Michael Eisner Wants a Good Movie to End Quickly

daytime and children's television. While he was president of Paramount Pictures, the company moved from last place to first among the six major studios. But Eisner is best known as the former chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, a position that he held for over two decades. Michael Eisner grew up and started his career in New York, but an early trip out West changed that. I asked where the people stayed that went to l A. Had never been to l A. And they said the bel Air Hotel.

And I got to the bel Air Hotel and there were swans, and there was flowers, and there were weddings and all this stuff. I called my wife, and I said, I think we should move to l A. And then I it took me three years to manipulate it. That to convince ABC that being in New York was not going to be effective, that that I was always a day late and getting casting, getting scripts. Uh, we were fourth among three, and nobody cared about ABC. And they

paid us through the owned stations. They couldn't even pay us through the network. They didn't have enough money. And and I was lucky because the things that I was in charge of just happened to turn to number one when I got there, so it looked like I did it. So when I said, you you have to move to l A, we have to we have to do it in l A. And in that era, l A was very laid back. People came in at ten, they left at eleven. They looked like they were gonna play golf.

And Barry Diller and I both moved to l A, and we were wearing suits, and we had this New York mentality, and we actually arrived earlier in the morning and we stayed late, and we were Type a's and all of a sudden, ABC became a Type A administration, and we eventually became number one and even in prime time with a movie that week and a lot of other stuff. Spelling it was we convinced Aaron Spelling to UH to make a direct deal with us, not to

go through his agent. That created a lot of unpleasantness for me because I didn't realize the power of William Morris. They went to the chairman of I forgot about this for about thirty years. They went to the chairman of of ABC and asked for both of us, Barry and I to be fired because we were not we can do and Norman, oh no, it was a last vogel. It was even above Norman. And they and Leonard Goldenson

called us into his office. We thought, I thought it were gonna be fired for for not dealing with the system and the great of the agency, package commissions and all that stuff. And he put his hand across the table and gratulate us for trying to change the business. So I know, But why when you got out of college did you go to television in the first place? What about it? No one in your family was in media, correct, No? Uh, I graduated from college. I was a premed. I was

an English major, and then was a theater major. Because there was a girl that wouldn't date me, so I wrote a play for her, and then she still wouldn't date me. But I became a theater major. I went to Europe to become a writer for a year. I stayed a week, came back and got a job as an usher usher at NBC. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I moved out of my parents apartment. I found my own apartment. I thought that was pretty good. I was liberated. Um and I became an usher and

I worked backstage with Jack Parr. I took telephone calls. I gave tickets to the Tonight Show. And I loved it. It was like fun. It was like it wasn't a job. And and and I always like theater. And I grew up in Manhattan, and every my kids always went to check E Geese on their birthdays. But we when I grew up in New York. He went to a show, you went to see you know, Charlie's Aunt or Where's Charlie? You went to Sea House Pacific in Oklahoma and Arthur Miller and all this stuff. So I really had it

at the bug I did. And then and then I just worked my way up at UH at ABC. I really decided. Actually, my father was kind of a gentleman farmer in Vermont, and he bought the apple orchard next to him, and then he bought a lot of apple orchards. And we've been in the apple business for fifty years, my family, and we made a profit twice in fifty years. And I decided that I was not going to be a business in a business where God was my partner.

I just couldn't take the the frosts and the lack of blossoms for the bees and the but but I decided I was gonna do I actually know something I wasn't really equipped to anything else. Described for me what made Diller successful? Because he because he becomes a huge figure in your life and and a big you know, mentor in your life, and you follow him around for quite a bit. He takes you with him and and elevates you. What made Diller Diller? Well, first of all,

he's extremely smart, So let's start there. And and uh, he came comes from Los Angeles, and he understood he would in the William Morris office, and you know, like I worked at the page, he worked in the mail room. We're exactly the same age, although he looks much older than the I know. Um. We started ABC within three months of each other. He worked for a vice president who actually had power. I worked for a vice presidents

being fired. I didn't know it, uh, And he was brusque and he was dominating, but I could deal with him. And then we all did different things. I mean I did when I was doing daytime, he was doing this. Eventually I went to California worked for him, and then eventually he left ABC and went to Paramount, and then I joined him. So you and he were running the network in California. How long were you there in California before he goes to Paramount? He went a year after

I came to California. I went three years later. I was I was kind of too state at ABC while he's at Paramount. For two years, I was very declass A. I was TV and the movies were in and all the important people in the movies at the Bob Evans and the Sioux Angers and all those people. And I was still doing TV, but the movies weren't doing so well in that era. And so somebody came to me from another company and Barry heard about it, and he called me up and he brought me over there. Uh

he said, I was. I resolved my problems, one of which is I wasn't beturing my phone calls quickly and things like that. So I resolved that. And other than the fact that I kept calling movies shows, which drove him out of his mind. And until we had yes, there was I was still talking, you know, Happy Days, and he was talking, you know, Atlantic City. So uh.

