Time, 12,985 - Little Foot's Evolutionary Dead Ends.""

I think that things could be patched up between them if Eisner is booted. If they can't get back together, then I fear Disney will feel some serious pain. They closed their FL animation studio, that really cramps their ability to produce products. If it was closed due to the quality of product, they should have just cleared out the talent and hired new. Only time will tell what happens.

[Heyworth]

Disney notoriously produces sub-standard, stupid direct-to-video crap, including "Cinderella 2," "The Little Mermaid," "Lilo and Stitch 2," and so on.

Those films, known around acronym-loving Disney as DVPs (Direct Video Premieres) are a cash cow for the company, the only bright spot in their in-house animation slate. They cost very little because they offshore the vast majority of the animation to Korea or someplace else, and parents will apparently buy anything that has the original characters in it. That's why the former head of that unit, David Stainton, was named the new head of Feature Animation when Tom Schumacher was given the boot.

[longtermmemmory]

So who will replace eisner?

[Liz]

Pixar's Jobs and Bob Eiger's names are being mentioned.

[Liz]

Cute.

[Heyworth]

Pixar's Jobs and Bob Eiger's names are being mentioned.

Jobs would be an unlikely choice. He's still basically a tech guy, and between running Apple and Pixar (where he's pretty hands off--John Lasseter is the real genius there), his plate is full. What I don't discount is that he might work with Roy to engineer Eisner's ouster. As for Bob Iger, he's actually the guy that Eisner points to as his heir apparent. This is widely considered to be his way of ensuring that he won't be booted, because Iger isn't even liked by the people on the board loyal to Eisner. And given Iger's track record of running ABC and the rest of Disney's TV operation, he's seen as an utter failure. Personally, I think they'd make the offer to Joe Roth, who used to be the Chairman of the Disney Studios (the moviemaking part of the company), until Eisner drove him out in 2000.

[VxH]

"Cultural Decay" indeed.

This quote says it all:

[According to the AFA Journal, Elizabeth Birch, a prominent homosexual activist, said to Disney CEO Michael Eisner "30 percent of your employees are gay," and Eisner replied, "You're wrong, Elizabeth. It's 40 percent."]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=eisner+gay+percent

I didn't see anything on Roy's www.savedisney.com site that indicates his opposition of the gay maffia??