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Isn't the timing of this a little weird though with Pirates breaking records? Or is it just Dick Cook's way of saying "told you so"?

I'm sorry, Mr. Poland, but as stupid as I may be for it, I was surprised from these plans coming to (true) light the very same week as the fastest grosser of all-time.

Jacobson could get SOME credit for Lady in the Water, however losing a top flight director also didn't help when pitted against Aviv.

What can I say? Mixed signals throw many of us off.

The point is, the studio business is operating two years into our future.

Disney has already added up the money from Pirates 3... and they are worrying about Christmas 2007.

Yes, the plan to cut back was a surprise this week. Fairly clever (if terribly unkind), really. But there will be no fewer than a dozen "Nina movies" still to come.

I'm not saying you or anyone is/are foolish for not foreseeing this. The timing of the cuts announcement surprised me too. But the only odd thing about pulling the Nina cord today is that it wasn't part of the earlier story. And who knows why that was...

Mixed signals might be the plan here for the stockholders. Not throwing the 'bad news' around all at once has its perks. A major shakeup has just occured, but hey, we got more Narnia and Pirates on the way, relax!

Stocks are trading at $6 more than a year ago, and there hasn't a better time to announce than after a $31 high. Sure, Pirates might only affect 30 cents of the stock at any given moment, but it sure makes for nice media cover.

Making changes when things are bad looks bad.

Making changes when things are good looks progressive.

Lots of people love Nina and she'll land fast, but the pool got too small.

the Night book has given Nina bad word of mouth but her track record will keep her afloat. Anytime you hear an exec berating a talent inevitably it makes the exec look bad, and perhaps in this case it's legitimate. The joke about movie execs is that they "wish they were writers, if they only had the time". Someone like Nina Jacobson isn't really a creative that should be trying to rewrite a script, but the ego in this town is such that EVERYONE is a movie-maker, ESPECIALLY the ones barely involved in the process.

As usual, Poland, your take on Disney is the only sane opinion in the Entertainment blogsphere. Good analysis.

You're right, people who've been paying attention should have seen this coming. Oren's been itching for years for a more creative gig, and finally he's got it. Nina clearly didn't want to share power at the top (offered a co-presidency, perhaps?) so Dick dumped her.

One thing you did get wrong, Poland, was this: "The announcement of major cuts was a surprise, in the light of Pirates 2, but not in that Dick Cook has been working on a plan for over a year." The actual surprise was the success of Dead Man's Chest. Sure, everyone expected it to be a big hit, but not a record breaker. There have been rumblings for months at the studio that there would be major job cuts. And the timing of the announcement has been rumored to be around the opening of Dead Man's Chest for months, too. None of this is big or surprising news. The only thing that makes it bigger news than it normally would be is the mammoth success of Dead Man's Chest which, as I said, was unexpected. Sort of sad and ironic but that's the way the cookie crumbles, eh?

By the way, here's what I wrote on Wells' site about this. Sorry it's a cut and paste, but I rather liked it, so here it is again:

Obviously Nina didn't want to share power with Dick's boy Oren, so they kicked her to the curb. No big loss.

Nina was great at bringing established talent to the studio to make movies that Disney didn't know how to sell (Coen bros) and she was great at making grrrl power movies with diminishing returns at the box office (Ice Princess, anyone?). But her fingerprints are definitely not all over stuff that actually makes money for the studio, i.e. Pirates 2 (Bruckheimer) and Cars (Pixar).

Why should anyone care? It's not like Disney live action production have been undergoing some sort of renaissance and Dick has killed the goose that lays the golden egg. Aside from a few franchises their stuff has been pretty pathetic over the past few years. This is a good move for her. She has a good rep. She'll get a production gig somewhere and she'll be able develop what she wants to. Yay for her.

Was Dark Water really a big money-loser? According to the numbers I found, it grossed $50m worldwide on a $30m budget, which should mean that plus ancillaries and minus P&A it lost maybe $5-15m. Does that make sense or am I missing something?

Disney splits grosses with exhibitors.

Thanks for all the analysis guys.

$50m x 60% take from exhibitors = $30m rentals
-20m for P&A + 10m for ancillaries = net loss of $10m dollars. That's my math.

It's a little more complicated than that. Dark Water was Bill Mechanic's first (and seemingly only) film developed through his production dela with Disney. It had a coveted late summer release date, and Oscar winning lead actress and a good pedigree (Japa-horror was still hot in '05).

It tanked. And not only did it tank, but it came at the end of a particularily bad summer for Disney, so the pressure was on to at least open well. It didn't.

So even though the budget was moderate and even though the eventual loss wasn't as steep as, say, Poseidon, it was still more of a disappointment than simple number crunching will imply.

I can buy that, but what I'm puzzling out is the line 'expensive money loser'.
With hindsight, it makes total sense, since I don't think Disney has ever made a successful horror movie that wasn't also a kids' movie. And the 'middle class' of movies shrinks even farther.
I should add, I really enjoyed this movie. A lot more than Salles' previous one.

I remember that Dark Water had an awesome trailer. I was really surprised when the audience didn't show up for it.

Sometimes I wonder if the horror audience is put off by anything that doesn't appear to be trashy and immediately forgettable.

You got that right, Eric. The average slaughterhouse P.O.S. does more in its initial weekend than LAND OF THE DEAD (or even SHAUN OF THE DEAD) did in its entire run. Rave reviews for horror movies by legit critics is like kryptonite to most teens.

That audience typically doesn't want to have to think very hard, just looking for cheap thrills. The good movies have to insert themselves in stealthily to be of interest to that crowd.

Did you see the news in the L.A. Times that Nina was fired over the phone while her partner was giving birth? Consternation, uproar!

Give me a break, David. Execs get replaced all the time but this was a very surprising move -- just becasue you didn't get the scoop doesn't mean you have to crap all over the story.

Firing anyone over the phone is a bad concept, especially for someone that high up. Doing it at such a joyous moment is pretty contemptible. They couldn't have waited one more week?

Not crapping all over the story, Mason. And if you read much of the coverage, this story didn't shock a lot of people. It was surprsing timing at first blush. But if you read the NYT and WSJ, the headline is the restructuring and the big picture transition, not the firing.

And I have to tell you... I have a list of others who are heading out there door over there... won't be rushing to scoop that either, anymore than I was at Paramount and DreamWorks. I take no joy in breaking the news of people being fired. Department heads are news that has to be discussed in context. Everyone else is someone now scrambling to get a job, pay the mortgage, and keep their self-respect.

This is not a game.

Some days it feels like it, but when people are involved, respect must be paid.

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