Truth In Labeling...

With all the new films coming out under the Mouse's House I thought it was time focus on what's what and who's who...

First off, it's amazing how times have changed since Michael Eisner became CEO in 1984. When he came to power, the Disney name was in so disrepair that to have that name attached to it was considered box office poison. The films that were coming out of Walt Disney Productions were either bombs or disappointments. So much so that Ron Miller created the Touchstone Pictures label to produce films that would not have the stigma. Many were under the misconception that Eisner created it. He didn't, but he did exploit it to make films that Disney wouldn't make before. Times have changed. Here's how.

The film division of the Walt Disney Company now is powered from a different place. The Disney brand is the most valuable asset of any of its divisions. A generation after the company when outside to the name to be successful, it now is reaching inward.

Walt Disney Studios encompasses several brand names. Bob Iger is all about branding in this highly competitive environment. The divisions of each department are focused on delivering different, specific types of entertainment.




Walt Disney Pictures - This, most known division is responsible for all live-action family entertainment and through Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, all animated family entertainment.





Touchstone Pictures - This division that was used to distribute all adult or mature content will now be a shingle that handles all the films that DreamWorks Studios creates. Over the next five years, between five and six films a year will come out under this label. There is the off chance that the odd film from Disney will be released from this division, but that will be very rare. From now on this logo will adorn Steven Spielberg & Co.'s films that used to be under Paramount Pictures and before that Universal Pictures.



Hollywood Pictures - This division is currently viewed as unneeded. It's been literally shuttered for the time being. If a purpose comes up for the use of it, they may try and restart this as a specialty house for genre-specific films, but for the most part of the coming decade don't count on it.



Marvel Studios - This new division will be it's own entity, like the Lamp, it will handle it's own films working from properties in its 5000+ character library.

It's interesting and amazing that for family films the company has reached out to its past to create and focus on film content. It's equally interesting and amazing that for it's other live-action films not under the Disney label it has reached out to the man that is considered the modern day Disney.

It will be interesting times/films to watch...

A Ghost Of A Chance...

Things appear to be moving forward with the sequel another Marvel property...

David Goyer has been pretty loose with his lips lately about "Ghost Rider 2" and what the script will look like. Apparently it'll look a lot like his original script for the Hellrider. Which is a good thing. Goyer says the sequel will essentially be the original script he wrote with minor changes. One of the main ones is that there would be no need for an origin story. It's a really good script that I remember reading almost a decade ago. It's far better than the cheesy script that they wound up turning into the first film. Nicolas Cage's hammy role is quite different than Goyer's original take on the character.

Johnny Depp was rumored to be up for Johnny Blaze back then. This was years before he shot to stratospheric levels of fame playing Jack Sparrow. The tone of the script was a straight "R" and it'll probably be toned down a bit, but I wouldn't think much as most "PG-13" films would qualify with an "R" rating a decade or so ago. I think Sony has made a good move going this direction. Hopefully, this turns into the Ghost Rider film I wanted to see when I heard they were making one.

Time will tell...

The Pros & Cons Of A Cook...

With Rich Ross taking the spot Dick Cook has held for the better part of this decade, I thought we might take a look at the films that have been greenlit during his time at the top...

Now remember that this is clearly from the standpoint of Blue Sky Disney and I'm sure others will/can/should disagree. In coming up with this list I'm not necessarily mentioning films I like, but talking about films that were hits and made money. Remember, money is god in show business and there are no atheist in this town. Some will be a mixture of both, this isn't a science... it's opinion. Mine and only mine.

Dick Cook took the reigns of Walt Disney Studios in 2002, replacing Peter Schneider who had replaced Joe Roth in 1999. He's lasted longer than most studio suits, but unlike most executives in Hollywood, Cook was genuinely liked by almost everyone. A very, very rare thing in the film industry.

This will take in an account of many/most films that were greenlit during his tenure; I'm sure some will be missed but most will be mentioned. I'm not focusing on any that came out in 2002 because he just got there and nothing he approved would be out the pipeline until 2003 at the earliest. And these include all three labels of Walt Disney Studios: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. Miramax is a rebellious sibling that answered very little to the Chairman.

So without more excessive blathering let's focus on his good and bad choices...

The PRO's:

Tron Legacy
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (and its sequels)
Miracle
National Treasure (and its sequels)
The Pacifier
Sky High
Glory Road
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (not so much its sequel)
Invincible
Enchanted
A Christmas Carol
Old Dogs
Alice in Wonderland
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Frankenweenie
John Carter of Mars
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo (I'm crossing my fingers on this one)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (just pure speculation here based on the director)
When in Rome
The Proposal
Wild Hogs
Apocalypto
Deja Vu
The Prestige
Flightplan
Cinderella Man

The CON's:

The Haunted Mansion
Home on the Range
Around the World in 80 Days
Herbie Fully Loaded
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Eight Below
The Shaggy Dog
Underdog
The Game Plan
College Road Trip
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bedtime Stories
Race to Witch Mountain
G-Force
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Miracle at St. Anna
Surrogates
Swing Vote
King Arthur
The Alamo
Hidalgo
Open Range
The Ladykillers
The Village
The Invisible

If you notice, there are several on the list that haven't yet come out and their slot on this list is a result of my own opinion mixed with the buzz I've heard as well as market speculation about how it appears the film will do.

