DisneyWar (eBook)

James B. Stewart (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2005 | 1. Auflage
592 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-0-7432-8390-8 (ISBN)

Infos

'When You Wish Upon a Star,' 'Whistle While You Work,' 'The Happiest Place on Earth' — these are lyrics indelibly linked to Disney, one of the most admired and best-known companies in the world. So when Roy Disney, chairman of Walt Disney Animation and nephew of founder Walt Disney, abruptly resigned in November 2003 and declared war on chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, he sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, corporate boardrooms, theme parks, and living rooms around the world — everywhere Disney does business and its products are cherished.
DisneyWar is the breathtaking, dramatic inside story of what drove America's best-known entertainment company to civil war, told by one of our most acclaimed writers and reporters.
Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only 'the most powerful man in Hollywood' but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards?
Here, too, is the creative process that lies at the heart of Disney — from the making of The Lion King to Pirates of the Caribbean. Even as the executive suite has been engulfed in turmoil, Disney has worked — and sometimes clashed — with a glittering array of stars, directors, designers, artists, and producers, many of whom tell their stories here for the first time.
Stewart describes how Eisner lost his chairmanship and why he felt obliged to resign as CEO, effective 2006. No other book so thoroughly penetrates the secretive world of the corporate boardroom. DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of America's most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them.
DisneyWar is an epic achievement. It tells a story that — in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax — might itself have been the subject of a Disney animated classic — except that it's all true.

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The dramatic inside story of the downfall of Michael EisnerDisney Chairman and CEOand the scandals that drove Americas best-known entertainment company to civil war.When You Wish Upon a Star, Whistle While You Work, The Happiest Place on Earththese are lyrics indelibly linked to Disney, one of the most admired and best-known companies in the world. So when Roy Disney, chairman of Walt Disney Animation and nephew of founder Walt Disney, abruptly resigned in November 2003 and declared war on chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, he sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, corporate boardrooms, theme parks, and living rooms around the worldeverywhere Disney does business and its products are cherished.Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only the most powerful man in Hollywood but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards? DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of Americas most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them. It tells a story thatin its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climaxmight itself have been the subject of a Disney classicexcept that its all true.

Textauszug

Prologue

Roy E. Disney pulled his red 1999 Ferrari into the parking lot of the Bodega Wine Bar in Pasadena. It was late on a Thursday afternoon, November 20, 2003, just a week before Thanksgiving. Roy loved the Ferrari, one of the few conspicuous indications that the modest, unassuming seventy-three-year-old nephew of Walt Disney was one of America's wealthiest men. The car stood out in the Disney parking lot, where Roy had a space near Michael Eisner, Disney's chairman and chief executive. Because of the car, everybody knew when Roy was at company headquarters.

Roy hated the 'Team Disney' building designed by noted architect Michael Graves at Eisner's behest to serve as the Walt Disney Company's corporate headquarters. Though the monumental facade was leavened by bas-reliefs of the Seven Dwarfs in the pediment, Roy felt the building represented everything that was bloated and pretentious in the company that Eisner had created. As he did from time to time, Roy wondered what his uncle Walt would have thought. Walt's office was still there, in the modest old animation building. Eisner had used it as his own office before moving to the new headquarters. Now Roy had moved into it, preferring it to the Team Disney building, so barren and vast that he joked he had to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find his way out.

In recent months Roy's physical separation from Eisner and other top executives had become more than symbolic. Even though he had brought Eisner to the company almost twenty years ago, he now felt deceived and betrayed by him. Eisner had come to Disney after a dazzling career in programming at ABC and in movies at Paramount Pictures. But Roy now attributed Eisner's earlier great successes to his partnerships with others: with Barry Diller at ABC and Paramount, with Frank Wells and Jeffrey Katzenberg in the early, amazing years at Disney. Since Wells's tragic death in a helicopter crash in 1994, and Katzenberg's acrimonious departure soon after, responsibility for Disney had been Eisner's alone. In Roy's view, the results had been disastrous. As the financial performance and creative energy of the company ebbed, Eisner had clung to power with a King Lear-like intensity, convinced that he and he alone had the creative instincts and managerial skills to shepherd Disney into a twenty-first-century world of giant media and entertainment conglomerates. Indeed, Eisner claimed the mantle of Walt himself, appearing each week on TV screens in the nation's living rooms as host of 'The Wonderful World of Disney,' just as Walt had.

In this respect, Roy felt that Eisner was only the latest in a series of pretenders to the throne Walt had occupied. Why was it, he sometimes wondered, that so many people wanted to embody Walt? Nobody went around Hollywood claiming to be Louis B. Mayer or Cecil B. DeMille. What gave people the illusion that they could fill Walt's shoes? First there had been E. Cardon Walker and Ron Miller, Walt's son-in-law, who, as Disney's chairman and chief executive, had constantly invoked Walt's memory. Then it was Jeffrey Katzenberg, who claimed Walt's legacy as head of the Disney studio. They had gone too far, Roy had to step in, and they were replaced. Now

Eisner was overstepping the bounds.

Roy didn't claim to be Walt, but if anyone was entitled to the legacy, it was he. He was the one paraded before the world as the embodiment of the Disney Company and what it represented, the last company official bearing the Disney name. Just a month earlier, Eisner had publicly praised Roy's efforts on behalf of the company at the grand opening of 'Mission: SPACE,' the new attraction at Walt Disney World, which had drawn big...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.2.2005
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
• ISBN-10: 0-7432-8390-2 / 0743283902
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-8390-8 / 9780743283908