Will Disney buy DWA? No! Universal did!

[ShyViolet]

True. I still hope there's a chance.

Also, I know there's the question of what exactly would JK's role be if it happened: wouldn't he just be demoted? But Iger and JK are friends and Iger knows how successful JK was with the Disney formula in the 80s and 90s. I think he might take a chance and let JK continue to have power over what DWA does.
JK wants to have a powerful position whatever company buys DWA. At this point, however, I don't think it's that viable. DWA has failed again and again the last two years and twice the past month. I'm sure many power brokers in Hollywood are now doubting that Jeffrey Katzenberg can still be "Jeffrey Katzenberg." They might be thinking that he's past his time. Iger, on the other hand, would probably be more on board with betting on JK.
Well, then there's Lassetter and Catmull. Yeah, I know there's all that bad blood but I really think that it would be ok as long as DWA maintains its autonomy (as Pixar did). I realize how awkward it would be for Lassetter and JK to be working for the same company but still...what other choice does JK have at this point? At this rate DWA is like Disney was in 1984: completely vulnerable. Some powerful company might buy them all right, but like I said I doubt JK would have much influence anymore. It's basically Disney or bust at this point.

As for mixing different brands of animation...well DWA did that when they bought Classic media, and I think everyone agrees they could be doing a whole lot more with it than making a Typical DWA Film out of a classic cartoon. It could work, even if DWA dropped the ball on it.

I really think it's inevitable now. Ben has said when discussing the Muppets and Disney: where else COULD they go? In my opinion the same goes for DWA.

[Dan]

Not sure how well the analogy would go over with other folks, but the notion of Disney acquiring DWA brings to mind WWE purchasing WCW back in 2001. Heck, the two stories seem to be running parallel.

When Ted Turner started TBS, his highest rated programing for years was the World Championship Wrestling show, which primarily showcased the regional promotion Georgia Championship Wrestling. In 1984, Vince McMahon bought Georgia Championship Wrestling and thereby acquired the WCW program. Vince and Turner's relationship soured due to the Southern wrestling faithful not taking to the "sports entertainment" that Vince was showcasing (Southern fans were wrestling purists). Jim Crockett Promotions stepped in and paid up to a million dollars (high money at the time) to take the WCW program off Vince's hands. While the wrestling product was often regarded as being far superior to Vince's WWF, Jim Crockett spent too much money in the long run in his attempt to expand the product at the same rate as Vince, forcing his company into bankruptcy. Against the advise of the other executives in his company, Turner purchased the promotion in 1988-1989 and morphed it into World Championship Wrestling.

Financially, WCW could now compete with WWF and still managed to put forth a product that was better. However, there was terrible behind-the-scenes management with executives trying unsuccessfully to copy Vince's formula of colorful wrestling personalities, former old-school promoters who seemed out of touch with the modern wrestling scene, and talent abusing the guaranteed contract stipulations, all of which in turn caused the product to slowly sour. Around 1993, Eric Bischoff was hired to be the new Executive Vice President and started making noticeable changes for the good. His hiring of big name former WWF talent like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Bobby Heenan, and others further helped increase WCW's visibility outside of the Southern states and eventually competed head on against WWF on Monday nights.

From the summer of 1996 with the launch of the nWo angle, WCW became the top wrestling promotion business-wise with their television programs becoming the highest rated for roughly 80 weeks in a row. However, over-reliance on the elder talents and lack of pushing new stars (largely due to the contract stipulations where certain stars had control over their creative positioning, i.e. Hogan could veto whether or not to put someone over) would prove to be their undoing as WWF countered with the rise of Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, and others, causing fans to flock over to them because it was fresh and more exciting. Bischoff was losing control, going so far as to hire rock bands, mainstream personalities like Jay Leno, and others to be involved to little or no positive effect, with ratings now dropping faster. He was "sent home" in 1999 and they brought in Vince Russo, former head booker at WWF, only for the company to be in utter chaos from the word go. The wrestling product suffered terribly and fans were running away as fast as they could.

The contract stipulations, the nose-dive in ratings, the drop in fan attendance, chaotic storylines that caused the product to stink, rotating management, and eventually Ted Turner's own diminishing powers with his company's move to Time Warner and later the AOL acquisition, resulted in the company looking to sell off WCW. Bischoff looked to buy the company, but when AOL Time Warner was not going to let the product run on Turner channels any further, he walked as the television presence was essentially the only thing that potential buyers would be interested in buying the company for. Thus, WWE eventually decided to buy them. The idea was to develop two separate companies, but Vince and his crew screwed up the angle pretty badly (pretty much in WCW fashion, no less) that it's now nothing more than a library of programing they use for their Network and DVDs.

[Ben]

Here's the thing...if Disney wanted DWA, they would have had them by now.

The only way it's going to happen now is if DWA gets swallowed up in a merger with someone and then Disney buys that company. I was half wondering if Disney might have made a play for Hasbro, and that would have been interesting, but it didn't happen.

On the flip side, Vi, have you considered: JK might not WANT to be owned by Disney. That's one full cup of defeat to swallow right there. He's a competitor, and he likes to compete. He's like Bluth in that overtures have very likely been made and he's very likely turned them down.

DWA does not below at Disney. I am the first person to say that Prince Of Egypt is "Disney Does Moses" because that's exactly what it was, at the time. But since then all those artists have found a different voice, more scrappy and streetwise, and that's since Shrek.

Interestingly, it's when DWA go back to the more Disney sensibilities (Guardians, Turbo) that they seem to fail the most, for whatever strange reasons, but mostly because they're not being true to themselves.

