Word: katzenberg
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Sometimes it really is a small, small world. Next week DreamWorks--the studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen--opens its first cartoon feature, Antz. The computer-animated story of life in an ant colony, Antz features the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone and Dan Aykroyd. In November Pixar, the creator of Toy Story, and Disney, the studio where Katzenberg was chairman for 10 years, plan to release A Bug's Life, which also happens to be the computer-animated story of life in an ant colony. It features the voices of NewsRadio...
Coincidence? That depends on whom you ask. Pixar head Steven Jobs was said to be "furious" when he found out that DreamWorks was working on a movie about ants. It is an open secret that in background sessions with reporters at numerous publications, he has been complaining that Katzenberg swiped the idea for Antz on his way out the door from Disney in 1994 or sometime thereafter. Katzenberg's camp angrily denies that he ever heard of the Bugs project while at Disney and says that in fact the idea for Antz was pitched to Katzenberg by a DreamWorks executive...
...marry the two cultures together and say, 'This is a brilliant story that takes place in England; we'll give that to Anthony Minghella [director of The English Patient]. This is something that's feminist and sexy; that sounds like Jane Campion [The Piano]." Ahh. Why didn't Jeffrey Katzenberg think of that...
...taken Disney's heart with it. It also left the now 56-year-old Michael Eisner, the company's brilliant chief executive, lacking a confidant and a suitable successor. In the past four years, Eisner has entertained a number of pretenders to the throne, notably Michael Ovitz and Jeffrey Katzenberg, only to ultimately discard them--painfully and publicly...
...matter has wiped out any hope for lucrative merchandising deals and Happy Meals. There will be no burning-bush night-lights. The filmmakers must also tread carefully to avoid offending the too-numerous-to-count religious communities that regard the story of Moses as their own. To ensure authenticity, Katzenberg says, he has met with more than 500 religious leaders, including a pontifical council on social reform at the Vatican and Fundamentalist minister Jerry Falwell...