Fans have been waiting 21 long years for Michael Eisner to air his grievances about Disney. Decades after leaving under, ahem, inauspicious circumstances, the former CEO finally sat down for a wide-ranging interview. This shares the highlights and offers our post-mortem on the Eisner era.
The interview covered everything from Bob Iger initially being rejected by the board, problematic pricing at Walt Disney World & Disneyland, the Chapek mistake, Harvey Weinstein being his biggest regret, and much more. We’re going to cover the highlights here, so buckle up, because Eisner doesn’t hold back and shares colorful commentary.
Let’s start with brief background. For those who weren’t fans back then or have not heeded our many recommendations to read DisneyWar, Michael Eisner was once a fan darling, serving as CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 1984 and saving Disney from corporate raiders. Along with Frank Wells as President, Eisner was responsible for tremendous growth of the company for about the first decade of his tenure.
Then Frank Wells died in a helicopter accident in 1994. It would be extreme to say it was all downhill from there, as the second half of the 1990s did yield plenty of success for Disney. But it was much more hit or miss, and Eisner was no longer infallible. Regardless of how we slice it, the second half of Michael Eisner’s reign as CEO was worse than the first half. On that, we should all be able to agree.
This culminated in the SaveDisney campaign that began in 2003. Shareholders and fans launched a campaign of concerns about the company under Eisner, launching SaveDisney.con and undertaking a media blitz. The face of the Save Disney initiative was Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, who literally had a face that resembled his uncle.
Roy had previously backed Eisner as CEO, but pointed to the untimely death of Frank Wells as a pivotal moment for Eisner, and the beginning of his unraveling as a leader. After that, Roy felt that the company had lost its focus, creative energy, and heritage.
Among other things, the SaveDisney campaign pointed to Eisner’s failure to manage ABC programming and mismanaged relationships with Pixar and more. It zeroed in on Eisner’s lack of leadership, which had resulted in creative brain drain with the loss of talented employees, as well as his refusal to establish a clear succession plan. (Gee, sound familiar?)
SaveDisney also focused on weak investments in the theme parks business, pointing to building Disney’s California Adventure, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris “on the cheap.” In addition to that, the consumer perception that the company is constantly looking for the “quick buck” rather than the long-term value, resulting in brand damage and loss of trust. (Gee, sound familiar?)
All of this is well-documented in DisneyWar and beyond. Although reappraisal of the Eisner Era has happened to some extent in recent years, it’s largely a matter of recontextualizing the agreed-upon narrative and judging that timeframe against the Iger Era that followed. Aside from stray tweets, this interview has been the first opportunity we’ve had to hear from Eisner in a long time, telling his side of the story and offering thoughts on how things are going at the Walt Disney Company today.
What follows is Eisner on a wide variety of topics, with quotes lightly edited for clarity.
On the State of Disney Today
“The company’s in great shape. I think Bob Iger has been an excellent CEO. I’m happy that he was a person that I recommended. That I got it through the board. He was not the board’s first choice in the beginning. He ended up being the unanimous choice. He came out of ABC. He was a president under me for a decade. He understands the company.
“Most of the time, succession doesn’t go well. Most of the time, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. So going to the outside is dangerous. If you have people the inside that are capable, that’s a better way to go. But Bob, his predecessor [Frank Wells] died.”
“Bob became the number two in the company after a mistake…which we’ve all made. Bob was great. He was he did all the stuff that Frank did and more. He understood it and he spent a decade with me and our design people and the parks and he knew it. It was so obvious. So I think he did a good job.”
On the Blunder that Was Bob Chapek
“That was a marriage made hell. Bob Iger and Bob Chapek was a mistake. Bob Iger really wasn’t ready to leave completely, and Chapek was going to prove that he was the boss by doing stupid things. Not necessary things. Separating the distribution from the creative and the movie business, and other things like that. Bob Iger recognized it, couldn’t help himself, in noting it.”
“Chapek was a mistake. I hired him. Well, I don’t know if I hired him, but I certainly approved him to run home video. He did a great job at home video. He did a good job with the with the parks, but he was the wrong choice for CEO. That’s all.”
On Co-CEOs at Disney
Note: This interview was filmed before Disney announced its leadership change. Josh D’Amaro has since been elected CEO, effective on March 18, 2026. Alongside him, Dana Walden has been named President and Chief Creative Officer. In this historic new role for Disney, Walden will report directly to D’Amaro.
Upon this transition, longtime Disney CEO Robert A. Iger will continue to serve as Senior Advisor and a member of the Disney Board from March 18th until his retirement from the company on December 31, 2026. Although presented by Disney as historic, it’s very similar to the successful partnership Michael Eisner had with Frank Wells. It is not a co-CEO partnership.
“It is ridiculous [to have co-CEOs]. That is not to run the bakery. It doesn’t work. [Netflix] is a completely different company. It’s a technology company and an entertainment company, and it has been basically co-CEOs with Reed Hastings being the founder and the guru and Ted Sarandos. It’s not applicable and I still think it’s a bad idea.
