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Quick Links After Decades of Success, the Walt Disney Company Turned to New Leadership Michael Eisner's Leadership Created Division and Roy E. Disney Went to War By Abandoning ABC, Bob Iger Let Lloyd Braun Turn the Network Around As Leadership Changed at Disney, Lost Became a Mega-Hit That Changed Television

The 20th anniversary of Lost's debut has fans across the world celebrating the unlikely hit series about survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island. What makes Lost even more unlikely is it owes its existence to a larger corporate war at the Walt Disney Company. As executives jockeyed for power, ABC's Lloyd Braun bet everything on the show's success. He was right, but it didn't save his job. The most important thing about Lost's creation is the faith Braun had in the idea. He essentially lifted the title from a failed reality TV series, and...

Quick Links Writers John Musker and Ron Clements Have a Storied History With Disney Disneys Moana Is a Repackaged Version of The Little Mermaid Disneys Moana 2 Is Repeating a 1990s Disney Sequel Trend

Disney is known for its fairy-tale-based films, and often, these films involve princesses and dynamic heroines. While the studio started out telling traditional tales based on classic stories, over the years, it has branched out to incorporate more culturally representative storytelling. 2016's Moana took inspiration from Polynesian myths and set its action in the ancient island nations of Polynesia. The film featured a story by a team of artists and writers, including Disney veterans John Musker and Ron Clements, with songs by composer Lin-Manuel Miranda.

When Moana first premiered, it definitely appeared to be a new and fresh film to add to the Disney canon. But as the film progresses, many familiar tropes begin to appear.

Julien’s Auctions, the Beverly Hills-based company that specializes in movie memorabilia, drew sharp criticism on Friday for listing a fragment for sale from the plane crash that killed actress Carole Lombard in 1942.

The item is offered as part of the “Danger, Disaster and Disco” lot, which runs from June 12-14 and is cosponsored by Turner Classic Movies. The starting bid is $250, with the piece of wreckage valued at between $1,000 and $2,000.

Film historian Olympia Kiriakou tweeted, “It’s quite despicable that @JuliensAuctions is selling a piece of mangled plane debris from the crash that killed Carole Lombard.”

Her tweet was shared by X user Frank Wells, who wrote, “I’m trying to figure what kind of ghoul would want this in their home, certainly not an actual Carole Lombard fan. And do what with it? Display? Trot it out at parties? ‘Hey, check this out….'”

One X user called the auction “horrible and macabre,...

Quick Links Disney Animation Was Struggling When The Great Mouse Detective Premiered in 1986 Despite His Later Downfall, Michael Eisner Played a Huge Part in Revamping Disney Animation The Great Mouse Detective Was One of the First Disney Films to Use Computer Animation Disney's previously struggled with animated flops like Pinocchio and Fantasia, but later recouped their expenses with subsequent successes. The 1970s and 1980s of Walt Disney Animation has come to be known as Disney's "Dark Era." The Great Mouse Detective was a major financial success compared to The Black Cauldron released the year prior.

The passing of Walt Disney in 1966 signaled a slow decline of Walt Disney Animation in the following years. While Disney Studios would continue to pump out both live-action and animated endeavors, including some well-remembered movies like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and The Aristocats (1970), the 1980s brought a steeper decline in box office receipts. Films such as...

Disney and its current CEO, Bob Iger, have secured the backing of Iger’s onetime boss, former Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner.

In a statement posted to social media, Eisner didn’t name Nelson Peltz, whose Trian Fund Management is mounting an offensive to win two seats on Disney’s board at the April 3 annual shareholder meeting. But the longtime media exec wrote that “bringing in someone who doesn’t have experience in the company or the industry to disrupt Bob and his eventual successor is playing not only with fire but earthquakes and hurricanes as well.”

Eisner recalled a similar skirmish in 1983, just prior to the start of his two-decade run as chairman and CEO, when “corporate raiders were trying to take over the company.”

Had that incursion been allowed, he continued, “that would have ended the Disney Company as we know it, for the studio, theme parks, and...

Another prominent voice is weighing in with support for Disney CEO Bob Iger and the company’s board of directors in its proxy fight with Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners.

Michael Eisner, Iger’s predecessor as CEO of the company, released a statement Friday that calls back to the 1984 activist campaign from Peltz’s fellow corporate raider Saul Steinberg, and warning that “bringing in someone who doesn’t have experience in the company or the industry to disrupt Bob and his eventual successor is playing not only with fire but earthquakes and hurricanes as well.”

“In 1983, Disney was under attack by corporate raiders trying to take over the company. That would have ended the Disney Company as we know it, for the studio, theme parks, and hotels were suggested to be sold off,” Eisner wrote. “The board turned to me and Frank Wells, and a different story was written, one...

