Sandy came back to me shocked. Jeffrey was shaking with anger and was very upset. He said to Sandy as I understand it, “I am Michael Eisner. I am better than Michael Eisner was 10 years ago. I will be Michael Eisner if not here, somewhere.”…And on and on. Sandy thought I should dump Jeffrey immediately. But we discussed it and I decided that I would talk to Jeffrey, calm it all down; and put things on my schedule. Frankly I do not believe there are so many jobs open right now although I will not kid myself. Jeffrey will do very well. He will end up a high level executive, but eventually he will fail.
Eisner made it clear that there was now no way that Katzenberg could succeed Wells. “Jeffrey is waiting and probably has deluded himself into believing that he will get Frank’s job. He has probably figured out that all the jobs he thought were there for him are not really there right now.…Jeffrey cannot assume Frank’s position and that is that.…” Eisner concluded:
I am not sure why I have written this letter except to get my thoughts down on paper. Maybe this will be interesting to read in a couple of years. In the meantime I am sure the saga will continue.
Michael 4/16/94
The following Monday, all the participants in the “saga” gathered at New York’s Palace Theater for opening night of Beauty and the Beast. There had been plenty of carping among Broadway veterans about the impending arrival of a show backed by the deep pockets of a giant corporation. Disney had swept away the traditional role of Broadway producers, backers—the whole ritualized development process of backers’ auditions and wealthy Broadway “angels” who put up the money for shows. Disney simply financed the show itself, from start to finish.
Eisner had deliberately shunned the Broadway creative community, insisting that the show use artistic talent from Disney’s theme park theatrical productions (one exception was the costume designer). One executive involved insists it was because Eisner didn’t want to have to deal with the Broadway unions. And there was plenty of skepticism about transplanting an animated musical to the stage.
The audience gave the show a standing ovation, and the buzz was positive. The day after the show opened, the Palace set a Broadway record by selling $700,000 worth of tickets. Reviews were surprisingly good. Variety, however, captured the larger point when it wrote that “It will almost certainly be met with varying levels of derision by Broadway traditionalists…The complaints, however, will be meaningless where it counts, which is at the Palace box office. Disney’s first Broadway show will be packing them in—and thumbing its nose at the naysayers—for a very long time.” Whatever the artistic merits, the show was a triumph for Disney—an amazing achievement considering the odds of succeeding on Broadway, especially for a first-time producer. Hundreds of talented people worked on the show, so allocating credit for the success was difficult, if not pointless. But it was Katzenberg who had pushed for it, persuaded Wells to finance it, and talked a reluctant Eisner into going along. Nonetheless, Eisner insisted that Katzenberg’s name be deleted from the program credits. Katzenberg pretended he didn’t care, but he did. Still, he figured Eisner knew the truth.
The intense strains between Eisner and Katzenberg were increasingly apparent inside the studio, which emboldened other executives to disagree with Katzenberg, and even go around him to Eisner. Another screening of Toy Story that month led to a sharp split within the Disney executive ranks. Lasseter had embraced Katzenberg’s idea for a buddy movie, and Katzenberg felt the movie, while still seriously flawed, was now on the right track. Schneider disagreed, so much so that they thought it was hopeless. He lobbied Roy to shut the project down and write off the losses. Roy took the matter up with Eisner, who called Katzenberg. “Should we shut this down?” he asked.
Katzenberg wasn’t thrilled that once again his deputy, Schneider, had done an end-run around him to Roy and Eisner, but he pointed out that under the agreement with Pixar, Disney’s contribution was limited to $21 million, much of which had already been spent. Pixar would have to fund anything over that. So there wasn’t much downside risk. He argued strongly that Lasseter should have another chance. Even though Eisner had never been enthusiastic about the concept for the movie, he agreed. “Fine,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Katzenberg also clashed with David Vogel, who ran the Walt Disney Pictures label. Vogel had steadily gained stature as his low-budget, family-oriented films like Homeward Bound proved to be reliable moneymakers. Still, despite his speech to Eisner and other executives in which he’d outlined his ambitious agenda, he felt he was relegated to films with animals, children, and third-tier actors and directors. It was humiliating to be at meetings where others pitched the latest vehicle for Julia Roberts or Bette Midler and he had to beg for the money to make yet another Benji sequel. One day Vogel showed Katzenberg a script he liked for a film called The Mighty Ducks, about ice hockey. “Nobody cares about hockey,” Katzenberg replied, evidently oblivious to Eisner’s constant anecdotes about his son who played hockey.
