Seldom, inside the California nerve centre of the Disney entertainment empire, is heard a discouraging word. The spirit of Uncle Walt still rules over the rambling fantasy factory he built in the 1930s to create such classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- and it doesn't tolerate pessimism. Nevertheless, there were frowns and frayed nerves last week in the executive suites at the intersection of Dopey Drive and Mickey Avenue in beautiful downtown Burbank.
After a fuel-starved summer of discontent which saw a decline in crowds at the Disney theme parks for the first time in years, 12 of the studio's top animators had walked out, leaving two multimillion-dollar feature films in disarray. Disney stockholders, meanwhile, are keeping fingers crossed as they await the Christmas release of the most costly film the company has ever made. More than $20 million has been gambled on The Black Hole, Disney's big but tardy sci-fi entry in the Star Wars race.
Black holes, it says in the press handout, "are the most terrifying force in the universe. Nothing can escape, not even light!" And that's where Disney bosses would like to put rebel leader Don Bluth, 42, and the 11 other dissident members of the team Walt Disney Productions had painstakingly gathered to revitalize its neglected animation department. Executive producer Ron Miller, a six-foot four-inch ex-football star who joined the company in 1956 after marrying Walt's daughter Diane, is angry at that "disloyalty" -- not to mention the rotten timing. Release of Disney's next animated biggie, the $10 million The Fox and the Hound, will be held for perhaps a year and no one knows what the effect will be on the next-in-line project -- a $15 million animated blockbuster called The Black Cauldron.
Bluth, the top younger talent at Disney, is now captain of Don Bluth Productions, which has formed an alliance with Aurora Productions, set up recently by three former Disney executives. Why the mass walkout? "We were tired of bureaucracy and being so sweet that our films were positively offensive," says Bluth. His No. 2, Gary Goldman, adds: "Disney execs were looking at films from one point only: will they make money? It was a struggle over quality."
So goodbye Mickey, hello Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. That's the title of Bluth's first animated film -- about laboratory rats at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that acquire morality and intelligence. Bluth has been handed $7 million by Aurora Productions to make it in 2 1/2 years. The Disney style will remain, he says. "But there will be more insight, more hope, more fear -- kids love to be scared."
Disney's Miller firmly downplays the loss. The "backbone" of the department remains, he says. Unhappily, its lost members were the brains, and they will not be easy to replace. "But we will rebuild," says Miller. "A thorn has gone from our side." Other thorns, however, remain. Last summer's energy crunch brought attendance at Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida down by around 15 percent from mid-May to mid-July.
The immensely successful play parks are not, however, about to fall into a financial black hole. Business quickly picked up once the gas lines had gone and, for the year, Disneyland is expected to equal 1978's record (Disney World may be marginally off). Moreover when final figures for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 are tabulated, a Disney spokesman said last week, profits should be up again. "The entire U.S. business community is facing uncertain conditions," said Disney corporate President E. Cardon (Card) Walker recently. "But we're confident that our diversity and flexibility will allow us to meet the challenge."