The DisneyWar book thread

Print, Music, Theater, Online, Games and other Merchandise
AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

"DisneyWar" coming out on March 7

Post by ShyViolet » January 28th, 2005, 3:51 pm

This new book apparently has so much dirt on the Disney company that the PR head might very well be resigning because of the embarrassment.

It's supposed to be even worse for Bob Iger than Eisner because Eisner's leaving anyway.

Full story at www.newyorkpost.com (Under "Mouse Trouble" in the business section.)

All I can say is I hope they tell the truth about Statler and Waldorf, (Roy and Stan)!!!!!! They share every bit as much blame as Eisner.


*****Note: Unfortunately, the stupid New York Post has made this story unavailable now, and you have to pay for the whole thing. :evil: My apologies.
Last edited by ShyViolet on January 29th, 2005, 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25295
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Post by Ben » January 28th, 2005, 6:36 pm

Y'know, I'm not at all "anti-Eisner" for all the good things he DID do, but he sure does look like a drag-queen in wating in the picture featured in the link above.

Is it me, or does he look to have had a face lift or two?? ;)

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » January 29th, 2005, 12:41 pm

Probably did have a facelift.

The guy's close to 65 and balding badly!

Seriously, though... Eisner NEEDS to go!

And god help the Disney company if they replace Eisner with his designated successor, Iger.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

Post by ShyViolet » January 29th, 2005, 5:16 pm

I don't know if he had a facelift but he definetely lost weight if you compare this year to last year.

And Iger's chances will probably be hurt by this book.
You can find out more about the whole Iger/Eisner thing in Kim Masters' book, The Keys to the Kingdom. According to the book, Iger was "a bit too eager to ingratiate himself with his boss." Duh. :?

Also, Iger and Katzenberg used to be friends, so when Eisner made that deal with ABC in 1995, it was this big betrayal. Because DW had a deal with ABC BEFORE Disney did. (ABC was supposed to air DW shows, primarily animated ones). No wonder they never got that television unit off the ground.
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

DisneyWar

Post by ShyViolet » February 10th, 2005, 8:52 pm

Actually the book is coming out Feb 22, as you can see in the news section.

I can't wait. :D


From: Amazon.com

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
JAMES B. STEWART is the author of Heart of a Soldier, the bestselling Blind Eye and Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. A former Page-One editor at The Wall Street Journal, Stewart won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading. He is a regular contributor to SmartMoney and The New Yorker. He lives in New York.

Product Description:

"When You Wish Upon a Star," "Whistle While You Work," "The Happiest Place on Earth"—these are lyrics indelibly linked to Disney, one of the most admired and best-known companies in the world. So when Roy Disney, chairman of Walt Disney Animation and nephew of founder Walt Disney, abruptly resigned in November 2003 and declared war on chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, he sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, corporate boardrooms, theme parks, and living rooms around the world—everywhere Disney does business and its products are cherished.
DisneyWar is the breathtaking, dramatic inside story of what drove America’s best-known entertainment company to civil war, told by one of our most acclaimed writers and reporters.

Drawing on unprecedented access to both Eisner and Roy Disney, current and former Disney executives and board members, as well as thousands of pages of never-before-seen letters, memos, transcripts, and other documents, James B. Stewart gets to the bottom of mysteries that have enveloped Disney for years: What really caused the rupture with studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who once regarded Eisner as a father but who became his fiercest rival? How could Eisner have so misjudged Michael Ovitz, a man who was not only "the most powerful man in Hollywood" but also his friend, whom he appointed as Disney president and immediately wanted to fire? What caused the break between Eisner and Pixar chairman Steve Jobs, and why did Pixar abruptly abandon its partnership with Disney? Why did Eisner so mistrust Roy Disney that he assigned Disney company executives to spy on him? How did Eisner control the Disney board for so long, and what really happened in the fateful board meeting in September 2004, when Eisner played his last cards?

Here, too, is the creative process that lies at the heart of Disney—from the making of The Lion King to Pirates of the Caribbean. Even as the executive suite has been engulfed in turmoil, Disney has worked—and sometimes clashed—with a glittering array of stars, directors, designers, artists, and producers, many of whom tell their stories here for the first time.

Stewart describes how Eisner lost his chairmanship and why he felt obliged to resign as CEO, effective 2006. No other book so thoroughly penetrates the secretive world of the corporate boardroom. DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of America’s most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them.

DisneyWar is an epic achievement. It tells a story that—in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax—might itself have been the subject of a Disney animated classic—except that it’s all true.
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

GeorgeC

The DisneyWar book thread

Post by GeorgeC » February 11th, 2005, 2:57 pm

DrudgeReport had out an APB on the book, DisneyWar.

It's been leaked to bookstores THREE WEEKS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!

Bookstores in LA are already sold out of their first stocks of it. Barnes & Noble, Brentannos, and others are selling out of their first stocks of 80 copies.

I haven't seen the book myself, but I imagine I could get it in Columbus today if I wanted to.

Big, big news. Wonder how it will impact the shareholders meeting Disney's holding in Minneapolis?

Looks like a case of more egg on Eisner's face! :shock:

AV Team
AV Team
Posts: 3197
Joined: October 22nd, 2004

Post by Josh » February 11th, 2005, 6:17 pm

Thanks again for contributing news, George. :)

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

Post by ShyViolet » February 11th, 2005, 8:20 pm

I'm so excited about this book. :o
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » February 11th, 2005, 11:41 pm

Mickey A wrote:Thanks again for contributing news, George. :)

You're welcome on both counts! :D

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

Wait till it's in paperback

Post by ShyViolet » February 19th, 2005, 5:09 pm

I bought a copy last week. I returned it the same day.

