DisneyWar

In his non-fiction book DisneyWar (2005) American author and journalist James B. Stewart exposes the dramatic ups and downs of Michael Eisner's 20-year stint as the chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Stewart's narrative touches on a number of key events from Eisner's tenure, including ongoing internal divisions over computer animation and various rivalries between Eisner and other executives at the company. David Lieberman (USA Today) calls Stewart "an accomplished storyteller who had the luck or foresight to stake out a company filled with colorful executives in a glamorous business—at the moment investors decided they had had enough."

Before launching into the narrative of Eisner's reign at Disney, Stewart characterizes the culture of the company under its founder Walt Disney. Until Disney's death in 1966, the company's atmosphere was eccentric but relaxed. The workday frequently ended at lunchtime. Animators and executives alike played cards and watched baseball together. Full-length theatrical animated features were released every two years or so, allowing for a manageable production schedule. In the two decades following Disney's death, however, the company began to stagnate. Under CEO Ron W. Miller, the company attempted to attract older audiences in an effort to compete in the new era of the Hollywood blockbuster ushered in by films like Jaws and Star Wars. These efforts were largely in vain, and the studio spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s narrowly avoiding hostile takeovers.

Hoping to right the ship, shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney brought in Michael Eisner to replace Miller. As the CEO of Paramount's movie studio, Eisner helped produce some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and 1980s including Saturday Night Fever, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Beverly Hills Cop. In 1984, Eisner expected to take over for his mentor Barry Diller as studio chief at Paramount. However, when he was passed over for the job, Eisner successfully lobbied Disney to hire him as their new CEO.



From a company culture perspective, Eisner was a huge departure from Walt Disney. While Disney was Protestant from the American heartland, Eisner was a hard-driving Jewish man raised on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Eisner admitted upon taking over Disney that he had never seen Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, two of the studio's most beloved hits. One of Eisner's earliest clashes was with Disney's chief technologist, Stan Kinsey. Sensing the direction animation would take in the coming decades, Kinsey lobbied hard for the studio to purchase the then-obscure computer animation hardware supplier Pixar. With the arrival of Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg—the new head of the film studio Eisner brought in—Kinsey was quickly overruled. Struggling to thrive in the new company culture Eisner introduced and watching as his ideas were ignored, the remarkably forward-thinking Kinsey left the company. Ironically, it was only after his departure that Eisner and Katzenberg ramped up their collaboration with Pixar.

Despite Eisner's brusque demeanor and willingness to hire or fire people seemingly on whims, his first few years at the company saw Disney rehabilitate its image as it released some of its most profitable and beloved animated hits in the company's history, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Throughout these successes, the competition between executives that Eisner's personality arguably fostered was kept in check largely by the presence of president Frank Wells, Eisner's de facto second-in-command and an individual who was generally well-liked in and outside the company. But in April of 1994, when Wells died in a tragic helicopter crash, chaos erupted within the executive ranks at Disney as speculation grew over who would serve as Eisner's second-in-command. Katzenberg was an obvious choice, but within a few short months, their relationship had soured. By August, despite the company having just released one of its most successful movies of all time with The Lion King, Eisner fired Katzenberg as the head of the movie division. Katzenberg, in his own power play, started the rival animation company DreamWorks with David Geffen and Steven Spielberg. He also sued Disney for breach-of-contract. While Eisner could have settled the lawsuit for $90 million, he was so furious with his erstwhile ally that he fought Katzenberg in court, costing the company $270 million, plus tens of millions more in unnecessary legal fees.

Desperate to name a number-two, Eisner brought in his friend Michael Ovitz. However, the paranoid Eisner felt threatened by Ovitz and did everything he could to limit his power and ambition at the company. After just fourteen months, Eisner forced Ovitz out, paying him a massive severance package of $140 million.



Other questionable decisions would come over the last few years of Eisner's tenure. For example, disappointed by early footage of Johnny Depp's performance in Pirates of the Caribbean, Eisner tried to shut down production on the film. The company was fortunate that he didn't, as the 2003 movie went on to become a massive hit, earning more than $600 million worldwide. There was also Eisner's heavy-handed attempt to block Disney subsidiary Miramax from releasing Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and his failure to retain the talents of Hilary Duff on the Disney Channel.

In the face of disappointing box office returns from animated features in the early 2000s, the break down of the distribution deal between Pixar and Disney, Eisner's refusal to establish a succession plan, and a number of flops on the ABC television network—which Eisner bought practically on a whim—shareholder Roy E. Disney used his goodwill and status as Walt's nephew to turn Disney's shareholders against Eisner. In 2005, Eisner announced he would step down and hand over CEO duties to Bob Iger who still serves as the company's CEO today.

Through its exhaustive chronicle of Eisner's tenure, DisneyWar is a compelling look at the drama and turmoil behind the scenes in corporate America.