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Disney chops jobs, filmsMovie company lays off 650 employees, drops film output
Despite such success stories as Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean, the Mouse House cuts back its film production and gives 650 studio employees pink slips.
(Source: Big Cartoon Database) All hell has broken loose in the Mouse House. The Walt Disney Company responded to stagnant stock prices, and costly mistakes like The Wild, by laying off 650 studio employees and trimming their movie output. Chairman Dick Cook annouced that Walt Disney Studios would only produce and distribute 10 animated and live-action films a year, down from their current 18 film/year average. It will also produce 2 or 3 more live-action films through its Touchstone subsidiary. Disney CEO Robert Iger got out of town during the carnage: he was doing a meet-and-greet in Hong Kong Disneyland and making plans to attend the stage premiere of the The Lion King. Nearly 20% of the studio's employees will need to update their resumes. The lay-offs are distributed evenly between American and international locations. Dick Cook also won the Award for Most Tasteless Firing: he sacked Disney Production president Nina Jacobson over the phone, when she had called to announce that her partner had just given birth to their second child. In what industry analysts are seeing as a triumph of marketing over art, Oren Aviv has become the new head of Disney Studios. He is best known for producing both National Treasure films and Rocket Man. Aviv once told The Los Angeles Times: "I don't think anyone should think of a marketable movie idea as a dirty word ... I want to make movies like The Pacifier (the kid-friendly Vin Diesel comedy)." Disney also restructured several of its companies under two global organizations: Buena Vista Worldwide Marketing and Distribution and Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment. This, according to statements, will not affect such groups as Walt Disney Feature Animation, which controls Pixar. Even if the above statement is a load of hooey, it's possible that Pixar will escape the bloodbath: although Cars didn't do as well as Disney had hoped, it still made over $300 million worldwide. That, and the record-smashing success of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, was a rare highlight of Disney's year, which saw film studio profits down 17%. Industry analysts were undecided on the Disney cuts. Prudential entertainment analyst Katherine Styponias told her clients, "We concede that investors are not likely to reward a new film strategy with a higher growth rate until there is some evidence that it has having a positive and significant impact on the results." What does this mean for filmgoers? Well, a lot more movies like this.
The copyright of the article Disney chops jobs, films in Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Disney chops jobs, films in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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