BREAKING: Chapek Out At Disney, Iger Returns

[50strat54]

Originally Posted by Farerb

I don't mind CGI films if they are done well, like Pixar from 1995-2010, but most of them are generic and bland, especially nowadays.

It’s the story that counts.

Most people don’t care about CGI or hand drawn if it’s an excellent and engaging story.

The films that were flops or didn’t meet expectations it is because the story was not engaging enough for the audience.

Lightyear flopped because the story wasn’t great, all four Toy Story films succeeded because all were excellent stories. Toy Story 4 broke my heart is was so good and so bittersweet. Tim Allen turned out to be a great dramatic actor, he was so good at the end of Toy Story 4.

[50strat54]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

To HELL with China!

I read they do this in Europe too.

[50strat54]

Originally Posted by Joey9775

Do they though? Doesn't China only give back a small percent? So really it's only just for that billion dollar bragging rights.

Money is money.

[Farerb]

‘Disney Adults,’ Grown-Up Fans of Magic Kingdom, Are Rapturous Over Bob Iger’s Return as CEO
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/d...ed-1235439277/

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Farerb

Then how come The Princess and the Frog's budget was $105 million and Tangled 's was $260 million? Or even Up's $175 million? All were released around the same time so no inflation issues too.

Rapunzel Unbraided/Tangled went through years of development and test animation, and finally a page-one rewrite with a new team (poor Glen Keanne even suffered a heart attack and was replaced as director by Lasseter)...all of those costs were folded into the final budget.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by 50strat54

Money is money.

And Disney has a mammoth theme park in China and a smaller one in Taiwan, and China manufactures a ton of the company's Consumer Products, so it's not all about the theatrical receipts. Drop in the bucket, really...

[An4h0ny]

This L.A. Times article has some interesting details. Posting the whole thing behind spoiler tag.




Behind the stunning exit of Disney CEO Bob Chapek

[Show spoiler]Five months ago, Bob Chapek seemed firmly in control.

Walt Disney Co.'s board of directors in June extended Chapek’s contract as chief executive of the legendary company for an additional three years, noting his leadership was key to “keeping Disney on the successful path it is on today.”

But on Sunday, Disney’s directors abruptly ditched Chapek, reinstalling his widely admired predecessor, Bob Iger, which elicited cheers from Wall Street and Disney’s faithful.

What happened?

Interviews with nearly a dozen Disney insiders, analysts and people close to the board suggest that Chapek’s problems had been mounting almost since the day he took Disney’s reins in late February 2020.

Within weeks, the economic environment had profoundly shifted as COVID-19 pandemic health precautions closed businesses, including theme parks, cruise lines and movie theaters, that had long buttressed the Burbank company. He also tried to expand Disney’s reach in streaming, a costly bet.

More debilitating, insiders said, was a series of miscalculations and missteps that undermined Chapek’s leadership and ultimately led to an unshakable loss of confidence.

Tensions came to a head Friday when key Disney board members including Chair Susan Arnold approached Iger and invited him back as chief executive, the job he excelled at for 15 years, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Disney’s board moved swiftly because of concerns that Iger, 71, was considering a position to run another entertainment venture, according to two of the knowledgeable people. Not wanting to lose out, the board quickly struck a two-year agreement with Iger, who late Sunday sent an email to announce his return to Disney employees, shocking some who said they had to check the Iger email twice to make sure it was real.

The shuffle brought into full view the latest chapter of Disney’s long-running succession drama.

“Bob Iger’s shoes were impossible to fill,” said Jeffrey Cole, director of USC’s Center for the Digital Future. “Chapek wasn’t as diplomatic or elegant or smooth as Iger. ... He just wasn’t Central Casting’s idea of the CEO who would follow Bob Iger.”

Chapek was not available for an interview.

The short-tenured CEO is expected to leave Disney with at least $23 million, according to Bloomberg News. His contract, which had been scheduled to run to mid-2025, entitled him to collect a salary for the full duration of his agreed-upon term. Chapek also will collect his Disney pension — he’s worked at the company nearly 30 years — and if Disney’s stock recovers, he could reap even more.

Chapek, 62, rose through the ranks, working in the company’s home video division during the era of VHS tapes and rising to lead its consumer products unit and later its theme parks business. There, Chapek oversaw a number of major projects, including the opening of the company’s new theme park in Shanghai, and the debut of the “Star Wars"-themed lands in California and Florida. Several executives who worked for him described him as well-meaning, focused on streamlining the company to succeed in a more challenging environment.

Executives interviewed for this story pointed to several key moments that they said helped seal Chapek’s fate.

When Chapek was named CEO in February 2020, Disney’s board elevated Iger to executive chairman. Iger indicated he would relinquish the day-to-day operations to his former lieutenant and focus on working with creative types.

