Jim Hill: From the Archives
Page 4 of 5

Let's start with the hard facts, folks. There's a reason that they call it "Show Business" or "the Industry." Money really matters in Hollywood. Big time. People lose their jobs everyday in LA because their films go over budget or perform poorly at the box office.

Want proof? Then think of poor Bill Mechanic. Formerly the head of Disney Home Video, Mechanic was hired away from the Mouse House in 1993 by Rupert Murdoch himself to be president of 20th Century Fox. In his seven years as the head of that studio, Bill personally greenlighted some of Fox's biggest blockbusters: "Independence Day," "There's Something About Mary" as well as Hollywood's all-time box office champion, James Cameron's "Titanic."

Mechanic also successfully wooed George Lucas back into the corporate fold (besting offers by Disney and Dreamworks SKG) so that 20th Century Fox could release 1999's biggest hit, "Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace." So you'd think -- with a track record like that -- Mechanic would have incredible job security, right?

Think again, folks. Following a six month string of high priced disappointments that featured major talent -- Brad Pitt in "Fight Club," Jody Foster in "Anna and the King," Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Beach" -- that was capped by the collapse of Don Bluth's $80 million animated epic, "Titan A.E." -- Bill got tossed out on his ear this past June.

Why for? Because Mechanic had committed the cardinal sin of new Hollywood: Bill hadn't been making enough money for News Corp, the corporation that actually owns 20th Century Fox. Worse still, Mechanic appeared to be losing money for News Corp during his last few months as studio president. Obviously, it was time to let someone else take a whack at running 20th Century Fox.

I cite Mr. Mechanic's unfortunate career arc to illustrate a hard reality about modern Hollywood: These days, studios don't think with their hearts or with their heads, but with their checkbooks.

And nowhere is this rule obeyed with more fervor than at Walt Disney Studios.

You want proof? Then how about a quick history lesson about the Mouse House's modern animated releases and how these films' grosses affected thinking in the Walt Disney Company's executive suite?

The Lion King
(c) Disney

In 1991, "Beauty and the Beast" racked up $145 million -- what was then the all time highest gross ever for a Disney animated film in its initial domestic release. A year later, "Aladdin" blew right past "Beast" with its $217 million domestic gross. Two years later, "The Lion King" shattered both of those records with its astounding $312 million domestic gross.

And what lesson did Disney Studio management take away from all this? Given that the grosses had crept ever upward with each new release in the early 1990s, the suits actually thought that the sky was the limit when it came to the amount of moola a Disney animated film could make. That's why they decided to kick the studio's feature animation development program into overdrive. These executives' goal? Have Feature Animation turn out at least two of these cash cow cartoons each year by the end of the 1999.

Unfortunately, the cow began to run dry in 1995. These same executives -- who had actually bragged to the press that they expected the studio's next animated release, "Pocahontas," to make at least $400 million -- were stunned when that film grossed just $141 million in its domestic release. Folks at the Mouse House were further shocked in 1996, when "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (Which is Michael Eisner's favorite out of all the animated films the studio's ever produced) barely eeked out $100 million during its domestic release. Worse still, Disney's 1997 animated film, "Hercules" never even broke the blockbuster barrier. Its domestic gross of $99 million didn't even come close to covering that film's promotion budget, let alone its production costs.

It was about this same time that panic began sweeping through the Team Disney executive suites. Obviously, Disney had somehow misplaced its magic. American audiences were no longer flocking to see the studio's latest toon release. The only film that had even come close to reaching the box heights that "The Lion King" and "Aladdin" had achieved was 1995's "Toy Story." And that movie hadn't actually been a Disney production, but rather a Walt Disney Company presents a Pixar Production.

Disney executives attended endless meetings in the fall of 1997, as they desperately tried to come up a sensible explanation for the steadily sagging box office for the studio's new animated films. The new buzz word around Burbank became "allegiance erosion," a fancy way of saying that audiences had grown tired of the endless hype and publicity that surrounded the release of each of the Walt Disney Company's new toons.

That's why Disney opted to severely scale back all of its promotional plans for the studio's 1998 animated release, "Mulan." The elaborate world premiere the Mouse's marketing office had been talking about for the studio's 36th feature length cartoon -- which was to have been held in San Francisco and featured Disneyland's Main Street Electric Parade rolling through the streets of Chinatown -- was quietly tabled. In its place, "Mulan" made a much more modest debut at the Hollywood Bowl. The film also featured a very low-key -- for Disney, anyway -- promotional campaign.

The result? "Mulan" made $120 million during its domestic release -- a full 20% better than the studio's 1997 animated release, "Hercules."

(c) Disney

But it wasn't enough that the Walt Disney Company made sure that its new animated films were promoted properly -- so as not to overwhelm potential audience members. About this same time, the Mouse decided that another way to guarantee that its new animated films could turn a profit was by aggressively containing costs on these prohibitively expensive projects.