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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington



Sometimes, to understand what’s happening in your own backyard, it’s helps to leave home for a while. It’s a useful strategy whether one lives in Los Angeles, Washington, Las Vegas or any other company town.

For those of us whose job it is to cover Hollywood, the daily deluge of show-biz minutiae can be as oppressive as it is fascinating. Do it long enough, and you start believing that coverage of weekend grosses, studio hiring and firing, and celebrity addictions has some intrinsic meaning, beyond what is reported in the trades one day and evaporates into thin air the next.

Those journalists and other hard-news junkies who eat, live and breathe politics in Washington -- or the ebb and flow of money, in Manhattan -- often are referred to as "wonks." Just as cyber-slaves in the Silicon Valley have embraced the once-ugly term, "geek," wonks don’t mind being known primarily as people who live and die for the next election.

Somehow, the word "wonk" has yet to attach itself to the folks who cover the inner-working of Hollywood. But, it could.

I was reminded of this after flying across the country to watch Cirque du Soleil celebrate the fifth anniversary of its "best kept secret," the energetic and typically delightful "La Nouba," A fixture at Walt Disney World since 1999, it was the one Cirque show I’d yet to sample. Neither had I been to our nation’s unofficial 51st state, Walt Disney World, in Orlando.

So, why not?

Staged in a spacious hard-top theater, like the shows in Las Vegas, "La Nouba" reminded me of a suburban cousin of "Mystere." Where the Treasure Island show is metaphysical and overtly artsy, the Downtown Disney attraction is hyperkenetic and unabashedly athletic. As such, the show is a perfect fit for Disney World, where surrealism and metaphysics normally are checked at the gate.

"La Nouba" was the last Cirque entertainment directed by Franco Dragone, and his fingerprints are all over it. Its relatively obscure status within the Cirque repertoire has more to do with Disney marketing dynamics, than any lack of commitment by the Montreal-based troupe.

Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort’s versions of Downtown Disney both are chock-full of brand-name entertainment destinations, including House of Blues, ESPN Zone Rainforest Café, AMC Theaters, Wolfgang Puck, BET SoundStage Club, Virgin Megastore, and such in-house magnets as Disney Quest and World of Disney. To feature one attraction over another, or lump them all together in an umbrella campaign (as Las Vegas does with "O," "Mystere," "Zumanity" and such non-Cirque shows as Celine Dion‘s "A New Day," Blue Man Group and "Mamma Mia"), not only would be counterproductive, it would be un-Disney, and Disney wrote the basic primer on synergy and cross-promotion.

Mickey Mouse is the marquee attraction of any Disney product, including stockholders’ meetings. With Walt laying low in a cryogenic limbo, every other person or character plays second fiddle to Mickey. It’s as simple as that.

Nonetheless, Cirque completists -- even those intellectually allergic to all things Disney --are advised to brave the swamps and jungles of synergy to see "La Nouba," as it isn’t likely to tour any time soon, or ever. It’s a lot of fun, and can serve as an excellent introduction to the troupe for youngsters and less artistically curious adults. (I found it interesting that, in Orlando, the early show started at 6 p.m., with a "late" show at 9 p.m. In Vegas, the curtains tend to rise at 7ish and 10ish.)

Walt Disney World itself was a revelation to me, however.

Sure, it’s big … monstrously big, compared with Disneyland other American towns. And, yes, the synergy and brand overload can be as oppressive as the Florida humidity.

Still, the sheer fabulousness of the place -- from the exciting new Mission: SpaceSpace and impossibly nostalgic Disney-MGM Studios, to the easy access to golf, gardens and even bass fishing -- ultimately was irresistible. Go there with an open mind, and even more widely open wallet, and even the most hard-core Disney cynic is likely to have a good time.

As I looked around me, though, I saw tens of thousands of people who don’t read Variety and the Hollywood Reporter from cover to cover every morning, or even know they exist. Nor do they seek out the overheated coverage of show-biz trivia in such august publications as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal … or give a good crap about press-release journalism in USA Today, which dutifully fawns over every new and esoteric box-office record. The Star, Us and People mags do the job of fueling America’s love/envy/hate relationship with its celebrities.