Then the pandemic hit.

Chapek was in the job less than two months when his authority was diminished. In April 2020, as the full ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic were emerging, Iger told Ben Smith, then-New York Times media columnist, that he was still in the picture. Iger said he was “actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with [the pandemic], particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!”

The suggestion that Chapek needed “help” irritated Chapek and contributed to a frosty relationship between him and Iger that continued to this day, observers said.

Some insiders criticized Chapek for nursing that resentment, saying he should have dutifully filled the role of apprentice because it was Iger who had tapped him for the top job and it was Iger who transformed the company, taking it from a $47-billion enterprise to a more than $250-billion behemoth. People close to Iger said the longtime chief simply wanted to be a resource for Chapek.

“But for Chapek, it seemed that Iger wouldn’t get out of the way,” one former executive said.

Chapek also failed to shake an image that he was simply an executive from the theme parks division, one who lacked a broad understanding or appetite for the fine points of running a creative enterprise that produces such hits as “The Mandalorian” or FX’s “American Horror Story.”

The handling of the Scarlett Johansson “Black Widow” dispute in July 2021 left many in Hollywood with a sour taste. Disney’s public statements suggested that one of the few female stars of the Marvel Universe was being greedy after Disney decided to release the movie on its streaming service, Disney+, rather than theaters, as envisioned when the contract was struck.

Hollywood agents, producers and some executives in the company chafed at Johansson’s treatment and the lawsuit that followed, an embarrassment for a company that had long prided itself for talent relations.

“Bob Chapek is a very good guy, but he was in over his head,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management. “And he had a very slow taking-charge process that didn’t serve him well. The timetable is usually eight months for an insider. For an outsider, it often takes two years.”

“But Iger was still there, so this process was slow,” Sonnenfeld added.

Eager to restructure the company and streamline operations, Chapek designed a sweeping reorganization that centralized power in a longtime ally, Kareem Daniel. Daniel, a former consumer products chief, was put in charge of global strategy for the company’s streaming services. He was also the gatekeeper for financial decisions made by creative executives, which caused friction over priorities and budgets.

In his first move, Iger announced Monday that he would unwind Chapek’s centralized structure. Daniel, Iger said, left the company.

Iger was executive chairman for 22 months of Chapek’s reign. Even before Iger exited at the end of last December, several of his closest advisors announced they would retire, including communications chief Zenia Mucha and Disney general counsel and secretary Alan Braverman, who had joined Disney in 1993.

Chapek brought in a former BP oil executive, Geoff Morrell, as his new communications and government relations chief. Morrell, a former Pentagon press secretary who also worked as a journalist at ABC News, also had a large portfolio. And he tried to manage the company’s response to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which critics derisively nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.

After weeks of staying silent on the legislation, Chapek reversed course and condemned the bill, handing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a win. The governor blasted Disney, saying Florida would not bend to a “woke” company. DeSantis moved to have Disney’s special self-governing status near Orlando revoked.

“He pulled something off that very few people could have done. He managed to offend both the DeSantis MAGA crowd and also the civil liberties crowd,” Sonnenfeld said. “It was handled so badly that he alienated both communities.”

Morrell lasted just three months.

Six weeks later, in a move viewed as an effort to consolidate his power, Chapek summoned Disney’s powerful head of television, Peter Rice, to his office and fired him, saying he wasn’t a good fit. Rice had joined Disney as part of the 2019 takeover of much of Rupert Murdoch’s Hollywood holdings, but Disney insiders said Chapek felt Rice had undermined him — he was frequently mentioned as a possible successor should Chapek get the boot.

Disney’s board supported Chapek and gave him a new three-year deal — just days before Netflix reported a loss in customers, a seismic jolt to the industry. Suddenly, Wall Street was less enamored with the heavy losses media companies industrywide were incurring to build their own streaming services.

Activist shareholders began criticizing Chapek and his decisions, even suggesting that Disney sell ESPN.

The final straw came this month when Disney started its fiscal fourth quarter earnings call with analysts touting the wonders of the company, only to reveal that Disney had lost $1.5 billion on its streaming services, including Disney+, and the company might miss subscriber projections if a recession occurs.

Chapek’s next move was to announce cost-cutting and layoffs, alarming employees. “We literally learned from the press that there would be layoffs coming,” one insider said.

By this month, calls for change at the top had grown to a roar.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer went on a tear, saying Chapek needed to be fired.

“The board must have said, ‘We need somebody like Bob Iger,’” Cole said. “And then they said, ‘Well, what about Bob Iger?’”

Times staff writer Ryan Faughnder contributed to this report.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...mer=googlenews

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by 50strat54

It’s the story that counts.

