Eller, Finke on Jacobson
I should have linked yesterday to Claudia Eller's L.A. Times account of Nina Jacobson's dismissal as Disney production president. Jacobson was told Monday morning by studio chairman Dick Cook "when she called him from the hospital room where her partner was about to deliver their third child. Despite the record-breaking performance of Disney's current release, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, she was hearing rumors and wanted reassurance that her job was safe. It wasn't."
Acknowledging that the timing was bad, Cook said, "I begged to see her face to face and she wanted to talk to me right then. This was not what anybody wanted." (Of course, we all know that when you're hearing rumors that your job might be imperiled and you call your boss for reassurance and he/she says, "Come to my office so we can talk," you're as good as dead anyway.)
And Nikki Finke is seeing an old-boy sexist angle with Paramount's Gail Berman and Sony's Amy Pascal "the only women [reminaing] in positions of real Hollywood power" with Jacobson, Fox 200's Laura Ziskin, Columbia's Lisa Henson and Lucy Fisher, Paramount's Sherry Lansing, Universal's Stacey Snider and DreamWorks' Laurie MacDonald having "all left their posts, because of situations where either they jumped or were pushed. " (Obviously Snider's move from Universal to Dreamamount was neither a tragedy nor a comedown.)
The result, Finke laments, "is that Hollywood movies are returning to the old days when it was a man's world."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 19, 2006 at 8:35 AM
comment #1
High-Pitched Poland says ...
David Poland predicted all of this. The firing, her replacement, the call while her partner was giving birth -- he even knew the name of the child before Nina did!
Posted by High-Pitched Poland at July 19, 2006 9:21 AM
comment #2
Rich S. says ...
If only Nina hadn't started going bald....
Posted by Rich S. at July 19, 2006 9:45 AM
comment #3
nola says ...
Is it true her dad is dying at the same hospital? I don't understand the timing of this. She just renewed her contract. They have to pay her out anyway so it's not a money issue. Good for her turning down the production deal. She probably wouldn't be able to get anything made there anyway.
Posted by nola at July 19, 2006 10:13 AM
comment #4
steve says ...
Dick Cook is a total pig.
Posted by steve at July 19, 2006 10:52 AM
comment #5
AH says ...
I think the issue here is not that she was fired, we never know the full machinations behind studio operations anyway, it's the way she was fired.
Disney could definitely have done a better job with this.
Posted by AH at July 19, 2006 10:53 AM
comment #6
lesterg says ...
Getting terminated, over the phone, while you're in the delivery room...it's like a chick flick come to life. Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers couldn't come up with something as over-the-top.
BTW, how safe is Amy Pascal's position at this point?
Posted by lesterg at July 19, 2006 11:12 AM
comment #7
Dixon Steele says ...
Pascal is having a great summer with The DaVinci Code and the upcoming Monster House and Will Ferrell comedy, which both look like hits.
Posted by Dixon Steele at July 19, 2006 12:37 PM
comment #8
Dave Poland's Gut says ...
Fired after having the biggest opening ever? Rough.
Posted by Dave Poland's Gut at July 19, 2006 12:42 PM
comment #9
Nina, Pinta, and Sayonara says ...
Yes, it's true that Nina was fired after the Biggest Opening Ever. And it's also true that she is a smart and creative executive who steered Disney cleared of the imminent "Lady in the Water" debacle. All true, and all commendable.
But we are forgetting that her replacement has a story credit on "National Treasure."
Don't you see the cosmic balances shifting?
Posted by Nina, Pinta, and Sayonara at July 19, 2006 11:48 PM
comment #10
So Long, Wes Coen says ...
From the New York Times: “I want to make movies like ‘The Pacifier,’ †[Aviv] said, a Disney hit comedy starring Vin Diesel about an undercover agent who agreed to become a nanny.
See--there's nothing to worry about.
And this: “I never asked for this job,†Mr. Aviv said. “Dick wanted to go in a different direction.â€
Yes, the job came as a "complete shock," just as Aviv was giving birth to a new idea, a film about a nanny who finds a secret code underneath the Gettysberg Address. I smell tentpole!
Posted by So Long, Wes Coen at July 20, 2006 3:16 AM