These were people who not only didn’t obsess over the fates of the two Michaels: Eisner and Moore. Most had no idea Uncle Walt had a nephew named Roy. These people were attracted to Orlando by the sheer magnetism of Mickey Mouse, and what Disney represented to them in the far-away land of their collective youth. Even if they knew enough about the current struggle for power in the Magic Kingdom to ponder the question of succession, how could they possibly translate the language used to debate the ramifications of each and every Byzantine gambit?

It’s just about all anyone in official Hollywood has been talking about for the last six months, however. For the various wonks, insiders and freeloaders who do read the trades religiously, though, deciding who was the greater conman in the battle for control of the company -- and, of course, Fahrenheit 9/11, Miramax and the Pixar deal -- was infinitely more thrilling than back-to-back rides on Space Mountain and the Matterhorn. For the last several months, every weekend’s box-office take by a Disney, Touchstone, Miramax and Buena Vista Home Entertainment title has been dissected and analyzed like a semen stain on one of Jerry Bruckheimer’s CSI editions.

By contrast, coverage of the upheavals at Viacom, News Corp. and AOL Time Warner has been as rancorous as afternoon tea at the Four Seasons. Who cares? None of those cobbled-together conglomerates ignites much passion in the media or citizenry. They just … are.

The thing the media and an increasing number of in-house brass forget about the Disney mystique is that, when the smoke clears on any Disney brushfire, the only thing that truly matters to the bottom line is Mickey Mouse. For all the boycotts and controversies, from the right and left, the person who put the biggest crimp in Disney’s style was Osama Bin Laden, and his fanaticism had the same negative impact on Broadway, Las Vegas and international tourism.

Most Americans, and hundreds of thousands of other residents of Planet Earth, have some hard-wired emotional attachment to one Disney property or another. The vast majority of those same people couldn’t even tell you who was in charge of News Corp., even though Rupert Murdoch is one of the world’s most powerful, rich, influential and potentially dangerous men in the world.

It was while I was at Disney World that I first heard speculation about Roy Disney’s group being interested in talking to departed Viacom exec Mel Karmazin about possibly becoming a successor to Eisner. Just the thought of a bottom-line fanatic like Karmazin in mouse ears made me cringe (maybe he could bring Howard Stern to Radio Disney, though), just as the idea of Comcast subsuming Disney made me nauseous.

Eisner’s faults have been enumerated ad nauseum, here on Movie City News and dozens of other sites and publications. He’s one of the most respected, loathed and envied executives in southern California, or anywhere else, for that matter. Clearly, his compensation is out of whack with recent company performance, but, then, what CEO isn’t hideously overpaid these days? Likewise, his arrogance and paranoia have become engrained in the corporate culture, making it one of the most difficult studios for a journalist to cover. None, though, are a picnic waiting to happen.

Disney is far from alone when it comes to turning out under-performing movies; ABC’s problems probably should be laid closer to the doorstep of the network’s current and departed Entertainment dweebs, who raised the bar on self-delusion to record levels; and no tourist destination has recovered fully from the depression caused by the horrors of 9/11. At one point in its development, Disney’s costly California Adventure must have looked like a no-brainer to everyone one the board, but the threat of terrorism, sky-high revenues expectations, negative reviews and high ticket prices (in the beginning, anyway) all had a role in turning the park into a giant white elephant.

Methinks, there’s a lot of blame to go around. Even so, someone has to pay for such monstrous blunders as Eisner’s brief and disastrous affair with Michael Ovitz; the systematic alienation of some of the best creative minds in the movie-making and amusement-park business; allowing the Katzenburg trial to devolve into a public farce; and allowing himself to be paid in cash and options that can charitably be described as obscene. Like Nixon, in the last days of his command, Eisner can’t possibly be accomplishing anything at the helm of the company right now, except stacking the sandbags higher and devising a honorable exit strategy. If he can salvage the Pixar deal and restore the luster to the amusement parks, there’s a very good chance he’ll be able to retire on a positive note and hand-pick his successor. If not, he might not even be able to finish out the terms of his contract.

Upon my return to the west coast, I couldn’t help but notice a headline in the business section of Wednesday’s L.A. Times. It read, "Media Firms Will Need Moguls Who Can Succeed" (duh, even allowing for the dumb pun) and, underneath it, "Finding a top executive who can navigate Hollywood and Wall Street is a challenge" (double-duh). Typically, it took two Times reporters and a headline writer to miss the point entirely.