But then when we hit was Saturday night Fever in Greece and Heavington waited and foul playing all that, it was okay that I called them shows, But but we still describe I mean, this is a broad question to described what was the movie business like you're a paramount from nineteen seventy six to nineteen eighty four. You're thirty four years old. I mean you're I mean, there are there there are younger men that have keptained some of

these companies, but that's still pretty young. And you're over there with him running the show from seventies eighty four. What was the state of the movie business in seventy six, Well, uh, it was, it was up and down. It wasn't as bad as five years earlier or seven years earlier, an easy rider kind of changed the whole nature of the business. Paramount wasn't doing well, but we decided we would use our like minor leagues to baseball, television and movies. We

would use our kind of creativity in a box. We would create a financial box and then anything inside the box was okay. You just had to be responsible. And we over the next uh eight ten years, were number one almost every year. Warner Brothers was number one when we weren't those years, and Warner Brothers had a completely differ philosophy. They dealt only with stars. They would send

Steven Spielberg's dog to Wide and meet him. They they had Steve Steve Ross, Steve Ross, They had you know, villas in Mexico, and we were like traveling coach and uh half of ourn he he did, except for we were number one financially and we were number one of the box office, all on strong ideas young or talented directors, new talent, old talent too. They accused us of waiting outside of Betty Ford a rehab center and getting actors

at a discount. We did down and out in Beverly Hills, I guess that was our first movie at Disney, but we kept this philosophy going with that. Middle and Nick Nolty, who both had graduated from there, who did a pretty good movie for us. So our strategy, you was needed a hit, and we needed a hit, and it worked well. And I've done a lot of movies of them. It

all worked, not all, but most. I think the idea of we were always twenty or more times less than the industry average and movies, and we always were number one or two, by the way, for thirty years, twenty six of those years, I was number one or number two, always being economically thoughtful, but going with instinct good material,

interesting material, different material as best we could. But so that that leads to a question that's a really important one for me, which is um, and I'm not saying this in a critical way, but you never spent a moment as a salary and salaried employee on the set of a film in any of the crafts you know, you were in a sound mixer, or you didn't direct films, you didn't do costumes, you didn't do any editing. What

have you? You've been on the set of films, your entire career as an executive described for people what that creative processes like, meaning, for example, in Paramount in the Slate seventies and early eighties, what number of creative staff did you have that advice you want, what films you should be making and should not be making? How many people did you listen to? Well, I was kind of in the weeds. I did a lot of it myself. There was a guy by the name of Don Simpson

who was in the story department. And he was the only person that I found when I arrived other than Barry, that I trusted. So what about him? Did your trust? He just seemed smart, he worked, he was came from Alaska. I would he was single. I was married with a bunch of kids. We would go on we would go on film testing and all sorts of different states around the country. I love being with him. He told me all these great stories that I couldn't participate in, that

that it was a different breed he was. He was just he finally had a problem with drugs. But but that's somebody I listened to. But but mainly I was an English major mostly uh, I was a theater goer mostly all my life and I love the written word. I can't tell you how a movie has made. My son is a director. I can't even talk to him about I don't understand even where the film goes. What I'm think I'm good at is recognizing good ideas, really good with the written word, And I'm good in the

post production area. I can see a film and and and work with it. As far as how I just read about Angle making this movie. They just got a tremendous reception technically and in Las Vegas. If somebody said to me you had to do that would be like saying to me, you had to operate on somebody's brain.

My strength is so limited two the idea, the script, the casting, the director, the putting it together and bringing the most talented people ago you can and try and in find somebody that nobody else's those is talented, defining the people that are talented that have yet been not discovered. I always say that we know, I said we I said,

we were working on this film. I was doing an Alden Erin Reich, who actually played my son, he played Kate Planchett's son, and Blue Jasmine that I did with Woody, and we were saying No, we don't just want alden Aran Reich. We want cheap alden erin Reich before he really hits it big and becomes too expensive for us. But so so essentially you let me. Let me say this because because I'm always accused of trying to find the new inexpensive. There are many actors who are worth

