Word: warner
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...long-term plans. With revenues pouring in, Sony doesn't appear to be spending that much. Is the strategy to crank up some dazzling results and then snag a buyer? Is Calley just a caretaker? This is his second turn at the helm of a Hollywood studio; he headed Warner Brothers from 1967 to 1980. An engagingly candid, out-of-the-box thinker, Calley, 67, is nevertheless running a business that has changed drastically. Some in the industry wonder whether he has the will or the wile to stay in for the long haul...
...argues, current management deserves credit for what it has done right: savvy marketing and bold scheduling. "While we are living off the past at the moment, we are going to do more than a billion dollars this year, and that's not coasting." The studio didn't blink when Warner and Disney warned that Jerry Maguire would get steamrollered if it opened at Christmas, in competition with their respective offerings, Mars Attacks and The Preacher's Wife. According to Sony executives, Warner chiefs Bob Daly and Terry Semel even tried to enlist Tom Cruise to delay Jerry Maguire...
...seems a little retro, so is Calley. After an extremely successful run at Warner, he dropped out in 1980. He lived in seclusion, first on Fisher's Island, N.Y., and then in rural Connecticut. He played the foreign-exchange market and ignored movies, except for producing an occasional project with his friend director Mike Nichols, like 1990's Postcards from the Edge. At one point Michael Ovitz--then the top man at Creative Artists Agency--dropped by to ask if he was satisfied with his life. At the time, says Calley, "I felt I was living a little...
There's no mistaking Hollywood's sudden urge to outfox the mouse. Anastasia is the first in a salvo of all-animated features from three deep-pocketed Disney rivals: Fox, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks SKG. The next few years will see the biggest splurge of cartoon features ever. But after the exclamation point come the question marks. Are there ways to make popular animated films that don't slavishly follow the rules Walt and the boys made up in the 1930s? Are studios jumping on the toon trolley just as the form has shown signs of losing its commercial luster...
...With such a price tag, a studio boss gets to hope out loud. "I'd like it to be, at a minimum, the most successful non-Disney animated film," says Fox filmed-entertainment chief Bill Mechanic, probably alluding to the $90 million earned at the box office by Warner's 1996 Space Jam. "But I really hope it will compete with the best Disney pictures." Best as in biggest: The Lion King's $313 million...