“Fine,” Vogel said. “But who cares whether you care about hockey? This is a $10 million film about little kids and hockey, and why don’t you just let me make it? I’ll either fail or succeed.”
Katzenberg resisted, but after Vogel threatened to quit, Katzenberg reluctantly passed the script on to Eisner on a Friday afternoon. On Monday morning Katzenberg walked into Vogel’s office. He slapped the script on Vogel’s desk and said, “Here’s your hockey movie. Michael likes it. Go make it.” Then he walked out.
After Mighty Ducks turned into a hit, Eisner had Disney buy a professional hockey team and name it The Mighty Ducks. Vogel hoped he might get invited to the opening game, but he wasn’t, nor was he given season tickets, as were some of the film’s production team. He ended up never seeing the team that his movie had inspired.
Katzenberg may have felt sidelined at the opening of Beauty and the Beast, but it didn’t deter an ongoing stream of press attention. Esquire ran a profile of Katzenberg in May 1994 that, as Eisner told Irwin Russell, “is but another example of his lack of control, use of language, and the wrong image for the Walt Disney Company.” Articles in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times speculating that Katzenberg was Wells’s likely successor also irritated Eisner. But nothing so incensed him as a page-one story in The Wall Street Journal that ran on May 16, 1994.
Reporter Richard Turner had gotten the idea for the story after Katzenberg invited some press to one of the Disney soundstages. Katzenberg marshaled a real elephant, bales of hay, a live orchestra, and Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella to sing a comic duet between the characters Timon and Pumba. A presentation about the making of The Lion King featured Katzenberg in nearly every scene. The movie clips looked great; the song with Lane and Sabella was hilarious.
So Turner had called Katzenberg’s office to propose a behind-the-scenes story on the making of the film, and Katzenberg agreed. Turner’s story opens with a scene in which Katzenberg is meeting with composer Hans Zimmer: “Unaccustomed to hearing edicts from a studio executive, [Zimmer] is about to hear one now,” Turner wrote. “The music in one scene, complains Mr. Katzenberg, is too ‘dense—it’s a lot of information to take in…I beg you, please, please, you’ve got to let it breathe. It’s too loud, it’s overwhelming the scene.’ ”
No one disputes that Katzenberg was intimately involved with every aspect of The Lion King, but participants in the meeting say that the scene depicted by Turner was a scripted reenactment of a meeting with Zimmer that had already happened, and that exaggerated Katzenberg’s contribution. (Be that as it may, Turner emphatically dismisses the notion, saying that he saw many similar meetings in which Katzenberg’s comments were critical to the finished film.)
Turner also attended a test screening in Pasadena and a dinner afterward with Katzenberg, Roy and Patty Disney, and members of the creative team. Turner noticed that everyone drank Evian water except Roy and Patty, who smoked cigarettes and had cocktails. The Pasadena audience had obviously loved the film, but Katzenberg and his team were s
till tinkering with it, especially the ending. Turner found Roy to be a “gentle, kindly soul,” and that he made several good creative suggestions, though none made it into the final story.
The article was undeniably favorable for Disney, for The Lion King, and above all, for Katzenberg. “Prominent in the Disney formula is Mr. Katzenberg,” Turner wrote, somewhat ironically, “who, if not exactly the re-incarnation of Walt Disney, brings his own blend of passion and obsession to Disney’s mission of creating Disney animated ‘classics’…his frenetic presence looms over virtually every aspect of ‘The Lion King.’ ” Thomas Schumacher had a particularly memorable quote: “Jeffrey is the sheepdog and the wolf. He’s the sheepdog guarding us, and the wolf hunting us.” And at another point, Schumacher says, “He might not always articulate what is wrong with something, but he’s like a heat-seeking missile when it comes to homing in on weakness.”