everything they get paid. Give me an example, Well, you're an example that's very I mean like Hanks Crews. Yeah. There there are actors who, by very nature of being in the movies, you get two things. One, they're actually very good. When you sit and talk to Dustin Hoffman, it is not an accident that he's been so good. He really is good. So you get what you paid for Set and Lee. There are actors who actually appeal to people. The movie would not perform as well without

those actors. So for that, in the business of the movies, it is totally worth paying up whatever it takes. Who's a filmmaker you loved working with back then in the earlier Who's someone you said, God, this is a great experience, scor said, he's the same with people that that that you would name Alan Parker, Uh, what'd you do with Alan he made a small movie. I'm trying to make a name of it in the in the seventies. I

cannot after fame or before fame, before fame really early. Um, it just was a you know, there's something about dealing with any in any field. It could be my son is in the in the cottage cheese business, and my young son uh and and I'm serious. He didn't want to be in the entertainment business. My other two sons in the entertainment business. He went, he's kind of an entrepreneur. He went to the grocery stores. He looked at what

hadn't been innovated. You know, yogurt had been innovated. Everything else to be had innovation. Cottage cheese had not. I said, are you crazy? He did example he he is in every whole foods now with his good culture cottage cheese. And meeting the young people that he has in cottage cheese is like meeting a new young actress, a new young actor, a new young doc age. She's the way you felt about TV back there. And maybe maybe, but the fact is, I really like I like my children's

friends that all went to film school. I talked to all of them. I keep saying to my wife and mother talked to them and talked to our friends, and she gets very upset about that. But no, I like I like the new But so at Paramount, you're there and Dealer is the head guy, and you're with Dialer and explain to people who don't know how Dealer acquiescence to you, and you say to him, these are the movies that we're gonna make. Did he have did you confer with him? Did he ever say to you know,

I don't like this. Were you completely on your own? You were self determining by and how many releases on average were you doing back then? We were probably doing fourteen and twenty releases. Um, he, we were a team. I did not do any of my own. He did not do any of his own. I mean we talked twenty times a day. Uh. Mostly he would say I hate it, and I would say, well, then, Barry, we have no films. And then we would argue about the film.

Or he would call me up and say we talked about Warren Baby for a Warren has a film that is a problem at Warners. Uh, let's read it in the next hour, and if we say yes, Warren will do it paramount, so that took an hour. Some films American Jigglow or or other films. Officer and a gentleman in terms of a German took longer. But we discussed. We argued always in private. In public we were one team, a team, and uh, it just weren't he was. He's a very good critic. Uh, And we we discussed it

a lot. What's the movie you bet on and you were wrong? What's the movie? You really went to the mattresses before he said we got to make this movie us his name one. I never had to go to the mattress. We always came to an agreement. But we made a movie called White Dog, which I still think was misunderstood. I hated that movie White Dog, my guy.

I couldn't stand White Dog. Well, you were not alone, so I can't believe you could confessing you made because I always wondered, I wonder if I ever meet the guy, the greenlit White Dog man, I am not going to give him a piece of my mind. I want my money back. You want to hear what the idea was posted, because a lot of times you go from the script to the stage to the screen and it's not what you thought it was. Many times it's been the opposite. It's it's it's turned out so much better than I

thought it would be. With our Lion King or whatever was. There's an actress and she's a young actress and she's driving to Beka commercial and she's she hits a dog, a white dog, right German chef, and she is so beset. She goes, she thinks the dog to the vet. She brings the dog home. So the first act is her love affair with this dog and they're inseparable. And then she brings the dog to a a set to make a commercial. And sometimes how in the set the dog

sees somebody walk across and goes after him. To make a longer story short, the whole second act is the dog is somehow a racist. This dog is a racist. She goes to the supermarket and the dogs in the car and African American family walks by, and this dog goes nuts. The bottom line is you it really is a white dog. It's white on many levels, no question

about it. Then the third act you find out that this white dog was trained in a southern state to be a attack dog, and so she takes the dog to another trainer to untrained the dog in this thing, and eventually the trainer that D programmed D program And the whole idea of the film was supposed to be

that prejudice is learned. You aren't born with prejudice. It's part of your environment, as part of your parents, as part of your community, and you can if you're trained to be a racist, you can be maybe trained to get to not well. We picked the director who was an action or end director, who was a mistake. He made a film that basically we got killed for her. So that was a film that I really felt was an interesting idea with an interesting character that just never

achieved what I wanted to. So I hope that the lesson for you was that you and Barry stopped bringing your park Avenue in Beverly Hills, lefty consciousness to the film slater and let's just make money and let's forget about de programming racist dogs. Was that the lesson for you? Or I never really was ever trying to make political films. I mean, we did make reds, we made we made any film that sounded interesting. It just happened. I thought this idea of this white dog and many people have

