When the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Entertainment, they acquired a lot more more than just the 5,000 characters in Marvel’s stable, they also found a slate of lawsuits hiding under that  rock. Not only will Disney likely end up suing some of the other studios who have the movie rights for some of those characters, but the creators of the characters are starting to pursue something called ‘creator rights.’

It’s a bit complicated, but the New York Times put its crack squad on it and now there’s a really good look at all the various factions and the legal issues. This case, and the inevitable appeals, will drag on for years. But it could end up costing Disney billions in potential revenue if the Kirby heirs get the rights to decide who makes movies using the Kirby characters.

Gotta keep a close eye on this one.

Jeffrey “Sparky” Katzenberg talks with Forbes magazine about 10 minutes that changed his life. That, of course, was when he was fired from the Walt Disney Company. I’ve heard some pretty mean things about Katzenberg and the way he behaved while lording over the studios, but I’m feeling a little softer to him after reading this piece. He has some very nice things to say about his time furthering Walt’s legacy.

Roy Edward Disney, son of Disney Studios co-founder Roy O. Disney, and nephew of Walt Disney, passed away Dec. 16 at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif., following a yearlong battle with stomach cancer. He was 79 years old.

Disney played a key role in the revitalization of The Walt Disney Company and Disney’s animation legacy. He was associated with the Company for more than 56 years, and from 1984-2003, served as vice chairman of the Company’s board of directors and chairman of the Studio’s Animation department. In recent years, he held the title of director emeritus and consultant for the Company.

As head of Disney Animation, he helped to guide the Studios to a new golden age of animation with an unprecedented string of artistic and box office successes that included The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King.

Commenting on the announcement, Bob Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, said, “On behalf of everyone at Disney, we are saddened by the loss of our friend and colleague Roy E. Disney. He was much more than a valued 56-year Company veteran – Roy’s true passion and focus were preserving and building upon the amazing legacy of Disney animation that was started by his father and uncle.”

Disney was born in Los Angeles on January 10, 1930 to Roy O. Disney and Edna Francis Disney. His father and his uncle, Walt Disney, co-founded the Disney entertainment business in 1923.

After attending Harvard School and Pomona College, Disney joined The Walt Disney Studios in 1953 as an assistant film editor. He produced and directed several TV and theatrical productions before leaving the Company in 1977 to become an independent producer and investor.

Disney served on the board of trustees of California Institute of the Arts. Additionally, he was an advisory member of the board of directors of the United States Committee for UNICEF and a member of the board of trustees of Ronald McDonald House charities.

Disney is survived by his wife, Leslie, and four children from his marriage to Patricia Dailey Disney — Tim Disney, Roy Patrick Disney, Abigail Disney and Susan Disney Lord. He also is survived by 16 grandchildren.

Roy Edward Disney, nephew of Walt Disney, has died at the age of 79. Known recently as the architect of two share holder revolts that saved the Walt Disney Company (one from a takeover and one from the ruin of Michael Eisner), Roy E. was original known, somewhat affectionately, as that darn nephew. Among many other projects he helped grow the “True Life Adventures” brand for the Walt Disney Studios and later worked closely with Walt Disney Feature Animation to revive the Fantasia movies with Fantasia 2000.

Rumors of his declining health had been swirling for the last few years since he stepped back from his joy – yacht racing. Only recently, since his absence at the dedication of the Walt Disney Family Museum, have the rumors grown more serious. According to the LA Times obituary, he died this morning of Cancer.

Uncle Roy, we owe you our thanks and you’ll be intensely missed by the Disney fan community.

When I’m not being a Disney geek, I play at being an actual geek, so when I see something from Walt Disney Imagineering’s Research and Development team I get really excited as it combines those two passions.

Here’s a video of Bran Ferren, former president of WDI’s R&D division, talking to the Harvard Center for Public Leadership about the six things you need for leadership in the future. The middle section of the 2 hour speech is about his time at WDI. But the whole thing is worth watching. Perfect for a weekend with no college football.

Go ahead and watch, I’ll wait.

Okay. Two hours is a long time, so if you didn’t watch, I understand. One of the interesting things Ferren discusses is how he was hired by Michael Eisner to essentially make sure the company would be relevant in its core competency, Story Telling, for the foreseeable future. To do that he wanted to look at the history of all technological innovations that improved humanity’s ability to perform Story Telling and see if there was a pattern he could base his recommendations on.

Turns out there was. From the invention of movable type (Gutenberg Bible) through to Television, the key thing all the technologies had in common was that they were invented for a different purpose than they eventually served, and the inventor did not get rich off the invention, usually dying penniless.

Ferren was willing to bet that the next “Big Thing” that would totally change story telling was this little thing called “The Internet”. Since it was already invented, no need to worry about dying penniless. This was circa the late 80s, so the World Wide Web of hyperlinked information had yet to be introduced. But even knowing what he knew then, and following what he call’s Ferren’s law, that humans in the future will continue to desire the same things they desire now (love, safety, family, truth, and entertainment), Ferren told Eisner to bet the future of the Walt Disney Company on The Internet.

Ferren claims that Eisner didn’t listen to him, at least not to everything he said. Still Disney did buy Infoseek, which gave them Go.com, in an attempt to compete with the two 800 lb gorilla’s of the time (AOL and Altavista). Not the best move as it turns out, and I’m not sure we can blame that huge write-off on Ferren. Eisner just never saw the potential of a Google because they were concerned with managing content, and not organizing to find it. A big mistake, but also not Disney’s core competency, so it’s understandable.

What if Eisner had bet the whole company on this internet thing? And instead of trying to become the next AOL, had tried to become the first Hulu or Youtube, but 10 years ago and with tools that WDI had developed to make Story Telling incredibly simple to do. What if the Mouse House had for seen that small mobile web enabled devices connecting everything and every bit of knowledge was the future 5 years ago, would they have the corner on the iPhone market today instead of Apple? Interesting to think about, eh.