Most people don’t care about CGI or hand drawn if it’s an excellent and engaging story.

The films that were flops or didn’t meet expectations it is because the story was not engaging enough for the audience.

Lightyear flopped because the story wasn’t great, all four Toy Story films succeeded because all were excellent stories. Toy Story 4 broke my heart is was so good and so bittersweet. Tim Allen turned out to be a great dramatic actor, he was so good at the end of Toy Story 4.

That would be true if the films opened strong and then cratered...Lightyear -- relative to other Pixar titles -- opened soft to begin with. Either the knives were out because of the social media hysteria over a same-sex peck on the lips, or the marketing stank, but it's not as if the film roared on opening day and then collapsed over story issues, Lightyear underperformed from the start.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

That would be true if the films opened strong and then cratered...Lightyear -- relative to other Pixar titles -- opened soft to begin with. Either the knives were out because of the social media hysteria over a same-sex peck on the lips, or the marketing stank, but it's not as if the film roared on opening day and then collapsed over story issues, Lightyear underperformed from the start.

The marketing for Lightyear was pretty bad. Not John Carter bad, but they went with the "This is the movie Andy watched" which did not fit with what was on screen.

[Wummyhulk]

Sounds like even CGI animated film, Pixar or otherwise had some titles that failed to make it big and the box office, Lightyear bring one of them.

[Ben_R]

Bob Chapek Fired - Disney In Meltdown - YouTube

[Kuja]

Originally Posted by lobo81865

Iger started the woke cr*p. Chapek just kept it going and became the fall guy. If I'm not mistaken, I think Iger is the main reason there has never been a DVD or blu ray release of "Song of the South" in the U.S.

I'm pretty sure the company put that in a vault decades before Iger came along, lol.

[Kuja]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

For those of you who want hand darwn animation, do you realize how expensive that would be? And how long it would take? There is a reason, actually many, for CGI replacing hand drawn.

Hand-drawn animation is cheaper and quicker to make. That's why I expect it to be revived eventually for the sake of Disney+, if no other reason. They need a lot of content fast to fill the streaming void, and hand-drawn animation is much quicker to make than 3D.

Moreover, there was nothing really ever wrong with hand-drawn animation, Disney sabotaged TP&TF and WtP because they wanted to get rid of it anyway to be more like PIXAR. They even lied about TP&TF's budget, according to what's been rumored to be its actual budget, TP&TF did about 6X what it was made with. If the medium was weaker at the box office at all, it was because of Disney's direct-to-video films that trained people not to see hand-drawn in theaters, which won't be an issue with a streaming service.

[BobSimms]

Does this shocking news have any bearing whatsoever on whether the Disney Movie Club Exclusive releases will kick back into swing?

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Kuja

Hand-drawn animation is cheaper and quicker to make. That's why I expect it to be revived eventually for the sake of Disney+, if no other reason. They need a lot of content fast to fill the streaming void, and hand-drawn animation is much quicker to make than 3D.

Moreover, there was nothing really ever wrong with hand-drawn animation, Disney sabotaged TP&TF and WtP because they wanted to get rid of it anyway to be more like PIXAR. They even lied about TP&TF's budget, according to what's been rumored to be its actual budget, TP&TF did about 6X what it was made with. If the medium was weaker at the box office at all, it was because of Disney's direct-to-video films that trained people not to see hand-drawn in theaters, which won't be an issue with a streaming service.

Cel animation, each frame has to be hand drawn. Computer animation, just create the 3d model, then animate the key frames and the computer does most of the work in between those frames. So Computer animation is much faster to create.

Don Bluth, who wanted to make a Dragon's Lair movie entirely in cel animation for the characters back in 2015 or so, was unable to get any major studio to fund his very expensive dream project, with the costs for hand drawn animation being probably just as expensive as 3-D computer animation. The small pitch animation 1 minute animated short, cost $250,000 to make, though he funded $700k for the short animation to pitch to big studios/distributors.
Netflix, declined a cel animated version in favor of a cheaper, live action version, that is collecting dust since 2020 with no word of a script even.

Don Bluth, now 85 years old, might not see the film brought to life in any form if they don't get working on it by 2023.
Don Bluth's last feature length animated film, Titan AE, released in the year 2000, cost him over 90 million dollars to create back then 22+ years ago. Today, that same movie with mostly cel animation, would be triple that cost most likely. Or at least double at 180 million to create.
It made only a fraction of that in theaters and put the company out of business pretty much.

Most cel animated cartoon series of the 1980s to 2000s, were exported overseas where the animators got paid less back then compared to what an animator in the US would have been paid.