made animal films. Was an interesting twist. I was completely wrong. Now, obviously the business is littered with there's a lot of twisted wreckage on the runway here of people in your position who the opposite is true. There's movies that you say goodbye to that you don't want to make, and they go off and become Because what's an example of that for you, of somebody who took a movie from you and they jampen into the hoop. Well, I had we made a movie, uh, with Goldie on called foul Play,

and I'm very friendly with Goalie from that movie. And somebody presented a movie to us and I said, to her her William Mars agent. But I saw a picture of her. She's kind of heavy. Uh. He said, Oh, you ought to sit down with her. So I said, okay. So she came to the office and she said, so you think I'm fat? She said, you know, I just had a baby. I said I didn't know. Oh, I just said I'm sorry. So then she pitched uh and correctly,

So uh, Private Benjamin one of my favorites. Right. So I met with her and I said and and and others uh, And I said, I don't think that's the third act. The first act is great when you have the guy died at the wedding and called Albert Brooks actually died away and Yale and right, and I thought Goldie Hans in the army. But you don't have a third act. So between not saying you're a third act and the next day they went and sold at the Columbia and the movie came out was a giant hit.

It still didn't have a third act. It didn't matter. It was this unbelievable hit. And it was kind of a lesson for me because I knew this from television, from the movie of the Week, from Barry and I and all that stuff. That a really unbelievable concept. Unbelievable concept. It's kind of hard to kill, especially in TV where it's all about the promotion for the one time only it's not like word of mouth, and this concept of

Goldie Horn playing Private Benjamin, you couldn't kill it. And I just was shortsighted about that because I just wanted a third act and it was stupid. The eventually, I guess it's what year does not that we would remember this eventually? Uh Diller leaves Paramount, and you're hoping you're going to get that job. Correct. Not really what happened was um Charlie Bluehorn, who was the CEO of Golfing Western, which owned Paramount. Jeffrey would always do his impersonations for me.

That's good. So with Bob Evans. Bob Evans was good at it. So he was a great guy. He died very prematurely. And the guy that took over, Marty Davis, lay put this way. When I heard in the radio he died, I called Barry up and I said, Barry, you know Marty died, And Barry said, I hope it was painful. That's that's what we thought about this guy. He he was soft and so unpleasant and so nasty. And we worked for him for about a year and a half and we both decided this is not the

place to be. And Barry got involved with Fox, and I was thinking about going with him to Fox, and then the Disney thing came up out of the blue, and we both how did the Disney thing come up? Because describe the shape the company was in at that time, Well, the company was in terrible shape. The company was being broken apart. It had a lot of investors trying to break it apart. I know Karan was trying to get the film library, and Mary it was trying to get

the hotels. And it was over and I was at camp but the mid season with my kid, and I got a call saying to you have a contract to Paramount. And this was exactly at the time that I was not happy, as Barry wasn't happening. I said no, And two weeks later it was the CEO and chairman of Disney the board, Uh Frank Wells, who came as a president. I came as a chairman. Frank Wells kind of had been playing in this field for a year and Frank Wells knew what they needed was a CEO who was

creatively oriented. They could get CEOs who needed to make better movies, yes, and they needed a whole vitality and and and Chaman aggressively not he had. He had taken over UH Warners at one point as the head guy, and then they did Exorcist to the next year, and then he didn't like having to make those decisions and he wanted He was the most selfless person I've ever met. I mean, they wanted us to be co chairman, And I said, I can't believe I said it, because I

had hated Paramount at that point. I said, no, these companies have to be run. I one person has to be So when when Barry leaves, you're not pining for the job his job at Paramount, you want out of there, You don't really don't want to stay. Yeah, within a week I was going. And when then did anybody with the name Disney? I mean, there's a small list here. Didn done anybody with the last name Disney? Were they pivotal and getting you to get that job as well? Roy?

What was going on with us? But the family? Yeah, the well, the family was dysfunctional, as has been written about a lot. And and Walt is the considered his his nephew Roy not up to anything on the other day, and Roy looked like Walt. And Roy was still there on the board, and Walter had died twenty two years earlier, and they treated Roy badly and they didn't let him do anything. And he was part of this takeover to

to to bring Disney to its knees. And he's the one that called me up because I sat on a board for California's Through the Arts next to him. That's how I knew him. And he wanted this change, and he wanted, as he described, a out of control creative force. Uh that was like his uncle, That's the way he described it. I said, I'm not gonna give you that. I'm not your uncle, but I am maybe out of control and and and and ambitious. And well I was less ambitious than I was. I just liked, you know,

the party I was going to. I liked I'd never had been to Disneyland twice with my kids. I liked that idea of building parts. I liked the idea of the real estate. I liked the idea of that you can put it all back together again the right way, or would be thrilling right. And they and what happened was this, this family in Texas by the name of the Best, said Bass, and his brothers recognized the opportunity.

