A Letter Addressed To: Michael Eisner, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Walt Disney Co.

From: James Verniere, Boston Herald Film Critic

Dear Mr. Eisner: When are you going to get tired of wearing that "Kick Me" sign? You're the custodian of the movie legacy of Walt Disney but you've been squandering your energy on office politics. First, you fail to promote Jeffrey Katzenberg and more or less force him to, as they say in Variety-ese, "ankle" after 10 years as the head of your lucrative movie division. Then you hire Mr. Wonderful Michael Ovitz and fire him 18 months later, but not before handing HIMa $100 million payout. Then you engage in a public brawl over money owed to Katzenberg, now one of the three wise men at rival DreamWorks SKG. (Would DreamWorks even exist if you had promoted the guy?) In the course of this bitter case, which you may have wanted to settle out of court, Disney's dirty laundry has been aired, including those creative accounting practices and your "personal animus" toward Katzenberg (as a former English major you should know the phrase "little midget" is redundant). And then, groan, you lose the case. Meanwhile, you're about to face another conservative backlash because of films released by two of your subsidiaries. Miramax has been a marvelous acquisition for you, but has also made you vulnerable to attacks from conservatives over such controversial fare as "Priest" (1994) and Kevin Smith's potentially explosive religious satire "Dogma." Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam," made by your Touchstone division, may receive an NC-17 rating, a definite Disney no-no. Sure, buying Miramax was a great idea. With Academy Award winners like "Shakespeare in Love" and "Life Is Beautiful," the division is pouring money into your coffers. But Miramax isn't Miramax anymore. Instead of worrying only about its own scrappy image, it now has to worry about Mickey's image, too. This all comes at a time when your animated video library gold mine is almost depleted. Industry analysts are predicting a three- year earnings slump for the Mouse House while Universal is opening its new Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando. Yes, "Tarzan," your annual animated spectacular, earned $34 million in its opening weekend, not counting merchandising, but the film comes with a major conceptual flaw. As an example of the state of the art of animation, "Tarzan" scores big, especially for its amazing three-dimensional jungle visuals. But your solution to the galling racial issues raised by the subject has been to give us an Africa devoid of Africans. How inventive. Presumably, you were hoping for another "Lion King." All you'll get is griping. Racial issues aside, Tarzan is an enduring character. But in its never-ending quest to "reduce risk," the studio took a brand-name hero and forced him into Disney's cookie-cutter mold, and I'm afraid the result is mostly formulaic. Say what you will about DreamWorks' "Prince of Egypt," or "The Zion King" as it was jokingly dubbed. But it was more daring and ambitious, and riskier than "Hercules" or "Tarzan." Sure, Katzenberg also made those miserable live-action films ("Camp Nowhere," "Cabin Boy," "Super Mario Bros.," "Aspen Extreme," "Hocus Pocus," etc.). But admitting how awful they were in court hardly seemed like a good strategy. I always love it when you rascally studio heads later admit how bad films you once tried to shove down our throats were. But Katzenberg was also the man in charge of the animation division during Disney's remarkable renaissance. "Beauty and the Beast," the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, "The Little Mermaid," "The Lion King," "Aladdin" and Pixar's trendsetting "Toy Story" were all made on his watch. It was a Second Golden Age of Disney animation. In addition to his legendary workaholic ethic, Katzenberg had superb judgment. OK, you didn't want to make him second-in-command. That was your call. And yes, "Mulan," which was made after Katzenberg's departure, deserved to capture a much wider audience than it did. But now that you've re-established the studio as a modern-day animation powerhouse, you've re-established Disney itself as the brand name. You run the Walt Disney Company. You don't need to go for the easy score, the instantly recognizable "product." The best scenes in "Tarzan" reminded me of "The Swiss Family Robinson," and I began to wonder why I wasn't watching an animated "Swiss Family Robinson." After all, Disney released a wonderful live-action version of Johann Wyss' children's classic in 1960. Disney also released a terrific live-action version of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" in 1950, as well as a 1960 version of Stevenson's "Kidnapped." Why not make animated versions of those stories, taking your visual cue from the style of N.C. Wyeth's classic illustrations for them? For that matter, you could do a similar job on "Prince Valiant," the long-lived King Features Syndicate comic strip created by Hal Foster. Critics consider "Prince Valiant" the finest-drawn comic strip in history. With computer-generated animation, you could re- create it on a movie screen. Of course, Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is another Disney live-action classic that would benefit from a new, state-of- the-art treatment (and think of all the eco-friendly messages you could squeeze into it). The success of "Toy Story" suggests a few things, too. How about a Pixar-animated "Pinocchio" directed by Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton? Why not remake some of your own classics with the new technology? Now that you've had your little street brawl, can we get back to the business of movies?

Copyright 1999
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