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Why Did Michael Eisner Want Finding Nemo to Fail?

David Rosenthal says Michael Eisner wanted Finding Nemo to fail because a flop would give Disney more negotiating leverage over Pixar.

Eisner watched an early reel, decided he did not like it, and wrote the Disney board that Finding Nemo was a bad movie, that it was going to flop, and that the flop would be a reality check for Pixar and great for Disney's leverage. The memo leaked from the board to the press. Steve Jobs could see Eisner rooting against the film while Disney was the creative partner and was getting over 50% of the economics. Early story reels are rough because Pixar's process is to iterate on them.

Finding Nemo came out in 2003 and grossed $871 million in theaters, the second highest grossing movie of 2003 behind only Lord of the Rings Return of the King. A theater share near $400 million would leave $470 million for Disney and Pixar even before DVD. The Finding Nemo DVD was the pinnacle of home video in the DVD era, the way the Lion King VHS had been the high watermark for VHS, and Netflix was not streaming yet.

Grokipedia·Michael Eisner·Finding Nemo

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Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire ·

Acquired

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