Today, Pixar and Sony Animation, as well as Dreamworks Animation, are the three big animation studios that release theatrical films on a regular basis. Blue Sky Studios was absorbed and dissolved by Disney recently.

Toy Story 4, from 2019, cost $200+ million to make. Not because the Maya or custom CGI software is expensive, but because each animator gets paid a lot of money to create the animations.

In the end though, Disney doesn't care about cel animation in their feature films anymore, which is sad. Both CGI animation and cel animation can co-exist.

One exception would be the Bob's Burger's Movie. That only cost $38 million to create. It only made 34m in theaters though, and was a box office disappointment.

[Kuja]

I dunno, it's a knowable fact that hand-drawn animation is cheaper and faster to make than 3D, not just an opinion. Don Bluth is not a megacorporation. One random guy trying to lift something off the ground isn't the same as a full company in motion.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Kuja

I dunno, it's a knowable fact that hand-drawn animation is cheaper and faster to make than 3D, not just an opinion. Don Bluth is not a megacorporation. One random guy trying to lift something off the ground isn't the same as a full company in motion.

Well, imagine drawing 1000 frames of animation in one day, drawing the characters over and over for every single frame, then coloring them in with paint afterwards, then positioning each cel in front of the cel camera, then layering in the background.

Then imagine 1000 frames of animation in one day, taking the puppet models and moving them to complete the scene, then just pressing render after all the scenery and lighting/effects are ready from those teams, and it's a lot faster for computer animation.

[Show spoiler]
I worked in the animation industry firsthand and have experience in cel and computer animation. I can say 100% it will take much longer to cel animate a movie by hand versus computer animate one.

Cel animation is awesome, it just takes a long time per artist to get the same speed of results for a computer animator.

On topic, Iger unfortunately favors CGI animation and hasn't considered cel animation in the 15 years he's been there till 2020.

[Farerb]

Why Bob Iger’s Ultimate Power Move May Be Selling Disney to Apple
https://www.thewrap.com/bob-iger-sel...le-power-move/

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Well, imagine drawing 1000 frames of animation in one day, drawing the characters over and over for every single frame, then coloring them in with paint afterwards, then positioning each cel in front of the cel camera, then layering in the background.

Then imagine 1000 frames of animation in one day, taking the puppet models and moving them to complete the scene, then just pressing render after all the scenery and lighting/effects are ready from those teams, and it's a lot faster for computer animation.

[Show spoiler]
I worked in the animation industry firsthand and have experience in cel and computer animation. I can say 100% it will take much longer to cel animate a movie by hand versus computer animate one.

Cel animation is awesome, it just takes a long time per artist to get the same speed of results for a computer animator.

On topic, Iger unfortunately favors CGI animation and hasn't considered cel animation in the 15 years he's been there till 2020.

There is also the issue with finding enough artists that have the exact same style. Watching Transformers the movie you see a few times where the artists cut corners, or were unsure of what others were doing. Every time Hot Rod transformers the animation is different.

[Zechs Merquise]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Well, imagine drawing 1000 frames of animation in one day, drawing the characters over and over for every single frame, then coloring them in with paint afterwards, then positioning each cel in front of the cel camera, then layering in the background.

Then imagine 1000 frames of animation in one day, taking the puppet models and moving them to complete the scene, then just pressing render after all the scenery and lighting/effects are ready from those teams, and it's a lot faster for computer animation.

[Show spoiler]
I worked in the animation industry firsthand and have experience in cel and computer animation. I can say 100% it will take much longer to cel animate a movie by hand versus computer animate one.

Cel animation is awesome, it just takes a long time per artist to get the same speed of results for a computer animator.

On topic, Iger unfortunately favors CGI animation and hasn't considered cel animation in the 15 years he's been there till 2020.

You're describing traditional ink and paint. Most traditional animation is not done that way any more. Nowadays it's all inked and painted digitally, on a computer, and there's no need to trace the individual frames onto acetate film so that they can be inked, painted and photographed. You just scan the individual elements into the computer and ink and colour them that way. Most cases they don't even draw the individual frames on paper any more, the animators will just draw the frames straight on a tablet

Not only is most traditional animation done that way these days but Disney's been doing it more-or-less that way since the 1990s starting with Beauty and the Beast

If Don Bluth was trying to make Dragon's Lair the traditional way with hand painted cels then it's no wonder he ran into so much expense. Acetate cels are expensive (seriously, try to buy some for yourself. A pack of 100 cels enough for, at 12 frames per second, probably about 8 seconds worth of animation, can cost you about $100). In addition to that, you've got to know how to airbrush the backgrounds and know how to photograph the whole thing with the cel camera. These are not skills that people generally have, because animation is no longer really done that way, so Bluth would have had to hire specialists and animators who would generally be around his age, to help create the project for him