In yet another twist to the Disney proxy fight drama, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has publicly thrown his support behind current Disney CEO Bob Iger and the Walt Disney Company Board.

Michael Eisner was removed as Disney’s CEO after 11 years in the position (1984-2005.) He stepped down early and handed the position over to Bob Iger, who was COO at the time. Now he’s supporting Iger, asking people not to repeat what happened in 2005.

Before Eisner was made CEO, there was a previous “attack” by “corporate raiders” in 1983 that could have fundamentally changed the company. He is equating that situation to the current situation with Trian Partners and Blackwell Capital.

Here’s what he said:

“As I told @nytimes@dealbook, in 1983, Disney was under attack by corporate raiders trying to take over the company. That would have ended the Disney Company as we know it, for the studio,...

Disney today named Hugh F. Johnston, PepsiCo’s CFO and vice chairman, as its new chief financial officer, effective Dec. 4. He replaces interim CFO Kevin Lansberry, who will return to his position as EVP and CFO of Disney’s Experiences segment.

Lansberry stepped in on an interim basis after former CFO Christine McCarthy left abruptly earlier this year for family reasons. The appointment is a rare example of Disney tapping an outsider for a key executive position and it fills a key leadership role as Disney faces a number of challenges, financial and strategic.

The company is set to report its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday.

The shares, which have fallen sharply this year, ticked up slightly in early trading but are off a bit late morning, at about $85 (vs $118 at their 52-week high). That’s prompted activist investor and Disney shareholder Nelson Peltz of Trianon Partner to make another...

Randy Fullmer, an effects animator, visual effects supervisor, artistic coordinator and producer who worked at Disney for almost 20 years, has died after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 73.

Over his nearly two decades at Disney, he did everything from work on the Toon Town portion of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (his first gig at the studio) to working as an artistic coordinator on “The Lion King” to producing full Disney features like “The Emperor’s New Groove” and “Chicken Little.” A key and unsung player in the Disney Renaissance of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Fullmer’s legacy will live on.

Fullmer, who died July 10, in Woodland Hills, California, attended the California Institute of the Arts, a school co-founded by Walt Disney. After Fullmer graduated in 1974, he spent time working with Don Bluth, the Disney hotshot whose departure from the studio nearly crippled the animation department. Fullmer joined Bluth on his...

Searchlight Pictures vice president of national publicity Diana Loomis is leaving the studio after nearly 20 years, TheWrap has confirmed.

Loomis, who began at the studio back in 2006 (her first movie was “Little Miss Sunshine”) and previously served as head of the studio’s East Coast office, will leave at the end of the summer following her work on Searchlight titles “Flamin’ Hot,” “Theater Camp” and “Poor Things.” She will then launch a consulting operation specializing in theatrical and streaming releases, and awards campaigns for movie studios and streaming companies.

During her tenure at Searchlight, Loomis worked on the campaigns for five Best Picture Oscar winners – “Slumdog Millionaire,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Birdman,” “The Shape of Water” and “Nomadland.” Additionally, she worked on the rollout of more recent awards favorites like “The Banshees and Inisherin” and “Nightmare Alley.”

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Emmy Nominations by Network: HBO and Max Best the Competition With...

Burny Mattinson, a Disney Legend who served as an animator, producer, director and story artist in his nearly 70-year career with the studio, died Monday at the age of 87 following a short illness. Disney announced his death on their official website.

The story goes that Mattinson, who was born in San Francisco in 1935, was transformed when his mother took him to see Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” at the age of 6. He knew what he wanted to do. As Don Hahn, who produced some of Disney’s most beloved movies during the Disney Renaissance, said of Mattinson’s life: “His life could be a Disney movie: teenaged kid shows up at the Disney gate with his portfolio under his arm and stays for 70 years. He was our story sensei, a brilliant draftsman who showed us what it was like to grind on a story until it was right.”

Mattinson’s first...

Disney is such an all-consuming, slickly mechanized corporate beast that it is easy to forget that, just a few decades ago, it was a family business that had fallen into disrepair and was painfully uncool to the rest of Hollywood.

Thankfully, Tom Hanks is here to remind us.

Hanks was a guest on Sirius Xm’s “The Jess Cagle Show,” and when Cagle brought up the fact Hanks once appeared on “Happy Days,” it led to a fascinating story about how that brief appearance (where Hanks played a guy who kicks Fonzie through a plate-glass window) would lead to the biggest break of his nascent career – his role in “Splash.” Watch above.

As it turns out, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel were the head writers on “Happy Days” when Hanks filmed his episode. Ron Howard had already left “Happy Days” and was working on what would be the 1984 hit “Splash” with the film’s writers.

