Disney slashes jobs – and flics
p2p news / p2pnet: Good news for us: Disney is slashing its movie output from 18 films to eight a year.
Bad news for employees: Scrooge is also cutting jobs.
And it’s all to, “improve shareholder returns,” says Reuters.
The news has a certain amount of irony because one of the favourite paeans of the Big Six studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal —- and Disney —- is p2p is causing huge financial losses as well as untold misery for workers who, as a direct result of file sharing, are losing their livelihoods.
Both claims are, of course, pure Hollywood fluff. People are staying away from the cinemas because of high admission and popcorn prices, and a non-stop deluge of dross.
Meanwhile, the slated job losses, “could amount to as much as 10 percent of the company’s work force,” says the LA Daily News.
But Disney’s timing is awkward because it’s, “enjoying a banner summer,” says the Los Angeles Times.
The “Pirates” sequel has grossed $169.5 million domestically since its record breaking debut last weekend. Headlined by superstar Johnny Depp, the movie–which cost more than $200 million just to produce–is expected to be a global juggernaut for Disney. A third “Pirates” installment is due out in May of next year.
“Cars,” produced by Disney’s newly acquired Pixar Animation Studios, has racked up more than $200 million in domestic ticket sales to date.
Nonetheless, the studio performance has been uneven. Although it released such hits as “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” Disney struck out the past few years with “The Alamo,” “King Arthur,” “Hildalgo” and “Home On The Range.”
Digg this.
Also See:
Reuters – Disney plans to slash movie slate, cut jobs, July 12, 2006
LA Daily News – Disney film releases cut from 18 to 8, July 13, 2006
Los Angeles Times – Despite ‘Pirates,’ Disney to Still Cut Jobs, July 12, 2006
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July 13th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Now that Disney’s got Pixar, their animation department is back on track. Although I enjoyed their traditional animation better.
See http://www.dreamonsillydreamer.com/ for a look at what went wrong at Disney.
July 13th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
(Preface: I live in a fantasy world. My statements are my own opinion and not a statement of known fact. Please do not sue me for libel as I do not attest to this statement being anything more than an opinion!)
Sorry, but ‘how’ is Disney’s cutting their ‘films’ in less than half ‘good’ for anyone. Myself being a parent I find Disney doing televised baby sitting to be commonplace among virtually all parents when they need to get housework or other things done and need a break from the full time job of parenting. They make great videos for family-level viewing and decent educational movies as well.
That said. Customers are ‘fickle’ beings. It’s hard to know what will be hot but let’s step back here for a moment. When cartoons cost 200 million dollars to make, with no physical actors and let’s face it kids – digital tech’s are a dime a dozen these days. 200 million is a falsified number used souly to make it look like they’re making less on movies than they really are. Let’s guess here that it takes 20 people a year to make a Disney cartoon (not counting the 200 people it takes to carry their lunch and rub their feet and order their pizza) with their modern digital systems. If they pay each person a million dollars a piece we’re talking about 100% less money than they’re claiming. If Disney is ‘really’ spending 200 million dollars to make one of these digital cartoons – then it’s time they fire most of their staff because frankly they can get a bunch of high school kids to work there for $10/hr and be happy about it – and likely produce more movies, not less.
So, they can blame p2p all they want but it’s just an excuse for poor management – they need to get their S together and stop pointing fingers outwardly.
Just my 10 cents.
_-Jile-_
July 13th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
“…how’ is Disney’s cutting their ‘films’ in less than half ‘good’ for anyone?”
The only “anyone” that slashing spending on is ostensibly “good for” is the share holders. It’s not about being responsive to customers, it’s not about creating good content, it’s not about providing a modicum of loyalty and job security to employees (who are expected to show unqualified total loyalty to their employers…), It’s about stock value. Period. Nothing else matters.
July 13th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
I suspect Walt’s turning over in his grave.
_-Jile-_