And it was really interesting because they the day before the last board meeting, they kind intacted us and they said they wanted Frank Wells, not me, because Frank had this Rhodes scholar legal, beautiful person, you know, very waspy, and I was this, uh different, let's put that way. And so Frank came over on a Saturday, and I thought, well, maybe he's manipulating it because I didn't know him. And

I said, well, let's call them in Texas. And we called them and I had one speaker phone in my house. Frank ran over because he was a runner, so he was soaking wet, dripping on our floor and he and I called them who were in the office. There are about six of them the office in Fort Worth. And I gave a kind of a Jimmy Stewart, you know, uh speech in front of Congress about how the Disney Company how to be run from a creative point of view. It had to be about what is the movie? What

is the theme park? What is television? How do you get back into television? How do you get the video? And I went on for maybe I don't know, a minute. There was a pause of five seconds and said they said, you're a guy. You should be chairman. And it was under Eisner's direction that Disney transformed from a film and theme park company into a global media empire. Explore the Here's the Thing Archives. I talked with Lorne Michael's, the creator and producer of Saturday Night Live, about what he

felt after the very first episode wrapped. I was the same way then that I am now. I only see the mistakes, and I tend to wear that up until about the second drink at the party. Even last week's show takes me really through midway through Sunday. You just take me a couple of days. I'm gonna get over it now in a day. Because you're always hoping that everything's gonna work the way you were hoping it's gonna work.

Take a listen that Here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My guest today is Michael Eisner, who is, among many other things, the former CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Eisener is shrewd and hardly risk averse that he explains the rapid and astronomical growth of the company during his tenure in more magical terms. It just happened. I mean the first day, on the way to the office, I got a call from Cia asked me whether we be

interested in in Golden Girls, which I said yes. That was the first day. The second day was palmser Ski, who was having a bad relationship at Fox. Would we want to make down and out in Beverly Hills with you know, turned out to be Bette Midler and Nicknosy. So it was like going to a Chinese restaurant and picking the best choices there were. There are always, which is what amazes me about the entertainments which I love. There are a lot of choices. There are a lot

of great things. The key is having an instinct seeing what it is, seeing who's doing it, enthusiasm for it. Uh, willing to fail because you know, if you if you want to accelerate your your your potential for success, you've got to double your failure rate. I mean that's kind of a Watson IBM theory and it's true. And then you have to you just go. You just do it now.

Did you think, though, that not that the live action division was underperforming or that they weren't earning as many awards, but was there a craving for more quality and more rewards and things when you purchased Mirramax? What was in the Mirramax purchase? Did you think you're gonna buy some oscars when you brought Mirramax? No? Uh. When I was at Paramount, Charlie blue Edoor call up and say I don't care about oscars. I want you to win the Back of America Award. I mean that was what that

was what he was Jones. I can't do the accent, but that you could do it. That's what he did and I never thought about. Honestly, I don't like research. I don't mind exit poll. You know, you do a movie and you see what the audience liked after they see it. I've never believed in asking an audience what they want. We never did research. We simply made movies and television that we thought was fun to make and interesting to make. We never thought about awards or any

of that. You just did it day in and day out. So live action was easier because it's quicker, and Disney needed stuff we needed to get going. We had. We didn't have a distribution company. We put out three movies a year. It was nothing. We had no international. Um you know what. I don't know how it worked, I really don't. It just did, and it's worked for me in this one little area, which is what maybe I'm like an idiot savant in this one little area, which

is uh being attracted to new ideas. Just it's not a job. I never thought it was a job I never asked, you know, there was all this, a lot of publicity about it, how well I did financially, which I'd never I'd never asked for anything. Anybody said I didn't even as anything, and so so complaints to you about your compensation. I just rolled off your back. No, because I believe everything I read in the New York

Times or anywhere except for it's about me. And then as I don't believe any of it, so I you know, you never like to people say they don't care about criticism, you don't like to see it. I find the executives care more than the actress. Sometimes about the criticis axtly, that's for sure. No, as I'm going in a car to Disney to meet the board the first day, somebody says to me, what deal do you want? And I said, We'll just I'll just take whatever my paramount deal was.