“It would be a really big mistake for Disney. Pick the person you think should be the CEO, and hopefully the second person look me to be number two. When Frank Wells and I were having that conversation, first our shareholders wanted co-CEOs and then they wanted Frank. Then I said no, and then Frank said, ‘Michael should be the CEO. Disney should be run from a creative point of view. I’ll be happy to be number two.’ And it was great.”
Note that since this interview was recorded, Eisner congratulated Josh D’Amaro on being named CEO and offered him some advice in navigating the job. Most notably, he said, keep close the words of Walt Disney: “We love to entertain kings and queens, but the vital thing to remember is this—every guest receives the VIP treatment.” That’s a line he echoed again later in this interview when lamenting the problematic pricing at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
On Eisner’s Favorite Character
After discussing Michael Graves as the Steven Spielberg of architecture and explaining that they used the Seven Dwarfs on the Disney HQ building because they saved Disney, Eisner was asked about his favorite character:
“I like them all. Are you kidding me? You’re not going to get me. You’re not going to get me there.”
On Returning to the Disney HQ
When asked about the last time he had been back inside the building: “Inside in the offices, on the day I left. Not that I haven’t been invited. I’ve been invited. Once you sell your house, you move on.”
This video otherwise is heavy in its discussion of Michael Graves and other ‘starchitects’ who Eisner famously courted and worked with. I find all of this to be incredibly fascinating and one of the underrated lasting legacies of the Eisner era, but most fans probably won’t care, so I’m not going to fixate on it.
On Eisner’s Downfall at Disney
Looking back on that last period of Eisner’s tenure: “Well, there was change going on. I was stubborn. I did not want to buy Pixar for a price that I thought was crazy. It wasn’t as depressing as the media made it. We were still doing very well. We were still a great company. I had decided that we couldn’t lose any more money with Roy Disney making movies. So, I stopped that. Probably a bad political decision, but the right decision.”
“I tried and succeeded in getting rid of Harvey Weinstein. [Which was unpopular with the board at that time?] No, they went wild about Harvey and he was losing money. The only thing that was unpopular was that Harvey and Steve and Roy become adversaries to the CEO. One had the name of Disney. I didn’t. One was Steve Jobs, an American one of a kind. And the other was a despicable man who was loved by the media for a long time because of the movies he made.”
“I made the judgment call, probably right, but not politically smart that I was not going to put up with it. So that was unpleasant. But I was ready. 21 years at Disney having every weekend, with 20 scripts by my bed that I hadn’t read, and thousands of emails. Building a park in Shanghai and having just built a park in Hong Kong, doing Animal Kingdom, doing a second park in in Paris, etc.”
“I was ready to move here [his home, which is also a subject of the interview]. I was ready to move to the one street in Los Angeles that felt like New York. I was ready to not have 20 unread scripts. I was ready to actually own myself. I think change is good in in management because it also creates opportunity to go in new directions. You can’t just stay in the old directions.”
On Disney Parks Pricing Problems
“I’m not wild about the fact that it is so expensive now to go to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. I’m not wild about the fact that it’s harder than ever to have everybody be a VIP at a Disney Park, because they’re selling certain things.
“There are things that I would do differently, but I don’t think I would run Disney as well as Bob Iger has run it.”
Eisner isn’t the only one to think this. There were reports that Bob Iger was “alarmed” by Walt Disney World and Disneyland price increases during the COVID era. “He’s killing the soul of the company,” said Iger about Chapek on more than one occasion.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like what Eisner is taking issue not just with price increases, but also nickel & diming and upcharges that have created different classes of guests. We’ve discussed how this is at odds with the old “every guest is a VIP” mantra from the Eisner era (and earlier), most recently in Top 10 Guest Complaints About Walt Disney World.
Note that although Eisner has not returned to Disney HQ, he has been back at the parks many times. There are photos of him over the years visiting, including within the last 5 or so years.
On ‘Personality’ Problems
When looking back at his fallout with Michael Ovitz and Jeffrey Katzenberg and whether they could reconnect: “Michael Ovitz was the wrong person for that job, from day one. It just was a mistake. He was a great agent. He had aspirations and it was just an elephant in a china shop from day one.”
“Jeffrey was a different situation. Frank had made a deal that he never told me about. I had made a deal that I thought was different, and I was stubborn. I said, ‘Jeffrey, you have to live with this deal.’ Frank’s conversations with Jeffrey were very different than my conversations with Jeffrey, and I did not quite know that.”
“The life of a movie was like a decade. So when you made a deal with an executive that got a continuing interest, you ended it at a decade. Well, that all changed with streaming, international, and all the rest of it. I thought that was still the deal. I was advised not to let the lawsuit happen and to settle. I was stubborn. Michael Ovitz excellent as an agent and Jeffrey excellent as corporate executive. They both served their companies and me great.”
On His Hardest Moment at Disney
“Every week there was a hard moment. I can’t think of any one single hardest moment. Every weekend getting the movie grosses, opening of a theme park, our CFO left two weeks before our annual meeting. All those kinds of things.”
