Disney to cut 250 animators. . .

[ddrinkwine]

Grrrrr.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=&u=/nm/20020319/media_nm/media_disney_dc_11


But how will they make Dumbo II?

 

[HBK]

Figures....Disney is just throwing in the towel. First Dreamworks scored with Shrek, now Fox scores with Ice Age (GREAT MOVIE BTW). What's Disney's last animated success been?

 

[OnWithTheShow]

Makes you wonder though...The animation department was 2200 people and is now 1500. Could it be that maybe, just maybe they are trimming fat that isnt really needed?

 

[Another Voice]

The actual number of cuts is 265. All of the cuts (in this round) will be from Burbank. Feature Animation will have a staff of less than a 1,000 people within a couple of months. Expect a heathly dose of spin to follow; something along the lines of "animation is the cornerstone of Disney and we would never, yada, yada, yada." Also expect to hear more spin about 'Jungle Book 2' and other "big" animation movies coming out soon. The Mouse is in major damage control at the moment.

After the stunner of 'Ice Age' expect to hear more spin about Disney's computer animation "future" (which now defintelty does not include Pixar).

As for "trimming the fat" - at the higherst staffing levels Disney was very hard pressed to turn out one feature every year. And that was with the help of the Florida, Paris and Canada groups which weren't included in the 2,200 figure. At the present size, Disney will be able to complete one feature every four to five years.

It's only excess if you don't use it. Since Disney isn't interested in making feature animation anymore, then I guess it may really be excess...

 

[AKemel]

It is not the quantity but the quality that is important. Is the quality there at Disney Animation? Not in “______II”, in my opinion.
I saw “Ice Age”, which is average to below average movie, and I think that great promos can make even this kind of movie popular/successful.
So it seems to me that Disney is thinking that they can do the same, by promoting the hell out of their below average movies. Is this below Disney standards? Of course. But can you blame them for wanting to make money the easy way. They are selling a lot of “____II”, so someone must be buying.

 

[raidermatt]

I've seen Pan 2, but have not yet seen Ice Age. Pan 2 is a "nice little movie". As I think more about the dynamic of animated sequels, a few things are clear:

1- Unlike a live-action sequel, its easy to keep production costs much lower than the original

2- If one goes the lower cost route, but comes up with a good story (a la Pan 2), you can have a nice little success at the box office. Cost = $20 million. Domestic Box Office = $50-$60 million.

3- With no good story, your looking at direct to video, a la Cinderella 2. Still profitable, but how many of these can you put out in year and not flood the market? (We maybe about to find out)

4- I still believe subsequent sequels will not do as well as the first sequel, all else being equal. In other words, Pan 3, with similar quality to Pan 2, will not bring in as much as Pan 2. This means the sequel-only strategy maybe a way to crank up a steady cash machine, but even with Disney's vault of classics, the machine will run out of gas in less than 5 years.

So quite simply, even if we accept the hypothesis that Disney management is afraid to take chances on new animated blockbusters, their business sense must be telling them they either MUST continue to take those chances, or be staring at a dry well in all of animation, including sequels, in a few short years.

But really, how big a risk are these feature productions? Atlantis is viewed as a bomb. Yet I believe its domestic box office at least approached its production/marketing cost. With overseas box office, surely it was profitable. And now, even as commercially unsuccessful as it was, its going to spawn sequels, which are guaranteed profits. So where is the risk? The only risk is shutting off these features, and risking letting the well run dry.

And no sub-par effort of a sequel is going to produce the kinds of returns that Ice Age, Monsters, and Toy Story did.

New features create new franchises. This may not be the reason many want to see new features, but to a bottom-line management, its the biggest reason why they cannot afford to abandon the features. They can't cash in on Lilo & Stich 2, 3 and 4, as well as the Saturday Morning cartoon that later moves to Toon Disney, if they don't make the original Lilo & Stitch.

 

[AKemel]

It seems every other movie that comes out now is from WB or one of its subsidiaries. Some of them are big hits (Potter, Rings) some of them do not do so well. It seems to me that they have decided to take risk and make as many movies as they can.
As it was said, even “flops” make money after all revenues are in. So it makes sense to me what WB is doing. Disney is going for fewer movies with more guaranteed profits. Different philosophy.

 

[Bstanley]

That last post got me interested so I did a bit of online research and here are the numbers:

AOL-Time/Warner (Warner Brothers, Castle Rock, Telepictures, New Media, New Line) released the following in 2001:

35 Feature films with a total 2001 US Box Office of $1,919,826,414
(they've gotta love LoTR and Harry fer shure - $610,320,468)

Disney (Walt Disney Pictures, Miramax, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone, Dimension) released the following in 2001:

40 feature films with a total 2001 US Box Office of $1,474,954,821
(Monsters, Inc - $252,706,618, Atlantis - $84,052,762 )

So actually Disney (Corporate) is making plenty movies, but missed out on the money because they only had 1 'killer' movie rather than the 2 that AOL-T/W (corporate) had.

Disney is making more than enough movies, but to take back the money lead they need to get back to making more quality movies like Lion King (#8 on the all time US Box Office list), Alladin (#31), Toy Story (#43), etc. Also the 'synergy' money that results from one of these 'killer' movies (merchandising, merchandising, merchandising to quote Yogurt is huge.

Even quality movies that do not quite achieve 'killer' status can make a ton of 'synergy' money (Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Tarzan, etc).

Curious - how 'big' was Disney animation when they were doing the Little Mermaid, Alladin, Beauty & the Beast, Lion King, string of movies?

 

[AKemel]

I stand corrected. May be it’s just every time I see WB movie, I say “Oh, not another WB movie, where is Disney?”

 

[Bstanley]

I got the numbers from 'The Numbers' Website. I did a Google search for "movies released in 2001" and this site popped up.

Actually AKemel you are probably 'technically' correct - I wouldn't be surprised if WB had more movies released under the 'WB' brand than Disney had released under any one of their brands. It's just that 'corporately' Disney made more movies than WB did.

The data lumps most of the two companies subsidiary companies releases under the corporate name, so I can't really tell.

 

[AKemel]

Getting back to cut backs.
It seems that Disney is changing its focus. According to www.animationmagazine.net Disney “is expanding its digital business and will spend $1 million to retrain traditional artists on computers.”

 

[ddrinkwine]

I guess my biggest problem with the way Disney is run today has to do with the emphasis on its extremly short term views on everything. This is par for all publicly traded companies today - each is only as good as its last quarter. Media companies put out more stuff more quickly for less money. Quality doesn't seem to be that important.

If you have a good thing, say "Cinderella", don't dilute the brand with cheap, crappy sequels. Its not good, long term business sense. Mercedes, for instace, wouldn't have the same market strength (or be around long) if they made Yugos and slapped a Mercedes logo on them. Why should Disney do the same?

I'm also not saying that Disney should abandon sequels. Just spend a little extra time giving us a story worth watching. I'm happy that my 3 yar old enjoys Cinderella II. But I couldn't watch it more than once. Hanna Barbera proved with "The Fintstones" that a good product didn't neccesarily have to have expensive production values.

I want Disney or somebody (ANYBODY) to prove that the bar doesn't have to be to low. Its not about making a quick buck. Its about making something good. Do that, and people will buy your stuff, and pay top dollar for it.

 

[wdw4us2]

I certainly hope that Lilo & Stitch is a hit, otherwise, I think WD Feature Animation will really be in trouble. The previews look pretty good, though.