And that was the last negotiation I had for seven years. We did so well. The company went from billion five to eight billion dollars in value, and I benefited from that. You know. We we we bought the Los Angeles Angels and we started the Anaheim Ducks. And people talk about salaries of players. You know, to find somebody that can throw a hundred mile an pitch. If that person exists, that's a competitive environment. Now, the fact of the matter is he can only do it for about six years.

And many actors who get paid well don't get paid well for fourty or fifty years. They they have they have a high point. I do not have a problem with salaries. I don't even have problems with executive salaries as long as executive salaries are tied to performers. When there when executives get paid when the performance is bad and they manipulate the SYS, that to me is atrocious.

But but our system is what it is. And by the way, when I was making seventy a week as an usher and I would read about the chairman of that point, it was our c A or NBC making all this money. I thought that was great. That was like, oh, someday, maybe I can get to that level. And almost everybody I deal with in the entertainment business, almost everybody comes from very modest backgrounds and they've worked there. There's no

cast system. You know, when you read a writer script, you don't care who that writer is, what that writer looks like if it's good, it's good. It's just, it's just, it's based on merit. You stay at Disney until two thousand five, you stay longer, and then eventually you leave. Why did you want to leave in two thousand five? Well it was a different era. Describe how different? Well it was different, and that we had gone from nothing to this giant company. Uh. I was. I had had

a heart issue twenty years earlier. I was still had ten scripts sitting in my bedstand unread every night. I was still traveling all over the world. There was a lot of dissension I was. I was in conflict with the Weinstein's. I was in conflict a little bit with Steve Jobs. I was in conflict with Roy Disney, and my point of view was and in hindsight, I wasn't political enough. Now I read all about politics and Marine Dowd the other day about running doing what's right as

opposed to doing what's political. I was doing towards the end of my UH career of Disney, through my arrogance and success, always where I thought was right and never where I thought was political. So even though the Weinstein's were the darling of New York and the media. We were losing a fortune because Harvey wanted to be more than what he's great at, which is a kind of independent filmmaker. He wanted to make very expensive films. He

wanted to be in all these other businesses. So I was in conflict with him, books, all the stuff, and so we had a difficult time. Steve Jobs was very difficult. Uh no, right, And I was the point man on on that, and you know, we made before he really knew about it, toy story, and then he got involved and we did we did, you know well, but we were in conflict. And Roy Disney, who was not of talent, was trying to do a lot of things that I felt were wrong creatively and had a style them. So

I was in conflict. So the combination of that conflict, even though we would performed fantastically for twenty years, we were everything was it was, and which Bob Eiker has then taken and done great jobs with. Um, it was time. I was, you know, like sixty five, and it was

time to go do other things, and which I have done. Um. I have a show on Netflix called bow Jack Horseman, which I think is we want to talk to you about that about right, which is which is great fun and doing great and uh, I'm doing a lot of other things. And I now I'm able to exercise from eight to nine in the morning. I don't have to be the opposite seven thirty. And maybe I'm still alive because of that. The just just just to touch on this because and this is the last thing I want

to talk about about that past. There's so much more we could cover, but I'm just so intrigued by having someone who has had the incredible success when you talk about to say this to flatter you, but as you said, to go from however many billion to eighty billion, and the roy Disneys the world, I'm going to assume that they were major stockholders. You put a lot of money in their pocket when you inflated the value of that company, no doubt. And you know, you're considered one of the

most successful motion picture executives in history. You know, you and Ross and Daily and Samuel had that great run at Warner Brothers and just printed money with Batman and all these Mail Gibson movies, and you know, what you did at Disney is just unparalleled. And then the time comes for you to end and you don't make Catsenburg your replacement when you leave. Was it a tough decision for you? Well, that was ten years earlier. That was

when Frank Wells died. Frank died in correct, and the board came to me, particularly Roy, and said, if you make Jeffrey Cansenburg anything, we will sort of proxy fight. Why do you think that they said that? Honestly, I think jeff wasn't that material to be the head guy. It was well with Roy, it was emotional. Jeffrey Cassenberg is great at being charming and rate at dealing with important people, and they great at all of those things. He was Roy was was made titular head of animation.

