Michael Eisner Quotes

“Michael Eisner observes that “Hollywood is a microcosm of the world. There’s a group of ethical people, serious, eager to work. Then there’s the underbelly, and the seedy part of that group, the people who supply the underbelly. There are the struggling runaways, the prostitutes—male and female—the dregs of the earth. The vultures. They take the low road. They may wear suits, be articulate…” He trails off.”
― James B. Stewart, Disney War

“The Sixth Sense was ultimately nominated for six Academy Awards. Completed at a cost of $35 million, it earned just under $300 million in the United States alone, the most successful live-action film in Disney’s history.

David Vogel, Disney’s President of Production (recently dismissed by Michael Eisner after purchasing The Sixth Sense without permission) had been right when he told Eisner that he’d left Disney with one of its biggest pictures. Vogel hadn’t found another job and had pretty much stopped looking. He had decided he no longer wanted to rely on the Machiavellian instincts he found necessary to continue as a movie executive. A few studio people called to congratulate him on the film’s enormous success, but he heard nothing from any of the top Disney executives, including Eisner, Roth, and Schneider. Of course, Vogel was one of the few people who knew that Disney had sold off both the foreign and domestic profits to Spyglass, and would earn only a 12.5 percent distribution fee. He wondered what Eisner thought now.”
― James B. Stewart, Disney War

“Director of 48 Hrs. (1982), Walter Hill, says of the studio in the early-1980s, 'Paramount in those days was a very unpleasant place to work. That was their style.”
― Kim Masters, The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else

“The Executive Leadership Assessment (results) quickly devolved into arguments about the ways in which Disney management did or did not function as a team, which pretty much proved the consultant’s point: that Disney’s top-tier executives, under Michael Eisner’s governance, does not make a good team; They don’t qualify as "a team," much less a group. Later, Eisner dismissed the whole experiment as a waste of time. Away from Eisner, several of the participants later conceded the issue. ‘What Michael likes is to put six pit bulls together and see which five die,’ one said.”
― James B. Stewart, Disney War

“...clearly Michael Eisner’s most glaring defect, the one quality more than any other that has caused him to leave behind a trail of deeply embittered former colleagues: his dishonesty. Considering the importance Eisner places on honesty in others—dating at least to the childhood incident in which he believes his mother lied about his bedtime—it is extraordinary that Eisner himself has been so reckless with the truth, in ways both large and small, to a degree that suggests he is at times incapable of distinguishing one from the other. Far more than just a personality quirk, Eisner’s tendency to distort, embellish, or forget the truth had direct and costly business consequences for Disney. More than any other single factor, what Steve Jobs and the Weinstein brothers considered Eisner’s dishonesty accounts for the failure of the important Pixar and Miramax relationships. Katzenberg was so angry and bitter—and willing to sue—because he believed he was lied to and felt betrayed.”
― James B. Stewart, Disney War

“I hate it. I hate Michael Eisner,” Frank Wells said. “I can’t go in there anymore and take the shit.”
― James B. Stewart, Disney War