Word: disneyized
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...Disney has deposed Spielberg and Geffen, hoping to force them to take the witness stand, perhaps to discuss DreamWorks and Katzenberg's performance, including a purported loss of more than $20 million on the studio's maiden picture, The Peacemaker...
...press for months. Katzenberg's side went after a draft of Eisner's autobiography, which Eisner had intended to publish this fall but postponed because of the trial. The Katzenberg camp let it be known that there were potentially embarrassing tidbits in the book. The Katzenbergers also hinted that Disney had conducted some sort of conspiracy to shortchange their man. And in one of those unaccountable leaks, it was reported that Katzenberg had prevailed in a couple of mock trials. An insider maintains that the pretrial exercises showed juries are predisposed to dislike Disney as a corporation and Eisner...
Meanwhile Eisner's team says that if juries are not predisposed to dislike Katzenberg, it is only because they don't know him well enough. The Disney side threatened to make the introductions. A Disney source suggested that Katzenberg would suffer when the company highlights his poor record in live-action movies--a $56 million loss on Billy Bathgate, for instance. The company has also suggested that Katzenberg grabbed too much credit for animation successes...
Given the stakes, a settlement makes sense, though it would be awkward for Eisner to pay Katzenberg a vast sum in the wake of shareholder anger over the $130 million or so that Disney dealt to Michael Ovitz after firing him as president last December. Conversely, the Ovitz settlement ensures that Katzenberg's sights are set high: Why should Katzenberg take less for 10 successful years than Ovitz got for 14 unimpressive months? If a deal is made, three things seem certain. One: the terms will be sealed. Two: the amount will be leaked to the press--by both sides...
...find out next week, when Anastasia, the winsome, often winning debut film from Fox Animation Studios, arrives on screens nationwide. Directed by Disney renegades Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven), this fanciful story about the lost princess of the Romanovs has all the elements for a cartoon hit: a girl-becomes-a-woman plot; a chipper, Alan Menkenish score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Once on This Island, Ragtime); and a cute, chatty bat. Close your ears to the Fox fanfare in the opening moments...