One of the greatest Halloween moments in any movie occurs when Bette Midler first ascends the stage of a costume party near the midpoint of Hocus Pocus (1993). Up until that sequence, we’d seen the legendary actor/singer play Winifred Sanderson, the eldest of three witchy sisters, but now Winifred was about to become Bette Midler. Bathed in a pale green light, befitting the spooky Halloween atmosphere, Midler takes the microphone and, along with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, begins to belt a barn-burning cover of “I Put a Spell on You.”

To millennials of a certain age, it remains a Halloween anthem.

It’s also wildly different from what David Kirschner, the movie’s producer and co-writer, originally had in mind. For context, consider this: Kirschner’s first choice for Winifred Sanderson was Cloris Leachman, the perfectly deadpan, but severe, comedic presence of Young Frankenstein (1973) and The Last Picture Show...

Tony Bennett has been part of the pop cultural landscape for over seven decades. The 96-year-old scored his first hit song, “Because of You,” in 1951, the year he made his first TV appearances on a long-forgotten variety series “Star of the Family.” He recorded his signature tune, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ in 1962. Other hits included “Rags to Riches,” which Martin Scorsese used brilliantly on the soundtrack of his 1990 masterpiece “Goodfellas” and the Oscar-winning “The Shadow of Your Smile” from 1965’s “The Sandpiper.”

Unlike the crooners Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, movie success eluded Bennett. Just check out his film debut in the overstuff 1966 turkey “The Oscar.” His career waned. Rock was hot and Bennett wasn’t. He stopped recording in the late 1970s and was in lot of debt. He turned to drugs but a near death drowning experience in his bathtub changed his life and lifestyle.

A somewhat vague emergency broadcast system alert interrupted television viewing around 5:35 Pacific time today, ordering an immediate mandatory evacuation for a strange assortment of unspecified locations.

The emergency evacuation orders were said to be effective until 8 Pm, and mentioned Ventura County. The information from authorities may be related to the Castaic brush fire that burned near the 5 Freeway north of Los Angeles in Ventura County, but the issuing authority did not specify it. That fire shut down the busy 5 freeway in both directions.

The Emergency Broadcast warning was short on details for viewers, and quickly flipped through four screens, making it difficult to determine the specific warning.

Later in the evening, the Ventura County Sheriff issued a clarification.

The evacuation notice that was received by some Ventura County Residents on television was sent in error by the County of Los Angeles. There is no threat to Ventura County at...

Ten years ago, Disney’s “John Carter” opened nationwide.

Meant to be a potential franchise-starting blockbuster, it was savaged by critics, who called the film “wanly plodding and routine” (Entertainment Weekly), and “a giant, suffocating doughy feast of boredom” (The Guardian), and was met with indifference by general audiences, who simply didn’t show up..

Quickly, the movie and its fate took on a nearly mythical dimension – it wasn’t just a box office disappointment, it was a staggering creative and commercial failure, the kind of movie that is often mentioned in the same breath as other high-profile misfires like “Ishtar” or “Waterworld.”

But the actual story of “John Carter” – how it was conceived, what happened during production, and how it all fell apart thanks largely to a misguided marketing campaign – is much more complex and much more interesting.

Most Hollywood bombs are perceivable early on, through a toxic combination of untested filmmakers,...

Netflix’s earnings days are never boring — at least in comparison to most other companies. And that was especially true on Thursday, with Netflix appointing Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos as co-ceo, elevating him to the same level as current chief Reed Hastings. Analysts responded to the big news by saying it was a rare but appropriate move by entertainment standards that could signal Hastings’ eventual departure from the company he co-founded 23 years ago. Brian Frons, the former longtime president of ABC Daytime, said Hastings’ willingness to share power and acclaim made this a striking maneuver. “In the context of Hollywood history, appreciating your number 2 and elevating him to a level where he’s more your partner than your employee is rather unique,” Frons said. “It seems Netflix is not only rewriting the rules of content and content distribution, but also the mores of executive treatment.” Jukin Media made the...

When Jeffrey Katzenberg got fired from Disney, after the unexpected death of Frank Wells and a power struggle between himself and Michael Eisner, he would strike back by collaborating with two powerhouses (David Geffen and Steven Spielberg) and form DreamWorks, the first new full-fledged movie studio since United Artists. A key component of this new endeavor was DreamWorks Animation, a fiefdom ruled over by Katzenberg and designed to challenge Disney’s dominance in the marketplace and cultural zeitgeist. It would come close a few times, but DreamWorks Animation has also had a famously rocky history and was recently purchased, …...

