Disney Family Films NY Times Article
TravMatte
By Laura M. Holson
The New York Times
Monday, June 10, 2002
BURBANK, Calif., June 9 — The Walt Disney Company, which invented the family
film, has been looking like an industry orphan lately. Walt Disney Studios is
on its third chairman in as many years, as competitors have muscled in on its
turf with instant family classics like "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the
Rings." Disney, which had ranked at or near the top of the box-office rankings
for years, dropped to a lowly No. 4 last year and has since slumped to fifth
place.
So Disney studio executives, concluding that the company had lost its way
by straying too far down the R-rated path, are putting a new premium on virtue.
In the last year, Disney's live-action arm has begun championing modestly
budgeted family fare in the vein of wholesome classics like "Old Yeller" (1957)
"The Parent Trap" (1961) and "The Love Bug" (1969).
The approach gained credibility last year with the success of Walt Disney
Pictures' "The Princess Diaries," in which Julie Andrews played the grandmother
of a gawky teenager who becomes a princess. The film cost about $35 million to
make and took in $108 million at the domestic box office. In March Disney
released "The Rookie," a real-life tale about a small-town baseball coach who
makes it to the big leagues, which cost $24 million to make but has grossed $72
million domestically so far.
And next month, the company is releasing the first movie based on a
Disneyland attraction: "The Country Bears," a live-action film based on the
theme park's Country Bear Jamboree music show, telling the story of a family of
bears who put aside their differences to stage a rock 'n' roll show. It
features Christopher Walken, as a human, and songs performed by Don Henley and
Bonnie Raitt.
Next year's lineup will include two theme-park inspired movies, "Pirates of the
Caribbean" and "Haunted Mansion," and an Alamo epic directed by Ron Howard is
in the works.
Disney films "are movies that you want to share with your family," said
Nina Jacobson, the 36-year-old president of the Buena Vista Motion Picture
Group, the division responsible for production and development of Disney's
live-action films, including Walt Disney Pictures and the more adult fare at
Touchstone Pictures.
The question is whether Disney's reborn wholesomeness can suffice in the
face of competing family fare, including blockbusters like Sony Pictures
Entertainment's "Spider-Man" which has grossed more than $360 million
nationwide since it opened last month, or Lucasfilms' "Star Wars — Episode 2:
Attack of the Clones" which has taken in more than $245 million so far.
"Like every major studio, Disney has a mixed record," said Jill Krutick, a
media analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. "The biggest challenge is to create a
winning franchise. Disney wants to be a magnet for creative development, but it
has to create the right culture."
Driving Disney's shift is the hunger for predictability and profits in a
highly volatile business. Michael D. Eisner, chief executive of the Walt Disney
Company, said he was not concerned about the studio's box office rankings, but
whether the films make money.
"We've been No. 1 and lost money," he said. "The strategy is discipline."
He noted that last year's "Pearl Harbor" was a financial success, despite being
panned by critics.
Buena Vista distributes, but does not make, Disney's animated films, which
are made by Walt Disney Feature Animation, including this summer's "Lilo &
Stitch," or are co-produced with Pixar, the maker of "Toy Story" and "Monsters,
Inc."
Richard A. Bilotti, Morgan Stanley's media analyst, cautioned investors in
a recent report that operating income for Disney's filmed entertainment
division was "highly dependent on its collaborations with Pixar." (The figure,
$260 million for all live-action and animated films, including Disney's Miramax
studio as well video rentals and sales, accounted for 7 percent of the
company's total operating income for 2001.) Movies produced with Pixar, Mr.
Bilotti wrote, contributed as much as half of Disney's operating income in
filmed entertainment between fiscal 1999 and 2001. That's troubling, say
analysts, because Pixar has only three movies left to deliver in its contract
ending in 2005.
In live-action movies, Disney's diminished appetite for R-rated fare is in
some ways simply part of a larger industry trend. Many studios were chastened
by a Federal Trade Commission report in 2000 accusing the industry of marketing
adult-theme movies to children. In response, the studios agreed to self-imposed
guidelines that included not showing previews for R-rated movies before G-rated
films.
But the industry's new probity also has a profit motive: studios have
realized that films aimed at families or teens tend to be the best sellers in
the home-video market and earn bigger payouts than adult-oriented films from
broadcast and cable programmers.
So Disney can expect to meet considerable competition in the family
market. Meanwhile, some industry executives and analysts wonder whether the
company's studio for grown-ups, Touchstone Pictures, may suffer if Disney grows
too cuddly.
