Waking Sleeping Beauty

548 00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:33,720 each one drawn by an artist at a total cost of more than $10 million, 549 00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,800 more than it can make back anytime soon. 550 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,120 Can you really afford 551 00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:44,080 to do what you wanna do in animation as much as you wanna do? 552 00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,560 The answer is no, but we're doing it anyway. 553 00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,120 - We have to do it in this company. - Have to? 554 00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,240 We have to. That is our legacy. 555 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,080 WOMAN: The animation area, the full-length animation, 556 00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:56,920 you have made a promise to do one film a year. Is that it? 557 00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,600 - Well, Roy made it, so I'm-- - We jointly made that one. 558 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:07,200 Yeah, it's our intent to make a new one every year. 559 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,760 Oliver will be the first in that group. 560 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,840 And Little Mermaid, the following year, is on schedule 561 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,320 to be released a year from now. And we think we can do it. 562 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,560 We're accumulating more and more and better artists 563 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,960 and certainly more and more experience as we go. 564 00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:29,680 Helping to feed the coffers in a big way was a machine called the VCR 565 00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,360 that could actually play movies from a cassette tape 566 00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:34,240 in your own living room. 567 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,400 PAULEY: The releasing of Pinocchio in video, 568 00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,200 Disney was never gonna do that. 569 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:41,720 I thought that was carved in granite 570 00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:47,320 that they would be held in storage for seven years and then released carefully. 571 00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,560 How was the decision made to put them out in video? 572 00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,480 I don't think there's been any more careful decision than we have reached. 573 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,760 And we have reached it so far only in respect to the one classic, Pinocchio. 574 00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,240 It's out now this summer. It's doing very well. 575 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,960 It's only after that that we'll slowly decide what to do with the rest of it. 576 00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:09,160 And after all, a video release this summer hardly is gonna affect Pinocchio 577 00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,080 when it's released theatrically another seven years from now. 578 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,680 Pinocchio went out as a trial balloon and made millions. 579 00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,520 It was like a license to print money, since there were no costs for the old titles. 580 00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,320 But that immediately upped the ante to get more titles into the pipeline. 581 00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:27,000 So to find these new titles, anybody, artists, secretaries, janitors, 582 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,840 could come in and pitch their ideas in a gong show. 583 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:31,120 Some ideas, like Pocahontas, 584 00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:33,920 were green-lit from a single drawing and a title. 585 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,320 Others, like Little Mermaid, were gonged at first, 586 00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,280 because it was too much like Splash, but came back later. 587 00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,560 And there were all sorts of projects being green-lit. 588 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,880 A sequel idea called Rescuers Down Under, set in Australia. 589 00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,320 Prince And The Pauper, starring Mickey Mouse. 590 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:48,800 And an old shelved project 591 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:54,200 that Walt Disney himself considered back in the 1940s, Beauty and the Beast. 592 00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,880 SAWYER: Not only does the ghost of Walt Disney, the creative genius, 593 00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:58,560 keep Eisner awake at night. 594 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:00,400 When he first came to the company, 595 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,800 he discovered that executives routinely made decisions by asking, 596 00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:05,320 "What would Walt have done?" 597 00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,880 ROY: To a certain extent, people, somebody, would surely have said, 598 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:09,720 "Walt probably wouldn't have done that." 599 00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:11,240 We needed to break that cycle 600 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,560 and we needed to get out into the whole town. 601 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:20,200 The argument that says, "Some dead guy is trying to run your operation." 602 00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:21,760 You can't do that. 603 00:30:21,960 --> 0