“But the the hardest moment was dealing with uh Harvey Weinstein. He lied about everything. How do you deal with somebody who never tells the truth? I never thought about what I learned, but I would not have made a deal, just because I got a good cheap deal, for 70 million to buy Miramax, if I thought that I’m bringing a wolf into the hen house.”
This is just a little ground covered in the wide-ranging interview. Other topics include the Jimmy Kimmel controversy, challenges with ageism in Hollywood, architecture, future of movie theaters, and more. I highly recommend watching it all on: here’s a link to the In Depth with Graham Bensinger channel on YouTube, where you can find the interview.
Our Commentary
The interview is fascinating for a variety of reasons, the least of which is how much he hates Harvey Weinstein as contrasted with everyone else, including those with whom he’s had a public falling out. Of course, it’s now “safe” to hate Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood, whereas many others still wield power.
But Eisner was fairly diplomatic even to Bob Chapek after the initial “marriage made in hell” comment, and Chapek has vanished from public view. I also think it’s telling that, generally speaking, Eisner views the way that both Bobs have handled the theme parks positively.
Sure, there’s the headline quote about not being wild about pricing, but he immediately followed that up with a comment about Bob Iger running things better than he did. He also praised Chapek’s leadership of the parks. Part of this undoubtedly comes down to exposure.
Eisner sees the financial success of the parks division (and likely the mainstream media headlines about pricing out the middle class), but has limited experience actually in the parks. When he does visit Walt Disney World or Disneyland, it’s less frequently and his family.
Guests visiting once every 5 years or so are typically much less critical of the experience than all of us. Heck, even I am usually less attuned to issues when visiting with Sarah and our daughter versus solo research trips. So it isn’t really a huge surprise that Eisner largely views both Bobs favorably from the perspective of the parks. They’ve added blockbuster new lands and attractions, and have delivered financial results, albeit with runaway pricing.
Beyond that, the interview generally strikes me as candid and thoughtful.
Eisner is still sharp as ever, but he also comes across as softer and more reflective. Someone who realizes his time has come and gone, and largely ready to move on but still willing to do an appraisal of his days at Disney. He had a couple of opportunities in the interview to highlight successes, but instead dove into the later struggles.
It’s also clear that Eisner hasn’t lost touch. Instead of constantly second-guessing today’s decisions or judging them through the lens of his heyday during the 1990s, he’s cognizant of the changing business and media landscape. On several occasions, he contemplates how he would have done things differently–or similarly–if having to navigate today’s climate.
I think this is meaningful. Fans often don’t do this, and instead judge present decisions by past standards, or assume leaders from the past would do things differently today. Eisner could’ve just as easily taken a “back in my day” posture, but opted against it.
There’s no turning back time or the many ways the world has changed, for better or worse. It’s a fool’s errand to view everything through the rose colored glasses of a different era; one that no longer exists.
I’ve long wondered whether Eisner could’ve had a successful ‘second act’ had he simply taken a year off to recharge and recalibrate. This interview did nothing to put that thought to rest; it only heightened it. Whether he spiraled or something after Frank Wells’ passing or just got burnt out, Eisner wasn’t the same at the end of his tenure as at the beginning.
Eisner now seems changed, and for the better. He may be at peace with moving on (although his remark that he and Barry Diller explored purchasing Paramount suggests otherwise), but he does not strike me as someone that time has passed by.
My personal ‘nutshell’ appraisal of the Eisner Era is that the Walt Disney Company as we know it wouldn’t exist but for Eisner. What he did during his first decade was transformative, and much of today’s successes are still riding on that foundation laid by Eisner and Wells, and the goodwill generated.
This is especially true at Walt Disney World, which grew tremendously and had its best and most consequential years during the Eisner era. Everything that followed, and there was plenty of bad, is fully forgivable given the good.
A final thing that I found fascinating is how this underscores the ‘degree of differences’ in leadership. One of the common refrains right now among fans who are critical of the D’Amaro decision is that there’s no difference between him and the Bobs.
Well, I’m old enough to remember when the same was said about Eisner and Iger. There were serious concerns at the time about Iger being Eisner’s protege, strategically handpicked to stop the SaveDisney campaign but continue as ‘shadow CEO’ or whatever. That there would be no meaningful differences between the two.
Those critics couldn’t have been more wrong. Whatever Iger’s eventual legacy ends up being, and the argument could easily be made that he did follow in Eisner’s footsteps in tainting the first half of his legacy by sticking around too long for a second half, his first decade or so largely involved repairing relationships and fixing the problems of the late Eisner era.
Personally, I’m not expecting as dramatic of a departure between Iger’s Disney vs. D’Amaro’s Disney, but the point nevertheless stands that new leadership can make a big impact. Look no further than Disney’s last CEO, Bob Chapek, for further proof of that. Here’s hoping that Disney’s darkest days are behind it.
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OUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on anything Michael Eisner discussed during the interview? Agree with him about Walt Disney World and Disneyland’s wild overpricing? What’s your opinion of the Eisner Era? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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