March 31 , 2005

DisneyWar is the best Hollywood book in a long while. At the core of that quality is perspective. Of 534 pages, James B. Stewart's work is nearly flawless for 464 of them… that is, until his last of three sections, the one called "DisneyWar" and the Epilogue, which is not so much an epilogue as the first opportunity that Stewart allows himself personal conclusions instead of simply reporting the facts of the story.

The "DisneyWar" section starts on November 2003 with the threat to oust of Roy E. Disney from the Disney board. The book ends, 63 pages later, on October 1, 2004 (or so). The eleven months of events, it seems to me, is still subject to too many hot heads, including Stewart's, based on his Epilogue. Some of the things that I consider "mistakes" by Stewart may turn out to be true… or not. But one thing that years in this business teaches you is that the story can look very different looking back, as people get less heated over the issue at hand and people who are quite defensive of their roles loosen up and are ready to give a nod towards the real story.

This point is critical. DisneyWar, just like Raging Bulls & Easy Riders and Rebels On The Backlot, covers a period of time than a lot of us actually lived and worked through. Many of us have been told these stories by friends and sources from a variety of perspectives. But both of the other books are troublingly subjective throughout. Both seem to be trying to make a point instead of seeking truth. Conversely, whenever DisneyWar starts to smell of single-source journalism, Stewart seems to read the mind of the reader, offering the perspective of the other side, sometimes in the text and often in a footnote. Which source Stewart leans towards believing is always evident, but the balance is almost always there in depth… he lets the reader make up their own mind.

The last year of the Disney story, even before the last busy few weeks as of The Iger Ascension and the detail-light separation of The Weinsteins & The Mouse, is still a living history not unlike a speech from Sideways… it's different depending on when you open the bottle. My ongoing aggravation is the liberal use of Harvey Weinstein's version of how the Lord of the Rings project ended up at New Line… one that does not jibe with the recollection of other key players. But like so many things in this business of covering this business, the squeaky wheel's story becomes the accepted truth.

A reader of the book could take any position on who has been the good guy or the bad guy in various stages of Disney history. I personally lean to the more pro-Eisner side, based on performance more than personality. After reading the book, I feel like I have a better idea of why Eisner has failed to find a real second banana/successor over the years. The perspective the book offered me, in great part, came from seeing the saga laid out in chronological order. So many of the major stories at Disney are, I now recognize, further in the past or more recent than my memory told me.

The biggest surprise in the book was not the Eisner story, but the Bob Iger story. It is hard imagine a more damaging, blistering piece of journalism on the new Disney chief. For all the "Eisner is a micromanager" stuff, it is Iger's judgments that are most called into question. Eisner has a lot of enemies in this story, but the suggestion that Iger lost his soul and his strength over time, all in pursuit of the job he now has won, is pretty brutal.

The other thing that has been lost in all the Eisner drama is that he protected Disney from two takeover possibilities that could have - and most probably would have - been disasters for the studio… first from AOL and more recently, from Comcast. It is all too easy to forget what didn't happen. But Disney was a prime takeover candidate when AOL was looking to buy and before the ABC purchase. And for all the internal conflict, keeping Disney independent of a parent company is exactly what so many of the anti-Eisner people prize… yet, he gets none of the credit.

Another issue that doesn't get much play in the book is the business tsunami that was 9/11. Stewart doesn't avoid the significance of the event, but he doesn't offer quite as much perspective as I would have liked as a reader. The attack occurred only three years before the end of the book's story. Was Disney more affected, less affected or affected the same as other companies in the same business? Similarly, I would have liked some more industry perspective on stock prices on other film-based companies over the last decade?

But all in all, the vast majority of the book is solid and very valuable, much as Stewart's other books. And again, the greatest lesson of all for this journalist is yet another reminder of the power of perspective over speed.

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