Part II, Chapter L: "You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me"
“Really, the trouble all started in ‘94. Once the board of directors made me president, Roy [Disney] started his little war with us. It really didn’t help that our films were doing poorly at the box office. Sure, The Lion King was a success, but one or two successful films didn’t make up for all of our other failures.”
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, on Disney during the mid-1990s.
The mid-1990s would bring trouble for Disney. While the late 80s and early 90s had seen Disney move from success to success, with revenues increasing every year. Under the leadership of Michael Eisner, Disney was making a series of major acquisitions of other companies, and saw a resurgence in traditionally animated films.
However, trouble began for Disney during the production of
Aladdin. For the role of the Genie, the producers wanted comedian Robin Williams, with the animators having made a short test animation set to one of his comedy sets. Williams was interested, but aware that he was going to be the biggest name involved with the film, wanted to make sure that the film’s advertisements would not be based solely on his presence, and that his voice would not be used to sell merchandise.
Tentatively, Williams signed on after Disney agreed to his requests. At the time, Williams was also involved with another film,
FernGully. Disney was keen for Williams to drop out of that project, and began actively working to hinder the development of that film, outbidding
FernGully’s team for venues. Rather than making Williams stop his involvement with that film, it instead led to him drawing further away from Disney. It was also clear from early posters that Disney were going to take advantage of all of the loopholes of the contract, as the character of the Genie was made more prominent on early posters.
Williams had recorded many hours of lines by the time he dropped out of the project, not taking the pay for the project. For Disney, this was a major issue, as they had no second choice voice actor for the Genie. Soon after, they were able to hire Dan Castellana in Robin Williams’ place, and re-record the lines. However, Williams had made his reasons for leaving the project public, hurting the film’s reputation somewhat. [1]
Ultimately, the film was a financial success, though nowhere near the hit that Disney was hoping for. As 1992 saw profits drop again, it was clear that Disney needed a turnaround, and soon. It was hoped that 1994’s
The Lion King could be that hit. Upon release, it was a big hit, as hoped, but there would be more trouble for Disney. [2]
1994 also saw the untimely death of its President, Frank Wells, in a helicopter accident. In his place, Michael Eisner, CEO, selected Jeffrey Katzenberg, to whom he had promised the position. Roy Disney, the last member of the family to stay involved with the company, was not happy with this appointment. In retaliation, he began actively working to remove Eisner from his position. [3]
Disney was, effectively, in the midst of a civil war. Unsurprisingly, this further hurt profits, as the company became more and more dependent on merchandise and the theme parks, rather than the film and television division. One major effect of this dispute would be that the planned acquisition of/merger with ABC would fall through.
It was clear that Disney was in trouble, and big changes were needed. [4]
[1] All OTL up until now. Here, the issues with Disney cause him to leave the project, forgoing his paycheck.
[2] Without Williams, the film will not be as successful as OTL. This has a few major effects, the big one being that animated films rely far less on bringing in big names, rather on the talent of their voice actors. The Lion King will be a bit different, but not too much.
[3] No Dreamworks as a result of this. Also, Disney media from here will be very different. Roy isn't going to try to actively sabotage the company, that would be self-defeating, but he will be causing trouble for Eisner's plans.
[4] The 1990s will be seen as a time that saw a major shakeup in popular culture ITTL.