After overseeing The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition and growth over the last decade of two of the world’s largest film franchises in Marvel and Lucasfilm and two movie studios in 20th Century Fox and Pixar, outgoing CEO Bob Iger over the last year has turned the company’s focus inward, to streaming platforms Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Now, Iger’s successor, Bob Chapek, will be tasked with continuing that work: Using those streamers to ensure Disney’s continued dominance at the box office, driving consumer demand for products and vacations, and cementing Disney as one of the most formidable competitors in the streaming wars.

Business types call it synergy, and it’s something Disney does incredibly well. It’s why Chapek — who most recently oversaw Disney’s theme park and toys division — is such a wise choice to oversee the conglomerate, which many primarily associate with its movie studio.

Mark Harrison Nov 20, 2019

Released in 1990, The Rescuers Down Under is one of the great forgotten films of the Disney Renaissance.

In conversations about Disney Animation’s spell-binding run of films from The Little Mermaid to The Lion King and beyond, there’s rarely enough lip-service given to the overlooked milestone that came out in 1990.

Sandwiched between the transformational The Little Mermaid, the studio’s biggest box office success in decades, and Beauty and the Beast, which became the first ever animated Best Picture nominee at the 1992 Oscars and is still considered by many to be Disney's best, The Rescuers Down Under is somewhat lost in the mix.

Nevertheless, it was a groundbreaking film for the studio’s steadily regrouping feature animation department and marked a number of notable firsts for them and the medium in general. The circumstances of its production and its release would make it the...

David Crow Nov 15, 2019

Thirty years later, The Little Mermaid remains one of the most important Disney movies, changing the studio’s entire trajectory.

She sits atop a rock, wind blowing through her red hair. In the distance the object of her desire recedes from the surf, and something suddenly shifts. It is the moment of epiphany for Ariel, and the one on which The Little Mermaid turns. Yet it’s also the moment of transformation for the studio that gave her life. She would change her world, all right, and ours with it.

Originally a creature of tragedy in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, the once nameless heroine was reshaped by Disney, and more precisely Walt Disney Animation Studios during a moment of crisis, into an animated life so vibrant it is recognized as the beginning of the Disney Renaissance: the era in which Disney Animation reclaimed its legacy...

(Revisiting the Renaissance is a bi-weekly series in which Josh Spiegel looks back at the history and making of the 13 films of the Disney Renaissance, released between 1986 and 1999. In today’s column, Spiegel discusses the 1988 Charles Dickens adaptation Oliver & Company.) When Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Frank Wells joined the C-suite […]

The post For Better and Worse, ‘Oliver and Company’ Ushered Disney Into the Modern Age of Animation appeared first on /Film.

Ron Miller, the USC football star who met his future wife Walt Disney’s daughter Diane on a blind date and later became CEO and president of what is now the The Walt Disney Company, has died at age 85. The Walt Disney Co. confirmed Sunday that he passed away Napa Valley, CA.

After stints in the Army and with the Los Angeles Rams, Walt Disney hired his son-in-law to work at The Walt Disney Studios. He became Disney’s sixth employee at the original Disneyland, serving as second assistant on Old Yeller in 1957.

Miller rose up the ranks in film and TV production — his credits include producing The Rescuers, The Shaggy D.A., The Magical World of Disney (which won an Emmy), Herbie Goes Bananas and Tron — and eventually became president and CEO of Walt Disney Productions. He held the post from 1978-1984 until he was famously ousted in a leadership...

Ron Miller, who served as president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, has died at age 85 in Napa, Calif., the company confirmed on Sunday.

Miller, an Army veteran and star athlete at USC who played for the Los Angeles Rams, came to the company by way of his wife, Diane Disney, the daughter of company founder Walt Disney.

He served as a producer on 1960s and ’70s films like “Son of Flubber,” “That Darn Cat!” “Pete’s Dragon” and “Escape to Witch Mountain” — and helped drive the innovative computer animation in the 1982 sci-fi thriller “Tron.”

In 1978, he was named president of Walt Disney Productions and then promoted to CEO in 1983. He led the creation of Walt Disney Home Video, Touchstone Pictures and The Disney Channel...

On April 3, 1994, Frank Wells, then president and chief operating officer of the Walt Disney Co., died in a helicopter crash while on a skiing vacation in northeast Nevada.

“The group had been heli-skiing in mountains where expert skiers travel for powdery slopes untouched by other skiers,” reported <em>The Los Angeles Times</em>. “Wells, at 6 feet 4 inches, was an accomplished mountaineer who had climbed the highest peak on every continent, and had reached the summit of each one — except Mt. Everest.”

The executive was on vacation with his son, Kevin, who was not on ...