Dick Cook Resigns!

[DxCxAxSummer2012]

Why! I never saw this Coming?

[Piglet]

I read that he was fired, but I cannot find out the reason why.

[ShrunkenNed]

Entertainment Weekly is reporting he is "stepping down, effective immediately." No other details are given.

[mickeymania1]

In quoting Luke Skywalker, "NOOOOOO!!! IT CAN'T BE TRUE! IT CAN'T BE TRUE!! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!" Just when you're thankful that Eisner & his crew have been replaced by an awesome crew, one of theme resigns!

[Executioner]

Wow.. Didn't see that coming. I wonder what happened?

[Tom Morrow]

Dick Cook leaves Disney

Dick Cook leaves Disney Stepping down as chairman after serving 38 years The Hollywood Reporter No successor was announced. Cook, a genial and well-liked executive who just last week presided over the first edition of D23 Expo, a Disney fan convention in Anaheim, said, "I have loved every minute of my 38 years that I have worked at Disney ... from the beginning as a ride operator on Disneyland's steam train and monorail to my position as chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. To wrap up my Disney experience in a neatly bundled statement is close to impossible. But what I will say is, during my time at the studio, we have achieved many industry and company milestones." Disney president and CEO Robert Iger hailed Cook, who rose through the studio's distribution ranks before taking on the top job at the studio, saying, "Throughout his distinguished 38-year Disney career, Dick Cook's outstanding creative instincts and incomparable showmanship have truly enriched this company and significantly impacted Disney's great legacy. We thank Dick for his tremendous passion for Disney, and his many accomplishments and contributions to the Walt Disney Studios, including a very promising upcoming film slate. On behalf of everyone at Disney, we wish him the best with all the future has to offer." Gregg Kilday complete article

Submitted by Ezra

[Ezra]

Rumor has it, according to Nikki Finke at Dateline Hollywood...

Dick Cook Fired From Disney

[Wedbliss]

More corporate intrigue. Was Cook fired? Was he asked to resign? Did Cook resign voluntarily? Evidently the answer to all three questions is yes.

This sounds like something right out of the book Disney War by James Stewart.

The fact that this happened right after the D-23 Expo is interesting. I guess the parties involved didn't want this hanging over the convention.

Disney has a history of shedding good executives who go on to find even greater success with new companies. Disney's loss will be someone else's gain and it wouldn't surprise me to see Dick Cook made CEO of some large company in need of talent like his.

[Executioner]

^ I agree that Disney seems to have a pattern about that. The Disney Corporation has been going under many changes recently from all sorts of firings and buyouts. Right now is not a good time to be working under Iger. He seems to be on a warpath and I for one am glad I don't have to answer to him. LOL

[Ezra]

I've been thinking about this, and here's what I think happened. I don't have any sources for this, but neither do most of the dreck stories on the newspaper websites, so here goes.

Remember years ago when Iger first took office and set up the Pixar merger? At that time, the bigwigs at Walt Disney Feature Animation got the axe and Feature Animation was handed to Pixar's Ed Catmull and Jon Lasseter. This was to bring the open creative culture of Pixar over to the studios.

The stories going around at the time was the culture at Feature Animation was "poisonous". If you had an idea to pitch, but weren't "in" with the right people, too bad. And if you did get anywhere, you were met with a scarcity climate where other people with competing projects could try to sabottage you. Catmull and Lasseter were supposed to clean that up.

Well, supposedly, Walt Disney Pictures is the same way, to a lesser extent. There's not as much back-stabbing, but there's secretiveness. The Studios just don't share information with other departments, and with Iger trying to "synergize" everything across all the companies' platforms, that was a serious problem.

In the end, Cook leaving has very little to do with his record, which is excellent, by the way. (He brought in Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg, and welcomed back Tim Burton.) The problem is the Studios division being an Ivory Tower, walled off from the rest of the company.

The Walt Disney Pictures offerings at D23 may have been the final straw for Bob Iger. Pre-sales were lagging, and Iger would have fired up all the publicity machines about the celebrity appearances. Advance sales might have been bigger if people knew for a fact that Miley Cyrus, Johnny Depp and Robin Williams were making personal appearances.

But Cook wanted all that to be a special surprise treat, and his department would not share that information — preventing any cross-marketing. Since Iger is all about "maximizing" the franchises by "synergizing" them company-wide, Cook's style goes against the grain.

Anyway, that's what I think.

[#1DisneyFreak]

There was a story this morning about Johnny Depp taking this news really hard. With Dick Cook being the driving force behind Johnny doing ANY of the Pirates movies, let alone the 4th installment... there is speculation that since this newest script isn't finished, and Johnny feels loyalty to this friend, that the movie might be facing problems. Anyone else heard anything like that? (Sorry, rumor, I know :) )

[Wedbliss]

^Yes, that story is all over the internet including the LA Times site. Hard to tell if Mr. Depp is really thinking about backing out or if this is just the initial shock of Cook leaving so suddenly.

The LA Times quotes Depp as saying that Dick Cook was the reason he came to work for Disney in the first place and that Cook personally called him to say he was leaving Disney without giving a reason why.

What I'm wondering is if Disney has a successor already chosen and simply hasn't announced it yet.

[Ezra]

I think Johnny Depp is just expressing his chagrin about the whole situation. I read somewhere that Depp just recently signed the contract for Pirates 4, so it may be difficult for him to back out.

If I remember rightly, when the dailies for the first Pirates film were shown to the executives there were very negative reactions, (i.e. "He's ruining our movie!"), but that Dick Cook stood behind the performance when some others wanted to pull the plug.

---

In my earlier post I put "syncretize" because I couldn't think of the word "synergize" and ended up with a different corporate buzz-word.

[Wedbliss]

I like the word "syncretize". Sounds like perfectly good jargon to me! It's like sychronized synergy or something....properly redundant for a good corporate buzz-word.

In the book Disney War it mentions that it was Eisner who really didn't like the look which Depp concocted for Jack Sparrow. He didn't like the heavy make-up around the eyes, the odd movements and the gold teeth. The book goes on to say that Depp agreed to tone it down, removing most of the gold teeth, etc. But when on the set he ignored Eisner's wishes and did the character as he had planned to. I'm sure Depp did that because he knew that Cook had his back.

If Depp signed the contract, then I don't believe he will back out.

This is pure speculation, but I think that Iger found someone else he prefered to be Chairman of the studio, put pressure on Cook to leave and the announcement will follow shortly regarding the this replacement. But it looks to me like the replacement was chosen before Cook left. Again, this is only my gut feeling based on how Disney has done things in the past.

And I think the reason Iger wanted Cook out was pretty much nailed by Ezra in his post above. Iger wants someone he can better control.

The corporate culture at Disney has always had the element of fear. I'm thinking that right now a lot of Disney executives are pretty nervous. I wonder how well Jay Rasulo is sleeping lately.

[lpetiti]

I think Iger should just resign and give the entire thing over to John Lasseter, that would be better.