Two years ago, Touchstone turned down the opportunity to make "Black Hawk
Down," the account of a botched 1993 United States military mission in Somalia,
because the studio deemed it too violent. The film was produced by Jerry
Bruckheimer, who has made blockbusters for Disney like "Con Air," "Armageddon"
and "Pearl Harbor." After Touchstone said no, Mr. Bruckheimer took "Black Hawk"
to Revolution Studios, which benefited not only from the film's $108 domestic
box office, but the aura of its two Academy Awards.
Mr. Bruckheimer said that Touchstone had also rejected his film "Remember
the Titans," which starred Denzel Washington as an inspirational football
coach. Only after some of the rougher language was edited out of the script did
Touchstone's Buena Vista sibling, Walt Disney Pictures, agree to make the
movie, which carried a PG rating when it was released last year. The film was a
hit, grossing $115 million at the domestic box office and doing well in video.
Richard Cook, the longtime Disney executive who is chairman of Walt Disney
Studios, which oversees the live-action and animated film divisions, rejects
the idea that Disney is getting soft. "I wouldn't characterize it as taking a
safer mode," he said.
A case in point, he said, is the "The Royal Tenenbaums," the Academy
Award-nominated, R-rated offbeat comedy that Touchstone released last year. But
he conceded that Touchstone had also released bombs like "Big Trouble," a Tim
Allen comedy that took in only $7 million and "Bubble Boy" which bounced in and
out theaters, grossing a mere $5 million.
"I can honestly say it is not intentional, but we are going to have duds,"
Mr. Cook said. "I just hope our mistakes aren't expensive mistakes."
Disney did have some expensive films in the late 1990's — including Martin
Scorcese's "Kundun," the critically acclaimed movie "The Insider" directed by
Michael Mann, and "Beloved," which was produced by and starred Oprah Winfrey —
that did not come close to recouping their costs.
Mr. Cook, whom many people in the industry credit with turning Disney into
a movie-marketing juggernaut after he took over marketing and distribution in
1994, has been criticized for not having close ties to actors and directors.
But what many people expect him to do is give the studio something that has
eluded it recently: stability.
Even by Hollywood's standards, the turnover has been startling. In January
2000, Joe Roth, left Disney after six years as studio chairman to start his own
production shop, Revolution Studios. Peter Schneider, Disney's former animation
chief who replaced him, left last year after a tumultuous 17 months. Mr. Cook
was named chairman in February.
Mr. Cook has an unassuming demeanor, a characteristic former colleagues
say should earn him credibility among staffers. He is also a skilled corporate
survivor, having climbed the company's ladder since starting out as a
Disneyland monorail operator 31 years ago. And he is well versed in the Disney
brand and how to sell it.
"There are probably a lot of shortcuts we can take to increase
profitability, but we want to have products in our library that endure," Mr.
Cook said. "We are not satisfied with what we are doing, and are finding new
ways to tell stories."
That storytelling responsibility falls largely to Ms. Jacobson, Buena
Vista's president, who graduated from Brown University in 1987 with a degree in
semiotics. After brief stints in documentary production and script reading, she
went to work at Universal Pictures in 1990 where she supervised development and
production of films that included "Twelve Monkeys," a movie starring Bruce
Willis and Brad Pitt about a time traveler who discovers the source of a
plague.
In 1995, she went to DreamWorks to develop films, but friends and
colleagues say her projects were overshadowed by the studio's famous founders,
Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg. So in 1998, she joined
Disney, becoming co-president of the Buena Vista Motion Picture Group in 1999
and president a year later.
"Times have changed in the industry all around," Ms. Jacobson said over
lunch at Disney's headquarters in Burbank last month. "The sky is not the
limit." Ms. Jacobson is direct yet self-effacing, a mix many people say will
serve her well at Disney.
Carrie Fisher, who has known Ms. Jacobson since her days at Universal,
recalled that when she was hospitalized for manic-depression in the late
1990's, Ms. Jacobson was one of the few friends to visit. "She is not
narcissistic," said Ms. Fisher. "She is not self-obsessed." In fact, conceded
Ms. Fisher, "I don't know how she ended up anywhere. She doesn't run for
office, which is what I watch all around me."