He really didn't have anything to do. Jeffrey was in charge, and Jeffrey ignored him because his ideas were terrible. And I would say to Jeffrey off and Jeffrey, just treat him like he would treat an agent. Treat him well, just be nice to him. And Jeffrey and I understand it didn't have the time. Jeffrey was on a treadmill going on thousand miles an hour, and he didn't have a time to be politic with Roy. And when Frank died. Roy made it clear that this guy was not going

to be promoted. That and the fact I personally thought he wasn't ready. The combination of those two things led him to leave and start dream Work. So he leaves and starts DreamWorks. And then you get into the whole situation with Ovin's. Well, now it's about a year later, um, and we buy Capital Cities ABC, right, and UM, now I am. I had had heart surgery. J Scripps in the bin next to the bed. Jeffrey's gone, and my

wife is saying, you need help. And Michael, whom I've known since he was in his young twenties, seemed like he could be a solution. And I was very ambivalent about that because I knew him well. My wife was very much in favor of it. My middle son told me I was crazy, and I did it and it was a terrible mistake. He was, he he had well, he was. He always ran a company where he didn't smell them, he sold them. He didn't care about what what,

He didn't care that you were in exit movie. He cared how much money you were getting an ex movie. He was all about. He was an agent. He was an investment banker type I mean, and he did a very good job for his parents and he and by the way, I was the key person when the five of them left William Morris. I brought all five of them in the second week they left at ABC, had every I had a special daytime movies, everybody in the room and they weren't allowed to leave the room until

they gave each one of those guys a deal. And he had good talent, but not what he used what he had later. And my motivation was he told me he wasn't going to charge timpercent commission package commission like William Morris, which of course they still they did quite soon there after. So my idea was I needed help. He would be a good successor. And it lasted a year. It was a disaster, and he had a as everybody knows, the whopping compensation package, which was adjudicated deep in a

year after you left it. This wasn't resolved in two thousand and six apparently in Delaware. Correct again completely, which would not surprise you. Misrepresented in the media. The fact of the matter is, even I've been at forty million dollars in a company the size of Disney, which it wasn't. It just wasn't working. We couldn't bring the company down

by a mistake. It was my mistake, it was. And by the way, just so you know, every newspaper, all our shareholders, including Warren and everybody else, when I made the announcement called me to say it was the most brilliant thing I'd ever done at Disney, that I brought in the guy who wouldn't say that. There's as far as as far as executive tough business a decision that

this was. I was bringing in the person news of the cover of Newsweek is the most powerful man in Hollywood, who made the miss Schuster deal to buy Universal and all this stuff. I was bringing in a real leader and it didn't work. What kind of stuff are you working on now? Bow Jack Horseman is with Netflix now? People always complained to me and say that, you know, Netflix is great at once, but then no back end and Netflix, I mean, television has changed exponentially since you

were running ABC and then when you bought ABC. I mean, one minute, you're fetching I don't know who you're fetching coffee for. Over there in the beginning in the seventies, when you're working there as a as a as an usher or whatever your first job. Anybody right, anyway that anybody that told you listen, kids a lot of longer with this type pressed and light starts in those shirts. But the UH. And then of course you have this fabled career and you buy ABC your company. What's changed

for you? What what amazes you the most of the way it is now? Well, first of all, the secret on Netflix just answer that is it's fantastic. As a producer, I have in the first season, I have sent profit checks to the UH, to the talent. I did the same thing with the show I did on Nickelodeam. I don't believe in this idea of producing for so much more money than you get in. So we've had a very good relationship with Netflix and everybody that works on

this show, Raphael Bob Waxburg, who's a genius. It's an animated adult type of show. Um loves it. So I'm doing a lot of that kind of stuff. I am. I own a company called Tops, which you may remember to baseball cards, and we are the governant with the Governant, but we are now a global company. We're very big in international football, Premier League bundes League, Champions League soccer. Right, Um, I am. I got about twenty investments and new ideas,

new new digital companies. I'm an advisor to my three children who don't listen, but I still an advisor to him and doing exercising from eight tw nine o'clock in the morning. I have time to exercise. Uh, Like right now, I don't have thirty phone calls to return because something is how you do but them I can return them from now. Now. Your son, what's something you wanted him to know? Is he was coming up in the business.

You said you knew nothing about directing and putting movies together, but you know a hell of a lot about the movie business. What did you want him to know? Well, the one thing that I'm proud of my three sons and they all have great spouses and tons of grandchildren and all that is that there decent and I think it's probably hard to follow a successful father. Um, they don't seem to think that. J. J. Abrams dad was a successful TV producer and he has certainly eclipsed his father, Jerry.