The internet we know today is very different than what we’ll see in a few years. As Ferren says it’s like sitting on the shore of an ocean and being asked to talk with authority about what’s happening 500 miles out and 2 miles down. But that’s more about the technology, which will change; the basic idea being the internet will remain the same. It’s there to aid humans in interacting with each other in new and better ways. Story telling remains one of the core drivers behind development of The Web and what it will look like in the future (the thing to see here is Kevin Kelly’s recent TED.com talk to be really blown away)

Based on what I hear from Burbank, current CEO Bob Iger is painfully aware that Eisner made a mistake cutting Ferren and his R&D guys from Walt Disney Imagineering. I don’t think it’s too late for Disney to innovate using the The Web (which is conceptually different from the internet, but related and nearly interchangeable, at least in conversation) as a platform for Story Telling, neither does Iger if you look at the recent moves he made in the film divisions.

What if today Iger decides to bet the whole company on this internet thing? First, everything is moving to mobile web enabled devices. Number one thing on the list is to partner with Apple. Check, that’s done. Number two thing on the list is to develop tools that will help earn the company revenue for content, while still understanding that you can never prevent piracy and any attempt to do so harms your customers (and therefore your future bottom line) more so than it does the Pirates, most of which who are just ultra fans who can wait to get their hands on your product to see if it’s worth buying for real in the future anyway. My understanding is that these things are going on right now.

I think there is some pretty spectacular potential for Story Telling in a world where everything is a web enabled device and can tell you its story (where it was made, what raw materials it used, when its next maintenance will be needed, how much energy it used, if you child has been doing all their homework, etc) and is constantly checking in with other devices to work together.

As Bran Ferren concludes, education is the “Big Thing” everyone should be working on right now. That means Disney too. I think now would be the perfect time for Walt’s legacy in Edutainment to be revived, just as they’ve done with the True Life Adventure stories (see EARTH and the DisneyNature shingle), but get back to Donald in Mathmagic Land, revive Professor Owl and Ludwig Von Drake to introduce core bits of knowledge to today’s kids that they need to function in the world of tomorrow. Bring that same spirit into the parks in Tomorrowland and EPCOT and onto the web through Disney interactive.

What do you think? Is this the right track for Disney?

A few years ago Comcast launched an ill fated attempt to take over The Walt Disney Company. Fortunately that fell through and the mouse was safe from outside influences. Well, it’s taken them a few years, but they have a new target with aims to become one of the biggest media companies in the world.

Machinations have been set underway by GE and Vivendi to first unify and then sell 51% of the stock in NBC Universal to Comcast. This will give Comcast the network station, movie studio, sports network, and theme park operation to rival the Mouse House. And you know what, a little serious competition for Mickey might be a good thing.

(via NY Times)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has just fulfilled the wishes of many a Disney theme park fan by moving Disney Worldwide Parks and Resorts Chair Jay Rasulo out of his position. He will be changing places with Disney CFO Tom Staggs effective in the new year.

Many a finger has been pointed in Rasulo’s direction when it comes to fans unhappiness with the theme park divisions direction. (Of course, some of those same fans are not so quick to give accolades when things go right.) He was often accused of not being interested in the parks to the point of avoiding any travel to them. The focus on DVC over regular resorts, the disasterous run (DCA, Paris Studios, Hong Kong Disneyland) of small theme parks with little themeing over immersive parks favored by the fans, and the general decline of the dining experience at the parks have all be laid at the feet of Rasulo’s policies. I’m not sure how fair any of that is.

As for Staggs, to be honest, I don’t know much about his views on Disney’s theme parks division. But I’ve found his handling of the corporate financial conferences to be masterful. To me this move is roughly the equivalent of Eisner putting Wells in charge of the theme parks, a move which I’m sure would have pleased many fans. So there is hope here.

Quotes from Bob Iger and Tom Staggs at the Orlando Sentinel.

Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger takes the 1980s idea of synergy that was perfected by the early Eisner and Wells administration to the next level with his concept of the Franchise.

I’m not talking Kevin Garnett for you NBA fans. Nor is it like Subway where where you sell the concept to others to develop for you. It’s more about finding a tent pole that’s tall enough and strong enough you can hang a tent big enough to cover nearly every aspect of your company (I don’t think I’ve seen any Princess Tiana tie-ins for ESPN… yet) and increase their sales as well.

Based on what I’m seeing in terms of merchandise and in park tie-ins, I think Iger has identified The Princess and The Frog as the next franchise for Disney. A story in the Orlando Sentinel, (full disclosure, I was interviewed for the piece), discusses how much Disney is counting on the frog princess to make it a few bucks

Mitchelson, the Deutsche Bank analyst, said the ancillary potential of The Princess and the Frog is so large that the best measure of its success won’t be box office results — it will be consumer-product sales.

“To the extent that The Princess and the Frog is only considered modestly successful from a film point of view, that doesn’t  mean it won’t be quite successful from the perspective of broadening the princess franchise,” he said.

A good point. It’s been 12 years since the last Princess was introduced, and that’s only if you include Mulan among the princesses. I personally classify her as a hero, along with Pocahontas.

Disney’s most recent franchise consumer products producer was ‘Cars’. While not a critical box office hit, Cars made somewhere north of $4 billion in merchandise sales for the mouse house. I don’t think we’ll see quite that much with Princess Tiana merchandise alone, but when you add in increased sales of other princess merchandise, you might get close.

As evidence, at the Magic Kingdom last night I again saw little girls already wearing the Princess Tiana dress even before the movie has been released. Princesses of all colors too as is befitting a movie that really is an American story.