Shrek was the turning point in terms of attitude and content, an attitude and content that doesn't really belong at Disney's. Sure, I'd love it if JK and his artists pitched up home back under Walt's umbrella, but I just don't see a place for JK there and I don't see it happening.

The only way DWA would end up at Disney is if it becomes part of another company that Disney buys in the future...and even then they would shutter the unit down as they wouldn't need to add to the four or so animation providers they have at the moment and end up competing for the same audience dollars (even if a film does open opposite each other, we've seen how audiences will wait out the next big thing they want to see and too many animated films in one year does not a heap of hits make).

It's wish fulfilment that isn't going to happen. JK has also become too much of his own personality to fall back into ranks of a bigger company and, it has to be said, just might not be that relevant anymore. "You were great in your day, Superman", says Lex Luthor, and so was JK, but he's just not the trailblazer he was, and DWA isn't the company it was either.

[ShyViolet]

I see all your points Ben. It makes a lot of sense. I guess my only question at this point is what WILL happen to DWA??

[EricJ]

DWA does not below at Disney. I am the first person to say that Prince Of Egypt is "Disney Does Moses" because that's exactly what it was, at the time. But since then all those artists have found a different voice, more scrappy and streetwise, and that's since Shrek.

I was watching PoE last spring (in place of the usual Ten Commandments that Spielberg was trying to imitate), and was struck by--as Katzenberg was trying to turn the first 2D DWA films into "I made Lion King and I can make more!"--just what elusive ingredient the classic Disney 90's Renaissance musicals got right, and "Frozen", trying to copy it, got insufferably wrong.
Compared to other Katz melodrama-musicals, Brenda Chapman and Simon Wells gave PoE a lighter touch and more realistic characters, but it's a reminder of how 90's animated musicals were animation musicals, and used the songs to drive story-montages along.
And although Katz drove the "serious" animated movie painfully into the ground, compared to his later work, and all who imitated it, maybe it's that little self-respecting gravitas of "seriousness" we miss when we talk about the 90's. (I never heard a sentimental Disney Hunchback fan who saw it in the theater.)
Given a choice between watching Road to El Dorado and Madagascar 3, I have no trouble picking which is the lesser of two evils.

Shrek was the turning point in terms of attitude and content, an attitude and content that doesn't really belong at Disney's. Sure, I'd love it if JK and his artists pitched up home back under Walt's umbrella, but I just don't see a place for JK there and I don't see it happening.

Leaving aside the "Karaoke party" post-Shrek era of DWA's search for franchises:
Even if he could go back to his "melodrama" days--which I'm pretty sure we all agree by now he no longer knows HOW to--the same "Picked on by bullies" DWA persecution-complex mentality that also invaded the later 90's Disney movies (namely the irritating straw-man baddie-waddie villains of Pocahontas, Hunchback, Lion King etc.) was part of what drove the "Disney Formula" into the ground with audiences in the first place, caused everyone to take it out on Eisner, and start the whole troubles in the very beginning.

The future of Disney isn't Pocahontas and it's not Chicken Little, it's something in between--like, around the Aladdin/Mermaid days before Katz grabbing credit for Lion King made him the "genius" he thought he was--and that in-between is what Lasseter seems to have hit on and improved. Katz can't go "home" again, and he's hearing the bulldozer approaching if he stays where he is.
Oh, I dunno....He could always take the honorable way out and quit.

[Dacey]

(I never heard a sentimental Disney Hunchback fan who saw it in the theater.)

I did.

Ten times.

Seriously.

[Randall]

Only once for me, but I saw it opening weekend and loved it... except for THAT song, of course.

[Ben]

Not ten, but at least twice and the soundtrack on constant repeat. Hunchback is possibly the pinnacle of the tradgital 90s Menken musical...perhaps not the best film or most entertaining movie, but certainly the one where everyone was working at the very top of their respective games.

[EricJ]

Not ten, but at least twice and the soundtrack on constant repeat. Hunchback is possibly the pinnacle of the tradgital 90s Menken musical...perhaps not the best film or most entertaining movie, but certainly the one where everyone was working at the very top of their respective games.

Really? Netflix'ed it again--for the first time in eighteen years--over last summer, and realized, maybe it wasn't just the Broadway-wannabe staginess, it was the whole PC manipulative good-vs.-evil tone that finally became the penultimate camel's straw with audiences after Pocahontas.
And that part of the reason we threw such a hissy fit over Hercules the next year was M&C's attempt to give it "serious" moments in places, and we heard one chorus of Go the Distance and delayed-reaction thought "...All right, THAT'S it! "
So, really, if you think about it...Hercules was framed for "killing off" the 90's Renaissance, when it was Hunchback's fingerprints on the weapon all along. Somebody get them a good lawyer.

Point is, even then, boy, you start to miss those things after watching the current DWA try to sell their next Madagascar-spinoff series to Netflix.

[Ben]

Hoo boy...really hope that "boy" thing was an Aladdin reference...

[Dan]

Funny how there's a sudden conversation about Hunchback of Notre Dame when I'm about to do a write-up from seeing the musical the other day.

[Dan]

Getting back to the topic proper...

I was going over this Motley Fool article that by in large simply reiterates what we already know are DWA's problems and opinions on how to turn their fortunes around. The article, though, does bring up an interesting idea that, in recent years, they argue DWA could no longer be considered the No. 2 animation studio behind Disney/Pixar.

[Randall]

Right. DWA has some big grosses, but too many expensive failures. By comparison, Blue Sky and Illumination have more solid track records at the box office and overall profitability, but with fewer releases.

[Ben]

Wel...not even that many bug grosses, as far as the last two years are concerned. And it's not hard to see why...those at the top are not strategizing properly...

[Randall]

I think their buggest gross was Antz.