If Disney ever gets a clue, they'll do the following:
* Lose Eisner NOW. He'll always be remember for botching up the relationship between Pixar and Disney. Hello... Other than Pirates of the Caribbean most of Disney's movies -- except Monsters Inc., Little Nemo, and Toy Story, which were all made by Pixar -- have been flops since Aladdin and Lion King. Beauty and the Beast and beyond were largely cheesy formulaic romances.
* Lose ABC. You don't need your own TV channel, you're supposedly a company that provides magical, fantastic entertainment. Don't buy a channel for distribution if you don't know how to run it. Make deals with distribution companies like everybody else.
* Streamline and focus on quality entertainment and new and exciting ways of bringing it to the public. Amass talent like crazy. If you're not smart enough to buy out Pixar than focus on competing with them. Trim anything from the company's focus that doesn't deal with providing fantastic entertainment to the masses.
Just MHO, of course, but the only films I really liked from Disney that were released in my lifetime were Little Mermaid and most everything before it. Little Mermaid was amazing. Lion King was quite decent; Lion King 2 was better in many ways (a couple of the songs are lame though; no Tim Rice by then). The first segment of Fantasia 2000 was decent, but the rest was pretty much a waste. My compatriot fell asleep and the movie didn't even clear 1 1/2 hours, IIRC; I wish I would have slept through it. Other than that and Pirates, YAWN.
Disney may well ruin the Pirates sequels; I hope not, but I don't have much faith left in Disney at this point. If I were an "analyst", I'd say Disney was currently a sell (before it takes you down with it).
Posted by kovu at May 31, 2004 02:39 AM