Incoming Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger officially takes the reins on Saturday, Oct. 1 as long-time chief Mouseketeer Michael Eisner ends his 21-year tenure at the company he helped grow from a $1.5 billion entity to a $31 billion empire.
Despite all the controversy surrounding his governance of the company in recent years, Eisner is going out on a bit of high note as the once troubled Disney-owned ABC Television Network is on top with the smash hit primetime series Desperate Housewives and Lost. The network’s success and increased theme park/resort saw Mouse House earnings go up 41% per share in the third quarter while Pixar and DreamWorks both took a hit due to disappointing DVD sales.
However, bad blood between Eisner and Pixar topper Steve Jobs led to an end of that lucrative partnership, and Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein also split from the studio under his watch. High on Iger’s to-do list is patching up relations with Pixar, which appears more likely to happen now that Eisner is out of the picture. His departure has also brought one-time Disney dissident Roy Disney back into the fold, ending his "Save Disney" campaign to rally shareholders.
To Eisner’s credit, his tenure saw a second golden age of Disney animation, marked by such stellar box office performers and critical darlings as The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. The successes kept coming as Pixar revolutionized the industry with Toy Story and subsequent releases A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc. Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Under current conditions, Disney will release one more Pixar feature, Cars, in the summer of 2006.
Without Pixar, Iger will have his work cut out for him in keeping Walt Disney Feature Animation competitive as more and more companies enter the CG feature arena. Disney’s first computer-animated release outside of Pixar, Vanguard Animation’s Valiant, failed to attract a significant audience, but the company is more hopeful for Chicken Little, its first in-house 3D effort. If Disney has trouble establishing its own toon franchises, it can exercise its rights to established brands. The studio has plans to produce sequels to Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., with or without Pixar’s involvement.
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