A Tragicomedy in Three Acts.
Rishi Mittal (any/all) // Crew Writer
Sophia Filsoofi (she/any) // Contributing Visuals
Something Rotten in the Magic Kingdom
“We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.” —Michael Eisner, CEO, The Walt Disney Company, 1984-2005.
Michael Eisner is perhaps the most influential Disney CEO since Walt Disney himself. He oversaw the period of the company in the 1990s known as the Disney Renaissance, which revitalized their flagging animation department. By greenlighting and overseeing productions like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, he turned Disney into the behemoth it is today. If it is a beloved childhood Disney Intellectual Property from the 90s, it is a product of Eisner’s tenure.
Suffice to say, Disney wouldn’t be Disney without Eisner. But Eisner is a businessman first and nothing second. The Disney Renaissance was a lie made for little kids to market Disney toys, Disney theme parks and influence us to sing along to Disney musicals.
Eisner oversaw the company’s foray into major acquisitions like American Broadcasting Company and Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. His successor, Bob Iger, would take this idea to the stratosphere, by bringing companies Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm into the Disney family. Now, Pixar—the home of talking cars, talking toys and very emotional emotions—keeps giving us that Pixar magic, but is being punished for it.
They face frequent layoffs as Pixar animators and staff are told to do more with less. The latest round, which saw over 100 jobs lost, was particularly brutal, as it came days after Toy Story 5 gave the company its biggest opening weekend in history.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) serves us safe, sterilized slop with a side of state-approved copaganda every six months.
George Lucas’ Star Wars was once an allegory for the Vietnam War and the fight against fascism, at home and abroad. Lucas literally called America “the Empire.” Now the franchise is a hollow content pipeline stripped of any message and brimming with market-tested characters like Baby Yoda and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Luke Skywalker deepfake.
Disney was a lie. But at least they make a lot of money.
Hollywood, Ending
Disney is far from the worst Hollywood corporation and its CEOs far from the worst parasites. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, David Zaslav, is my personal nemesis. He seems to derive pleasure from the pain of creators and fans alike. From Infinity Train to Looney Tunes and Sesame Street, he turns beloved shows into lost media by removing them from streaming platforms.
He cancels nearly finished projects, like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme, for supposed tax write-offs. But his worst decision, by far, is selling off this legacy Hollywood studio to the Ellisons. Technically, Warner Bros. Discovery is being sold to Paramount Skydance, headed by David Ellison. But really it is to his father, Larry Ellison, the head of Oracle, who bankrolls his son’s media empire. Close friends with Benjamin Netanyahu and ardent supporters of Donald Trump, the Ellisons are right-wing billionaires with a vendetta against the woke, the queer and the DEI in Hollywood (and beyond). They control TikTok, ruined CBS News and have plans for Warner Bros.
The Eisner quote, by the way, came from his time as the President of Paramount Pictures, before being recruited by Disney for his stellar job.
Paramount sucked even before the Ellisons.
Something Wicked This Way Comes
2023 saw historic labour action from Hollywood unions, WGA (Writers Guild of America) and SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). One of the key issues in contention was the supposed rise of AI, threatening creative jobs across the industry. After months of work stoppages and protests, the unions won substantial concessions. Because of these early victories, the use of AI in Hollywood has been relatively little. Particularly, in comparison to the rest of the economy, with aspects like education, business, medtech, it’s a brave new world. But little does not mean zero, and the studios are always looking to squeeze more blood from stone.
Every studio has faced fan backlash for AI use. From a quickly taken down promo for DC Studio’s Supergirl, to controversial stills in the art book for the latest MCU flick, Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
AI is underground, hidden in job postings for generative workflows, or in content security and emerging technologies.
The major studios are still somewhat leashed by the union negotiations. But they are no longer the big dogs in town. The Silicon Valley streamers—Netflix, Amazon, Apple—are much less beholden to old-school norms. They are unlikely to engage in dialogue or handshake between labour and power.
Move fast. Break things. We live in an era where successive presidential administrations proffer up these titans of fictitious capital as the vanguard of the American empire. They are tasked with leading the charge of Manifest Destiny for those “united” states into this century and beyond.