>>108678451Ironically, I think Eisner was the last Disney head who understood Walt. There's an oft-quoted internal memo from Eisner in which he declares:
>The pursuit of making money is the only reason to make movies. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement.>Our obligation is to make money, and to make money, it may be important to make history. To make money, it may be important to make art, or some significant statement. To make money, it may be important to win the Academy Award, for it might mean another ten million dollars at the box office.>Our only objective may be to make money, but in order to make money we must always make entertaining movies. And if we make entertaining movies, at times we will make history, art, a statement, or all three. We may even win awards.Often it is only this first passage that is quoted and it's usually used to make Eisner out to be some shrewd, money-grubbing, corporate asshole who only cared about quarterly earnings statements, but I think the rest of the memo paints a different picture about Eisner's business philosophy. Eisner believed Disney was a business, first and foremost, and that their obligation at the end of the day was to make money, pay their employees, and continue to finance their operations. BUT Eisner also understood that Disney's business WAS entertainment, and that the ONLY way for that business to be successful was to be making entertaining and memorable films and that in the process of doing so they might even succeed in making films that were artistically and historically significant.
If you want to talk about the people Walt would probably be ashamed of, you've got plenty of other people to choose from - Jeffrey Katzenberg, Bob Iger, etc.
