Is MICHAEL EISNER the culprit for Disney's current state?

[Mr. Toad]

Joe pretty much nailed it on the head. He was very good early on but became too insular in the latter half of his reign. Lost touch with those he should not have.

Did he leave the company in disarray - no, but he would have left it in great shape had he left ten years earlier.

[MickeyMousePal]

Michael Eisner wasn't a bad CEO but he wasn't a good one either.
Mainly everyone at Disney hated Michael Eisner he didn't even know how to manage the Angels or Mighty Ducks.

[2099net]

Of course not. Nothing can be blamed on a single person. The phrase may be "the buck stops here", but in reality there's corporate governance, a series of checks and balances designed to stop a single person having too much control over a corporation. It's in everybody's interest, especially the shareholders, that this doesn't happen.

So while Eisner may have come up with some of the ideas, they all had to be agreed and approved by the company's board. Now, I know some people here will start conspiracy theories about Eisner stacking the board with "yes men" and friends - but again there's checks and balances against this, which I believe were called into action at one point.

Eisner isn't the ogre people make him out to be. But he's most likely no Saint either.

I know it was said as a joke, but as for executives being nervous about Jack Sparrow Aaron, have you read this?
http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/3526169
Explains a lot eh? For a Disney film? Of course they were nervous, any studio head would be... especially with the amount of money that was invested in the film. Interestingly, this interview was also reported on the BBC News website but with more elaboration and details, but seems to have been removed now (I can't find it with the site's search function). Could Disney have been nervous about him even saying such things and asked for it to be removed?

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

My feelings about Eisner are pretty much the same as has already been stated.

I don't think he was terrible, and he did have some good ideas(I mean you got to give the man credit, as he saved Disney) and I also don't think you can blame Eisner for everything wrong that happened, however, there was no denying in the past 10 years, he had lots of bad ideas and that Disney had lots of problems (which was lead with his leadership) and that him leaving was the best thing for the company(it probably would've been better if he(liked Mr. Toad said) retired earlier).

However involving Nemo and Lost, many people said Eisner dissing these are two biggest reasons that Eisner was "bad CEO", however, these are probably the only times from his recent years in which I couldn't agree more with Eisner. I just never could get into a single episode of "Lost", and I assume everyone who's been here a while knows my thoughts about Finding Nemo. To say it short: It's Pixar's worst film to date.

[AwallaceUNC]

I know it was said as a joke, but as for executives being nervous about Jack Sparrow Aaron, have you read this?
http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/3526169

Wow... no, I hadn't read that. I bet the ground in Burbank was shaking when that article came out. You'd think Disney would be able to shut their stars up better than that because you're right, these kind of comments are understandably enough to make a Disney exec more than a little nervous. Very interesting that the BBC article may have been removed, indeed. I guess this is one issue we won't hear addressed in the audio commentary.

-Aaron

[roswellian]

He did a lot of poopy things but I mean, we got TLM etcetera out of it. i mean, i couldnt imagine what kind of movie would qualify for the Platinum edition dvds if they werent there.