Initially, Katzenberg seemed pleased. He called Schumacher the morning the story appeared to congratulate him on his quotes. Just about everyone in animation thought the article was great. But Katzenberg later maintained that even as he read it, he knew there would be trouble. Eisner’s name was not mentioned in the story. There was only a passing reference to Roy, even though Katzenberg had asked Turner to include Roy in the article (Turner confirms this). Turner had used the phrase the “re-incarnation of Walt Disney.” With Katzenberg in the midst of his sixty- to ninety-day charm offensive aimed at Roy, Turner couldn’t have chosen a more loaded, or damaging, comparison.
The Lion King opened on June 15, 1994, with premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the El Capitan in Hollywood. Eisner and Katzenberg attended a gala and screening at Washington’s National Zoo. Critics were largely smitten, though not quite so rhapsodic as with Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Writing in The New York Times, Janet Maslin placed The Lion King in the great arc of neo-Disney classics that began with The Little Mermaid, and found it “as visually enchanting as its pedigree suggests. But it also departs from the spontaneity of its predecessors and reveals more calculation. More so than the exuberant movie miracles that came before it, this latest animated juggernaut has the feeling of a clever, predictable product. To its great advantage, it has been contrived with a spirited, animal-loving prettiness no child will resist. Let’s put this in perspective: nobody beats Disney when it comes to manufacturing such products with brilliance, precision and loving care. And films that lure the lunch-box set never lack for blatantly commercial elements. Still, the wizardry of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ managed to seem blissfully formula-free, while ‘The Lion King’ has more noticeably derivative moments. Strangely enough, the fact that this film has an original story makes it less daring than Disney films based on well-known fairy tales.”
At least one critic found the song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” gratuitous—Katzenberg’s original complaint—but audiences had no such problem. The Lion King soundtrack shot to number one (the first animated soundtrack ever to top the charts), and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” became a top 40 smash hit.
The Disney marketing machine was becoming a well-oiled machine. Lion King had an unprecedented range of toys and product tie-ins. Burger King did a nationwide promotion; Toys ‘R’ Us featured two hundred Lion King toys and games in a special jungle-themed display. One Wall Street analyst called Lion King the “most profitable picture in the history of Hollywood.”
After the opening, Katzenberg phoned Roy to congratulate him. “Thank you,” Roy said, and hung up.
*The account of the lunch meeting is an amalgam of both Katzenberg’s and Eisner’s versions, including Eisner’s description of the meeting in a letter to Irwin Russell written just afterward. While they disagree about the precise wording and sequence of the dialogue, their versions are consistent as to the substance of the conversation.
Seven
Michael Eisner had never met Senator George Mitchell, the Senate majority leader, when Stanley Gold introduced them at a May 1994 dinner benefit for the Irish-American Fund where Mitchell was the featured speaker. Mitchell had announced he would leave the Senate the following year, and Gold wondered to Eisner if Mitchell might make a suitable addition to the board.
Gold was only half-serious; Mitchell had no business experience, and certainly none in the entertainment industry. But Eisner lit up at the prospect, even suggesting that Mitchell could replace Wells. In some ways Mitchell’s defects could be seen as virtues: There was no danger he’d compete with Eisner on the creative front. Litvack, his recent favorite, could handle the operational issues that Wells had taken care of, functioning more like a chief of staff. Mitchell would round out a triumvirate. Mitchell had stature, he could oversee the myriad issues on the political front that affected Disney, and he could be the company’s ambassador to the world, freeing Eisner from most of those ceremonial duties. Eisner had always judged people on impulse, and he liked Mitchell. “I was impressed by his quiet passion, his common sense, and his obvious decency. I especially liked the fact that he communicated such passion about the importance of ethics in public life,” Eisner later wrote of his first impression of Mitchell.
Eisner met with Mitchell several times to get to know him better and to air the possibility of his becoming president, but Mitchell resisted. He didn’t want to leave his home on the East Coast; he stressed his lack of experience; he was planning to join a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he could stay involved in public policy issues. But Eisner persuaded him to at least join Disney’s board as soon as he retired from the Senate.
