What should Disney / Eisner do?

His contract is up in 2006. He'll have to go whether he wants to or not. Come oooooooon, 2006!!! :D

A loud departure.....or some kind of loophole that he reamins some kind of presence. I think Mr. E was good for his time, overstayed and became a megalomaniac.

But if he were to kak-off tommorrow I'm not sure that is enough to return Disney corp to a craetive success. .......WHatever...I don't care anymore.

Well, here at the mouse house there's a lot of speculation. We were under the impression that if the shareholders put enough pressure on him during the last big meeting that he'd bow out early this fall after all the big 50th Anniversary celebrations at Disneyland were over. Using that as a last horrah. Well, there wasn't near as much backlash from the shareholders this year so, he may look at that as fuel to keep him going to the end of his contract.

Rumors also persist that once he steps down from his position that he is seeking a new position within the company, that of Chief Creative Officer in the Walt Disney Company. While this would be highly unorthodox, it is not illegal for the board to appoint him to such a position. Therefore, it is possible that he could in fact keep his hand in the cookie jar, long after his "reign" is over. I'm hopeful that the board of directors sees how foolish that would be to keep him there.

Personally, when you ask "what should Disney do?" I say; Fire Eisner and all his cronies. Once deals with Pixar went sour, and the choice became, Eisner or Pixar, the board should have said, buh-bye to Eisner. His reputation was at an all time low, he wasn't even hosting ABC's wonderful world anymore because his ratings with viewers were really really low, they had Bob Igor step in and do that for a while. The business community reviled against him and the shareholders showed their displeasure with him last year by withholding a large amount of votes for him. In any other company in any other situation this would have been more than enough to fire him. The board should say; "look, you are now a detriment to the future of this company, and while you may be capable of good performance, we feel your person is simply too much of a black eye on the company and it would be in the best interest of the shareholders if you were dismissed." There are plenty of qualified individuals out there to do Eisner's job.

Second, Disney needs to get back to it's bread and Butter. For too long it's been worried about milking every red cent it could rather than pushing forward in entertainment technologies and family entertainment products. Instead it keeps shoving Raven in our faces and forcing Julie Andrews to sing R&B. This is NOT quality family entertainment. It also needs to get back to making good traditional animation. It needs to work with the Union to scale back the salaries and get the cost of a feature animated film to around the $50 million mark. During the Dreamworks rise Disney thought it could bankrupt them with price war that eventually was the downfall of the whole craft. Now its' too expensive for any studio to want to do traditional animation. Bluth proved that aniamted films don't have to be expensive to be good, films like NIHM and Land Before time both cost around 13-16 million to make. Little Mermaid was under $30 million if I recall, and those three movies are classics. We need to bring back traditional animation at an affordable cost, while retaining the quality. Once big cut could be A-list voice talent. No one cares if Brad Pitt does a voice, seriously. most kids can't tell the difference between Jim Carrey's voice and some starving waiter wanting to be an actor. While I feel that good vocal casting is key, I don't think turning to Hollywood A-Listers is neccessary. That would be a huge budget cut there.

I remember when Mermaid released. Every little girl in america was singing those damn songs. It was amazing. That was just a good film, a good story, amazing animation, great music and done at a fraction of the cost of some of Disney's later movies. I think Disney needs to re-evaluate itself. It needs to decide, either it's still the company that develops and brings good quality family entertainment, OR it's the huge steamrolling business monster. Right now, it seems to prefer being the monster, that's desperate to pretend to be family oriented.

On the point of voice acting, there are plenty of -awesome- voice actors that aren't celebrities in any other way, so we don't even need to resort to waiters. Look at some of the bigger TV names like Charlie Adler or Billy West.

But you're right. I don't think a name = talent, at least not in that respect. Jim Carrey is pretty easy to pick out, but I can't honestly say I can hear Brad Pitt's voice in my head, and it doesn't help sell the movie. Especially not when they deliberately try to promote a movie just through that (I don't think that was Disney though)...

MY only thing is...If you DO decided to go with a good talented person, and you DO decide to ever have a character reprise their roles....for the love of humanity, don't switch voice actors! Cutting out Robin Williams from Return of Jafar was such a distraction (like a compelling essay that suffered spelling typos or grammatical errors) that it actually distracted me from enjoying what might otherwise have been a decent movie. In that particular case I do remember hearing something about that actor not being totally cooperative but it's still a general rule I'd have everyone follow =)

In that particular case I do remember hearing something about that actor not being totally cooperative ...

Actually, the problem there is that some low-level marketing person at Disney used Williams' name and voice in some promotional material when his contract specifically prohibited it. Williams got wind of it, Disney refused to correct it, and he sued. Ended up getting a Picasso out of it if memory serves...

Rumors also persist that once he steps down from his position that he is seeking a new position within the company, that of Chief Creative Officer in the Walt Disney Company.

I once worked at a kids summer camp where Chief Creative Officer meant "enslaved janitor". (I kid you not. :rolleyes: ) Hopefully, it means the same thing at the Disney Company. :D