It's just not worth the money.

About 40% of the material has been recycled from other books about Disney like Kim Masters' The Keys to the Kingdom, some parts almost word for word.

It's got interesting information on the company money-wise and I guess if you're into executive dirt and gossip (not that I'm not, but not for thirty bucks) you'd like this book. Stewart supposadly had tons of access to the company, Eisner and Roy, but there's not much here that's really new.

What I mean is there are no new insights on what we already know (as well as things we didn't know) It's all just fluff on Eisner did this, that and the other to so-and-so, Roy objected, blah blah blah. Stanley Gold and Roy resigned (like we didn't already know that). Just more stuff on how he betrayed Ovitz, or Ovitz betrayed him, etc...etc....As one review said, there is no overall context or perspective on WHY exactly Eisner's fall is a tradgedy or "Shakespearian" (Despite the fact that Stewart just SAYS it is, mentioning Lear and Richard III on the back cover. That's about as close as he comes to evoking Shakespeare, or any kind of literary subtext.)
It amazes me that writers actually get paid to write books like this, books that have nothing different to contribute and just reproduce, parrot and occasionally dig up things that are not a shock to anyone.
If Stewart wanted to write a different kind of book, he could have focused more on Eisner, the kind of person he is, and his interactions with people like Katzenberg. What kind of person is Eisner? What might have led him to make the decisons that he did? How has his background/upbringing shaped him? The writer can't be bothered to explore any of these topics; like Kim Masters' chronicle The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everyone Else, the emphasis is on details, details and more details, but facts without insight or context are merely facts. And that's BORING. The problem is, however, that writing a really original book about Disney would be a lot harder, and most of these media writers are just not up to the effort.


If you want to read some really great theorizing/reflection on Disney Eisner et. al, go to www.nymag.com and search for articles by Michael Wolff. He's really knowledgable about Disney and Eisner, and he KNOWS how to write.

*Forgot to say that for the animation fan, this book is DEFINETELY not worth it. Very little space is devoted to their production/creation, even the really big films like Lion King/Aladdin. Hello? Uh, where do these writers think all that money the studio made CAME from in the first place? :x
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » February 19th, 2005, 10:32 pm

This doesn't surprise me, Violet.

A lot of writing today is like that. A bunch of hype, but when you get down to really reading it you find out it's regurgitated from a bunch of other already existing sources.

There are more than a few people who specialize in doing this and it's amazing they keep on doing it in spite of the fact that they get caught. We used to call this plagiarism in grade school. Whether you consider it cheating or not, it's definitely unoriginal, derivative, and just doesn't add any new necessary knowledge.

It's a shame that's the way it is, but not too surprising.

I might still pick up this book and read it, but most likely from the local library. It didn't seem like something I'd want to buy anyway.

I'm more interested in the unauthorized interviews book with the ex-Disney people than this schlock anyway.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

Post by ShyViolet » February 20th, 2005, 9:04 pm

Yeah, totally check it out from the library. It's worth a look, but not much else.


And one thing I forgot to say up there is that Kim Masters' book was basically just regurgitated articles of Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Variety ,the New Yorker and Eisner's book Work In Progress. (since unlike with Stewart, he wouldn't cooperate with her.) She did, however, have LOTS of contacts in the entertainment industry, including Katzenberg (who supplied a lot of info). She even had a ringside seat in the Katzenberg/Disney trial. So why was her book so deadly dull??

And I also read the transcript from Charlie Rose who interviewed Stewart about this "great new" book, and almost all of what Stewart said on that show has been said MANY times before, and he acted like he was the first person to discover that Eisner's surface charm and charisma is often quite contradictory to the things he does. Big Newsflash there!

All these journalists copy off of each other, and for what? Isn't the subject of Disney fascinating and open-ended enough so that you can actually come up with some of your own material?

This might sound weird but when Eisner's book "Camp" about his childhood memoirs comes out, I'm picking it up. I think it will reveal a whole lot more about his character and the way Disney has been run than the so-called "DisneyWar."
I'm more interested in the unauthorized interviews book with the ex-Disney people than this schlock anyway
Just curious, what's the name of this book?
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » February 20th, 2005, 10:09 pm

The name of the book with the unedited interviews with ex-Disneyites is Walt's People, Violet.

You can find a link to it here: http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookd ... okid=27491

I don't know if it's going to be on Amazon.com or sold in bookstores, but the book can be ordered from this website.

If I'm not mistaken, I've read that it's only the first book in a series. How many books get cranked out, I don't know.

There's a new Chuck Jones book coming out called Chuck Jones: Conversations.

Neither this book nor the Walt's People book have been published yet to my knowledge...

I know I'll at least skim through both books if I come across them! :wink:

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9044
Joined: October 25th, 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY

Post by ShyViolet » February 21st, 2005, 5:37 pm

Thanks for the info! :wink:
You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25295
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Post by Ben » February 26th, 2005, 5:28 pm

Having read the manuscript a while ago, I can say that Walt's People is WELL worth the asking price.

It's available now, though you'll have to look online for now, since this won't be a mass-published book. Volume two is in the works now, possibly to come out by year's end. They'll continue as long as they are financially viable.

Just picked up DisneyWar in NYC but didn't get a chance to read much from it yet.

Post Reply