For Ms. Jacobson's part, she just wants to make good movies. "I see the
hold the Disney brand has on my son, the way he is transported," she said. A
favorite of his is the soundtrack to "Mary Poppins," she added. (Ms. Jacobson
has two children, a boy, 4, and a girl, 20 months, with her long-time partner,
Jennifer Bleakly.)
But she acknowledges that making good movies is hard to do. Take last
year's "Max Keeble's Big Move," a film aimed at young teens, which was about a
boy who tormented by bullies. It sold only $17 million worth of tickets.
"I don't want to be bashing our own movie, but that was one where we went
for the demographics," she said. "It didn't lose money, but it wasn't a good
movie either."
And when she was first approached by one her creative executives about
making "The Country Bears," she was skeptical. "I thought they're really
digging deep for that one," she said. "But once I saw what they could do with
it, I thought the ideas were original. If we did it just to exploit the
synergistic properties, then it's just a commercial."
TEEVTEE
Disneyland attraction: "The Country Bears," a live-action film based on the
theme park's Country Bear Jamboree music show,<<<
Oh really? They have a Country Bear attraction at DL?!? Cool!!!!
Teevtee:
Mind reading hype machine.
DuaneDude1
That's that wonderful Disney Synergy at work! Get rid of the subs, then do a
sub movie (Atlantis)... get rid of one of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouses,
then do a new Swiss Family Movie! Do a Who Wants to be a Millionaire
attraction, then cancel the series.
So, when does the Superstar Television/House of the Future/Neon
Armadillo/Wildhorse Saloon/World of Motion/Horizons/Discovery River & Swan
Boats TV-movie come out?
Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...
(maybe) they (will) pave Paradise (Pier)
and put up (restore) a parking lot!
((With Apologies to Carole King))
Remove NOSPAMss for e-mail.
TEEVTEE
(maybe) they (will) pave Paradise (Pier)
and put up (restore) a parking lot!
<<<
Nice.
PatMc23
>
>
The best was an internal newsletter we get at the stores. It was an excited
article about the NEW plush coming our way! You guessed it, Country Bear
Plush! Can you just IMAGINE how horrible these will be???? There was no
picture with the article.
WDW Tek
Armadillo/Wildhorse Saloon/World of Motion/Horizons/Discovery River & Swan
Boats TV-movie come out? >>
Right after they level Discovery Island and use it to fill in River Country.
DISNEY'S 100 YEARS OF MAGIC
(entertainment not included)
şoş
Jerry
GroovyYaYa
actually admit what movies of theirs WEREN'T good. Mentions the classics -
Mary Poppins, at least.
Now, this doesn't mean that I don't agree with how asinine it is to base a
movie after a ride they are ousting. However, just on the movie end of things
- I'm hopeful.
Erica
"To hate would be to reduce myself. " - Elie Wiesel
Kitty Kitty Kitty
Armadillo/Wildhorse Saloon/World of Motion/Horizons/Discovery River & Swan
Boats TV-movie come out?
>>
You forgot "Doug Live!" I am eagerly awaiting that one.
Denise
animator-boy
The article didn't mention any of the animated cheapuels they are churnning,
perhaps public backlash is starting to make them think twice....the article
seemed pretty good..offering a glimmer of hope...I just hope this attraction to
movie thing doesn't get out of hand, which if Country Bears is successful I
think it will... the premise I heard for Haunted Mansion sounds
lame......Pirates should work and here's hoping it does....I liked the TV ToT
movie....some attractions could work..I'm afraid they are gonna get to the
point of really reaching because they are gonna be in "every ride gets a movie"
mode and we are gonna end up with Space Mountain: the Movie, Jungle Cruise: the
Adventure Begins and Body Wars: the Revenge......
Raymation
http://raymation.cjb.net
DuaneDude1
TravMatte
IMAGINE how horrible these will be????
Beanie baby-sized bear plush from the show have been for sale at both
the Belz Factory Outlet Diz shops here for years. So, I assume they were once
sold at the MK.
PatMc23
>the Belz Factory Outlet Diz shops here for years. So, I assume they were once
>sold at the MK.
Well, those were based upon the WDW attraction. these will be based upon the
new movie, have you seen what those bears look like?? Pretty horrible.
TEEVTEE
the
new movie, have you seen what those bears look like?? Pretty horrible.
<<<
I cannot understand this... why on Earth would they ditch GREAT character
designs in favor of horribly generic ones? I mean even if they added to them
other designs or slightly altered them it would be OK, but to drop them
altogether is ridiculous.