Also not taken in to account are certain films from ImageMovers, Disneynature, DreamWorks and Disney's Double Dare You which were deals that Cook was intimately involved in putting together. As well, the Marvel deal is in the very early stages and since the ownership won't be finalized till the end of the year there really won't be much that would have the influence or involvement of Dick Cook.

So now that I've listed my take on the matter, I'm sure you'll give yours...

One House, Many Rooms...

The Walt Disney Company is made up of many divisions. It's a huge company that exist in the 21st Century, a mere eighty-five years after Walt and his brother Roy formed their little animation company...

I figured we would take a moment and look the divisions within the Mouse:

Development Hell: Disney Style...

I figured I'd take a page from some of the previous posts I did with the "Forgotten Mouse Tales" theme and talk about some projects the Mouse bought, developed and let languish or just downright die on the vine...

"Development Hell" - media jargon for a film, tv show or screenplay that gets mired in studio politics or process and never actually is made.

There have been many, many movies that died before there was ever a frame of film shot. Sometimes, even the ink wasn't dry on the page when the project was thrown into limbo, never to be heard from again. Today, we'll talk about one such project that Disney tried to get made in the 90's. A personal favorite of mine...

Smoke and Mirrors.

Think of it as Raiders of the Lost Ark mixed with the epic nature of Lawrence of Arabia and the romance of Casablanca. Not a bad combination, eh?

The script was by the husband and wife writing team of Lee and Janet Scott Batchler, a renown pair of screenwriters in Hollywood whose most famous work people have seen would be "Batman Forever". Now if you didn't like that movie, let's not blame the Batchlers since a movie goes through so much Intrusion and constant studio politics that what winds up on the screen may bare little resemblance to what's seen on the page. They're also supposed to be responsible for one of Hollywood's greatest never produced screenplays known as "Nemo" which I've never been able to find a copy of.

Anyways, in the early 90's the Batchlers wrote a script called "Smoke and Mirrors". It was the story of a famous handsome, middle aged, French magician named Jean Robert Houdin(the real man Houdini named himself after, btw) and his much younger, lovely wife, Colette(who's also his assistant). It's a period pic set in Paris in 1855 and Houdin is a master illusionist. He's known throughout Europe for his abilities to mesmerize an audience. The French government enlist him to go to the French colony of Algeria to debunk an evil tribal Sorcerer that is terrorizing the natives and creating chaos for the French authorities. When they arrive there Houdin and his wife encounter a young, handsome French Legionnaire that has eyes for his wife. From there an epic battle takes place between Houdin and the Sorcerer that is sewn into a truly sweeping romance filled with action and heart from the first page to the very last.

Sound good?

Well, the Walt Disney Studios thought so... as did every other major studio at the time. A bidding war ensued and Disney's Hollywood Pictures emerged as the winner of a script that had Sean Connery attached to play Houdin... trust me, the part was written for him. He would've been amazing in this part. The role of the young Legionnaire was rumored to be going out to Tom Cruise and every hot actress in Hollywood wanted to play Colette.

So what happened? Hollywood... that's what happened. Egos and greed have a way of mixing and then strangling so much in Hollywood and the Mouse is not immune. All the major studios wanted it, but Warners was the biggest competition. Disney came out the winner by paying one million dollars for the script, and this was the early 90's when a million dollars meant something... ehem. Frank Marshall was quickly attached to direct. It's preliminary budget was set up at 60,000,000 dollars, which would be well over a hundred today... and all this happened in less than three weeks. Light speed in Studio terms... It seemed like a go, but then fate and Suits interceded.

They took a script that was so great they paid a staggering amount of money for and well... they rewrote it. So much for being perfect. Connery even wanted another pass taken on the script. More rewrites and time passed... Frank Marshall dropped out... More rewrites and millions more dollars... Sean Connery dropped out... More rewrites and more money sucked down into a drain the Suits used to justify it as being "their" ideas that would make it a great movie until momentum died down... and then it just died. The Studio lost interest and the project was put into turn around.

A movie that truly would have been an amazing epic was thrown away... it's astounding how much money gets washed down the development drain in Hollywood simply to fix perfectly good scripts. Having read this back then and waiting to see it made into a film with Connery, I can say that nothing needed to have been changed. It was a wonderful read and the only thing Disney should have been concerned about was getting it ready as soon as possible so Frank or someone else could have called "action!".

But that's the weird way things go in Hollywood. Even at the Mouse... sometimes entertainment companies loose track of the fact that they're supposed to entertain. Vanity, often gets in the way...