Finding executives who can navigate Hollywood and Wall Street only requires unearthing someone willing to butcher the goose who laid the golden egg, merely to satisfy the appetites of those investors demanding for short-term nutrition. Most executives in Hollywood and on Wall Street -- politicians in Washington, too -- can’t see beyond their next Mercedes SUV.

Finding executives who can convince hordes of consumers that their brands are worthy of trust -- devotion, even -- and, therefore, acceptable places to drop their entertainment dollars, indeed, is a formidable task. Keeping fans of Disney’s theme parks, cruise ships, time-share resorts, retail outlets, movies and television shows coming back for more -- year after year, new attraction after new attraction -- requires someone as enthusiastic about the future, as he/she is about the past.

Short-term financial gains will satiate Wall Steet’s endless cravings for only so long, before it demands more profits. In Hollywood, Disney makes too juicy a target for derision for anyone to admit wanting to see it succeed.

A rising Disney tide, based on consumer acceptance of exciting new initiatives, however, would lift all ships in Hollywood and Wall Street.

Is that too simple for the media to accept?

At a time when our most astute capitalists are afraid to offend anyone on the Street, for fear they’ll have to pull the pin on their golden parachutes before they’re ready to retire, that avenue appears closed. Creative geniuses on the order of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas make so much money already, who needs the whole enchilada?

What Disney needs is a visionary on the order of Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn. Sorry, I can’t think of a better example.

Like Uncle Walt, Wynn single-handedly changed the dynamic of an entire industry and city, and in the face of intense, widespread competition. His products pleased consumers and investors in equal measure. No one could accuse Wynn of cutting corners to produce results.

Even when Wynn’s ambitions -- and a temporary downturn in business -- put him in such a vulnerable position that he lost his own company, he left behind a brand conceptually and financially sound enough for the newly joined MGM Mirage to grow and prosper. Many people in Las Vegas doubted that the tightwads at MGM would build on Wynn’s foundation, but they have. Now, even at $2 billion, many of these same observers anticipate Wynn’s new venture -- expected to open next year -- not only will be the talk of the town, but it will revitalize the northern half of the Strip.

More to the point, though, consumers can’t wait for the place the open. Rumors about what’s being planned on the entertainment, restaurant and amenity sides of the business already are legend.

In contrast to the ordeal faced by Eisner’s successor, though, Wynn’s challenge practically is a no-brainer. The pursuit of a 21st Century model for corporate synergy at Disney -- and other media conglomerates -- has instead breathed life into a giant fire-breathing serpent. The beast not only has a half-dozen heads, but also a half-dozen stomachs and egos to feed. There aren’t enough swords in the kingdom to keep such a monster in check.

In the not-too-distant past, this wasn’t a problem for Disney. People flocked to its movies, amusement parks and television products to be synergized, not escape it. Most still do.

What consumers won’t do, though, is watch mediocre sitcoms on ABC, just because Disney is producing them for use on its own network, or attend its movies just because they’ve been previewed on one ancillary property or another. How many consumers would even know that Touchstone and Miramax are subsidiaries of Disney, if their pastors and right-wing pundits hadn’t told them?

Rhubarbs, such as the highly distorted, and media-fueled dust-up with Michael Moore and the Weinsteins, are unseemly for a company with such a trusted history of brand identification. Deep down, the marriage between Disney and Miramax always felt like a long shot for success. Now, it’s just plain ugly.

First and foremost, though, Disney can’t risk disillusioning its core constituency, by cheapening the product or diluting the brand any more than it already is.

Whoever is chosen to succeed Eisner -- and by whichever board members -- won’t have to look great in mouse ears at the introductory press conference. But, at the very least, he/she must convince consumers that the cap won’t be thrown in the nearest garbage can after the cameras stop rolling. (Some people thought Eisner actually wore mouse ears around the house, he so fit the mold of senior mouseketeer.)

And, no one should forget the Walt Disney quote highlighted on the cover page of the corporate website, "I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing -- that it was all started by a mouse."

No consumer I met last week at Disney World has. That’s for sure.

- by Gary Dretzka

June 7, 2004


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