I made many movies with Jerry, with Jerry and Jerry Eisenberg, the two of them that were a team and we made a lot of movies of the Week with them. By the way, the people who ruin the entertainment business are all my children's age. They are all A lot of them are sons of friends of mine. I can't get them on the phone, but they're still friends of sons of friends of mine. You're not the Eisener that they want to call back anymore. There's another eis where

they want to call, you know. I remember going to soccer fields with a y s osccer with my sons growing up, and somebody are going to a hockey games. Two of my sons made hockey and they would tell Eisner, like get on the field, and I was halfway on the field. No, I'm I'm Eisner. Now, I don't even move. I went a while back, a while back. I don't

really I don't really see that many things. But a while back when the Last Batman came out, that Christian Bale was in and the trailers came on in advanced, and I must say, I'm not a squeamish person. I mean, I mean, I'm not a I mean I'm somebody who's liked action films and if they have a violent component that serves the story. That's okay, But um my god, I couldn't believe how violent these movies were. They had to have eight or ten trailers, and everyone someone was

by with their physical hands. In some martial arts, uh, ballet was just taking someone apart, or guns and some other advanced weaponry. Is that something that you've seen change in terms of the content of the movie business over the last several years. It's disturbed or you know, I feel that way. Well. At Paramount we must have made two hundred films and we only made two action films in that entire time, and we were still very successful. At Disney, we didn't make Star Trek Paramount, and at

Disney most of our action stuff was modest. I am hoping that this live action films that you described is like car are like cartoons, that people in the audience realize its fiction, realize it's all bubble gum activity, right, because if it begot violence in a susceptible male audience, that would be bad. I've studied a lot about this

because I ran children's program at ABC. I put on Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and one other In one show from wonders when I was there, and I am convinced that kids do not think they can get on kitchen tables and fly off of it. And I am convinced that when you see Batman or Superman or the all of Marvels stuff, they don't really think that they can emulate that.

To me, the other kind of violence, the more realistic violence, this street violence, is more disturbing the bubble gun violence is like a cartoon, So I don't know how it's affecting uh are our civilization. I'm much more nervous about the ability to leave the theater and get a gun, which is so easy. I think that people who watch violent content and it motivates them to commit an act of violence as a whole other psychopathology before they enter

the theater. I don't think the film business is responsible for that. Um, you're a man who's seen as as a consequence of the business shom You've seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of movies. When you go to the movies. Now, describe when Michael Eisner, the famous Michael Eisner, goes to the movies. What does he do? Is it a bucket of popcorn? Is it raised and that's what are you? Is in a screening room, moving in your own home? Or do you go to the theater. I almost only

go to the theater. I go at least twice a week. And what do you doing? I often go at ten o'clock or midnight. Uh, can't drag my wife out. Usually I'll go in the afternoon. Uh. I can remember even being at ABC when I was twenty seven years old and having a fight with somebody and saying, you know what, I'm getting out of here and go to Broadway and go to a movie. So I do see a lot of movies. Um, I like maybe it's age related. I

like the dramas. I like, uh, the comedies. I'm a little little I admire the technology and the action films. The action films, but my wife likes those one than I do. What's a movie that when you were in charge of these movie companies you made. Guess there must have been obviously countless examples. Give me, but give me one example where you're and I'm being very Hollywood myself right now, you're in a screening room alone or with your associates. You sit there and you go, man, I'm

proud of that movie. That we made. What's one that really really you think, God, I'm proud of that movie. I love that movie. Well, the problem is the first time you see it and it's really good, you keep hoping it's going to end quickly. It's like going to a hockey game where your son is the goalie and you and they're leading one nothing, and you just wanted to end because you keep being fearful that it's going to fall apart. Sometimes they fall apart in the first

scene and then you then then then it's agony. I mean, but you sit there and if it actually ends and you still are related like you are from the beginning, Uh, it's a great field. What's one you're very proud of? What's one that moved you? You said they're gonna God, damn, I'm glad I made that movie. Well, you know, I

don't know, because there's there were so many guys. If I fake back, I think when you know, John Travolta and I've had a lot of success together, and we started with Connor and then Boys in the Plastic Bubble and then he went into Saturday Night Fever and that was a leap for us Paramount. It was very early for him. I didn't know that it was a musical. I didn't know the b g were still alive. I didn't know that Robert Stick was the entrepreneur manager of

the BGS was still alive. Uh. And when you sat down and you saw the main title and the feet walking down the street, you just knew instantly you're onto something. It was on something. Michael Eisner is still onto something right now. Netflix releases the third season of bow Jack Horseman, his animated series about a former sitcom star horse trying to make a comeback. This summer. And these days, Michael

Eisner is making his mark outside the entertainment industry. To The Eisner Foundation supports programs that bring young people and the elderly together to solve problems. This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing or