The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

particularly in bad weather. As in the other theme parks, no beer or
wine was served on the premises, and that seemed like sacrilege to the
French. The hotel rooms were too expensive for a family to stay there
more than a night. And despite all the attention to detail, the pink
stone castles still looked like kitschy versions of the originals.
Attendance was only half of what Eisner had anticipated. The debts
Disney had incurred in the construction had ballooned, and the money
coming in from visitors could not even service the interest on them. It
was shaping up to be a disaster, the first ever in his glorious career. As
he finally came to terms with this reality, he decided that Frank Wells
was to blame. It was his job to oversee the financial health of the
project, and he had failed. Whereas before Eisner had only had the
best things to say about their working relationship, now he often
complained about his second-in-command and contemplated firing
him.
In the middle of this growing debacle, Eisner felt a new threat on
the horizon—Jeffrey Katzenberg. He had once referred to Katzenberg
as his golden retriever—so loyal and hardworking. It was Katzenberg
who had overseen the string of early hits for the studio, including the
biggest hit of all, Beauty and the Beast, the film that had initiated the
renaissance of Disney’s animation department. But something about
Katzenberg was making him increasingly nervous. Perhaps it was the
memo that Katzenberg had written in 1990, in which he dissected the
string of flops Disney had recently produced in live action. “Since 1984,
we have slowly drifted away from our original vision of how to run a
business,” he wrote. Katzenberg criticized the studio’s decision to go
for bigger-budget films such as Dick Tracy, trying to make “event
movies.” Disney had fallen for “the blockbuster mentality” and had lost
its soul in the process.
The memo made Eisner uncomfortable. Dick Tracy was Eisner’s
own pet project. Was Katzenberg indirectly criticizing his boss? When
he thought about it, it seemed like this was a clear imitation of his own
infamous memo at Paramount, in which he had advocated for less
expensive, high-concept films. Now it occurred to him that Katzenberg
saw himself as the next Eisner. Maybe he was angling to take Eisner’s
job, to subtly undermine his authority. This began to eat away at him.
Why was Katzenberg now cutting him out of story meetings?

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The animation department soon became the primary generator of
profits for the studio, with new hits such as Aladdin and now The Lion
King, which had been Katzenberg’s baby—he had come up with the
story idea and developed it from start to finish. Magazine articles now
began to feature Katzenberg as if he were the creative genius behind
Disney’s resurgence in the genre. What about Roy Disney, the vice
chairman of animation? What about Eisner himself, who was in charge
of everything? To Eisner, Katzenberg was now playing the media,
building himself up. An executive had reported to Eisner that
Katzenberg was going around saying, “I’m the Walt Disney of today.”
Suspicion soon turned into hatred. Eisner could not stand to be around
him.
Then, in March of 1994, Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter
accident while on a skiing trip. To reassure shareholders and Wall
Street, Eisner soon announced that he would take over Wells’s position
as president. But suddenly here was Katzenberg pestering him with
phone calls and memos, reminding Eisner that he had promised him
the president’s job if Wells ever left the company. How insensitive, so
soon after the tragedy. He stopped returning Katzenberg’s phone calls.
Finally, in August 1994, Eisner fired Jeffrey Katzenberg, shocking
almost everyone in Hollywood. He had fired the most successful studio
executive in town. The Lion King had become one of the most
profitable films in Hollywood history. It was Katzenberg who was
behind Disney’s acquisition of Miramax, considered a great coup with
the ensuing success of Pulp Fiction. It seemed like madness on his