As the prospect of Mitchell dwindled, Eisner’s thoughts turned again to his old friend Michael Ovitz. Ever since he and Wells had first tried and failed to recruit Ovitz during their first year at Disney, Eisner had periodically raised the possibility of Ovitz leaving his agency to join the company. But as Creative Artists’ business had surged, the prospect of luring Ovitz had become prohibitively expensive. Recently, however, Ovitz had been expanding his activities, functioning more like an investment banker, a dealmaker, an adviser to corporate chieftains, and less as a traditional agent. His most visible roles had been as an adviser to Japan’s Matsushita Electric Corporation in its acquisition of Universal, and to Sony Corporation in its acquisition of the Columbia and Tri-Star studios. He’d also advised Coca-Cola on branding and advertising strategy. Not that he’d given up being an agent—he still represented Hollywood’s biggest writers, directors, and stars—all of which led to his being dubbed “the most powerful individual in Hollywood” on the front page of The Wall Street Journal in December 1986.
Eisner spent the weekend of July 12, 1994, with Joe Roth and his wife at the Eisner home in Aspen, then traveled with Roth to Pittsburgh, where his latest Caravan picture for Disney, Angels in the Outfield, was having its premiere in conjunction with the All-Star game. Eisner used their time together to assess Roth as a possible replacement for Katzenberg, who knew nothing about the Aspen invitation and didn’t attend the Angels premiere. Roth passed muster. Eisner was reassured that, if necessary, he could replace Katzenberg at the studio immediately.
On the Disney plane back to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh, Eisner discussed the pros and cons of Ovitz with Jane. The pros were that he thought Ovitz could ease the burden on him, and that Hollywood and Wall Street would be reassured by Ovitz’s appointment. At the time, probably no one else in Hollywood had the visibility and the respect that Ovitz commanded. Landing him would doubtless be considered a coup for Eisner. The cons, or con, was Ovitz’s ego. As Eisner told his wife, “You have to understand, I don’t want to feel as if I’m in competition with anybody. My biggest question is whether he could tolerate being number two, and whether he would be a team player.” Still, Eisner said he’d readily cede authority to Ovitz. “The truth is that I’m very happy to have all the divisions report to him, so long as he lets me know what he’s doing,” he told Jane. “If we can agree on that, it could be fantastic.”
“My interest is simple
,” Jane replied. “I want your life to be simpler. Don’t you think this could help?”
Later that week, Eisner agreed to an interview with two Los Angeles Times reporters, Claudia Eller and Alan Citron, in which his comments were flagrantly at odds with his real feelings about Katzenberg. As public relations chief John Dreyer sat by, Eisner said that there was “no one” he trusted more than Katzenberg. “He is very supportive of the whole company…a team player,” Eisner said. Eisner volunteered that in their long history together, “We’ve never had a fight…. He is clearly the best golden retriever I ever met. He’s the best person to follow through on a project, an idea or slate of ideas…. I did 100 percent of the thinking and he was the one to get something done.” Eisner was dismissive of Wells’s role, and made it sound like he was doing Katzenberg a favor by not promoting him to the presidency. “I don’t want Jeffrey at the moment to worry about corporate insurance and that’s what Frank Wells did…he kept the machine running. I want to keep my stars in star roles.”
“I know I’m going to regret having done this,” Eisner told Dreyer after the interview ended. Indeed, he had managed to demean Wells’s contributions as well as relegate Katzenberg to “golden retriever” status, a point he reiterated in an interview with author Tony Schwartz, whose notes read: “Jeffrey was my retriever…he was [the] end of my pom pom; I’m the cheerleader.”
Eisner, along with Roy, saw a rough-cut of the animated feature scheduled for the following summer, Pocahontas. Though Lion King continued to do phenomenal business at the box office, Eisner was worried that Disney animated films would now be held to an impossibly high standard after the unbroken success of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King. Both Eisner and Roy had problems with Pocahontas, especially Eisner, who worried that the second act lacked momentum. He also wanted Pocahontas to speak English throughout the film (rather than her native American tongue, with subtitles) and wanted changes to one of Alan Menken’s songs (Menken was now paired with composer Stephen Schwartz). Eisner passed his comments on to Katzenberg.
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