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  Toonami Infolink :: View topic - Animation News II
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Animation News II
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Andromaton

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2004--In his first wide-ranging interview since he announced his retirement, Disney CEO Michael Eisner tells FORTUNE why he craves drama, still micromanages -- and won't stay on as chairman when he gives up his position as CEO. Speaking to FORTUNE editor-at-large Patricia Sellers, Eisner explains his decision to leave Disney -- when he steps down in September 2006, he will have been at the helm for 22 years -- and discusses his recommendation for a successor, as well as Disney's partnerships with Pixar and Miramax. The story appears in the October 4 issue of FORTUNE, available on newsstands September 27 and at www.fortune.com.

Highlights from the interview:

On why he chose to retire:

"I just decided I wasn't going to be a perpetuity CEO. Nobody inside the company knew it was coming, and none of my friends knew it was coming."

On whether he will stay on the board after his retirement:

"I have not asked the board to stay on the board or be chairman after the end of my contract. My assumption is that I would not continue on the board or as chairman. I have a full business life ahead of me. Clearly I'm not the type to retire, particularly after all these lectures from medical experts about how an active mind is good for the body."

On his recommendation that Bob Iger succeed him as CEO:

"I made myself clear to the company that they have a candidate who not only has the experience in all the businesses in which we operate but also understands the Disney culture, is extremely well liked inside the company and out, has been a great COO, and manages 90% of the company today, including ESPN and its great growth."

On Pixar and Miramax:

"Whether or not Pixar and Disney come closer together past 2006 than they're projected to be or whether or not Miramax stays with the company--well, Miramax is staying, but whether management stays--is simply an issue of value to our shareholders. It has nothing at all to do with personalities. Never has."

On micromanaging:

"You know, if you use the word the way you do, it sounds like something you should go to Mount Sinai or Sloan-Kettering to get cured from. If you use it the way I'm talking about it, which is a work ethic and a demand for product quality, it's something worthwhile."


Last edited by Andromaton on Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
PostMon Sep 20, 2004 4:49 pm
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Andromaton

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The Walt Disney Company the other day named the 2004 Disney Legends, recognizing individuals who have contributed creativity, innovation and imagination to Disney’s rich heritage. Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner presided over the ceremony, which takes place each year at the Disney Legends Plaza at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif.

Since 1923, The Walt Disney Company has been comprised of a collection of talented people who, through many disciplines, have turned dreams into magic. The 2004 Disney Legends are now among 160 actors, film makers, animators, composers and creative people who have been honored since 1987, when Eisner first established this program of distinction and merit, and actor Fred MacMurray received the first Disney Legend designation.

“Walt Disney’s legacy has continued through the passion, creativity and dedication of the individuals recognized today,� said Eisner. “We owe so much to this group that represents the best of Disney - their work is the arc that connects Disney’s history with our success today.�

Honorees participated in a handprint ceremony, creating imprints that will be permanently displayed in bronze at the Disney Legends Plaza. In addition, the honoree or the family of posthumous recipients received a two-foot-tall bronze Disney Legends Award sculpture. The sculpture’s filmstrip, which forms the base, unrolls to represent the beginning of the Company, with Steamboat Willie at the helm. The spiral represents the soaring spirit of imagination. The hand represents the down-to-earth gifts of skill, discipline and craftsmanship. The wand represents magic – the spark ignited whenever imagination and skill combust together to create a new dream.

Following are the 2004 Disney Legends (*honored posthumously):

Bill Anderson* (film and television producer) - One of The Walt Disney Company’s most prolific film and television producers, Anderson also dedicated 24 years of service as a member of Disney’s board of directors. Anderson’s philosophy was “Tell a good story in a light-hearted manner. Family entertainment should be fun; life is melodramatic enough.�

Tim Conway (comedian/actor) - Over the years, Conway has delighted Disney audiences with his antics in memorable live-action motion pictures, including The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), The Shaggy D.A. (1976) and The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). Often paired with funny man Don Knotts, the duo inspired the kind of belly laughs reminiscent of Hollywood’s legendary comedy teams, such as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

Rolly Crump (Imagineer) – Crump was one of Walt’s key designers for Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room and Adventureland Bazaar. He also served as a designer on the Disney attractions featured at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, including it’s a small world. When the attraction moved to Disneyland in 1966, Crump designed the larger-than-life animated clock at the entrance, which sends puppet children on parade with each quarter-hour gong. Crump’s works also included contributing to the initial design of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida.

Alice Davis (Imagineer) - At Walt Disney Imagineering, Davis designed and dressed animated figures for such beloved Disneyland attractions as it’s a small world and Pirates of the Caribbean. Collaborating with art designer and fellow Legend Mary Blair, Alice researched, designed and supervised the creation of more than 150 highly-detailed costumes for the Audio-Animatronics Children of the World.

Karen Dotrice (actress) - Karen Dotrice lit up the screen in such Disney motion pictures as The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), Mary Poppins (1964) and The Gnome-Mobile (1967). Walt Disney, or “Uncle Walt� as Karen knew him, felt she perfectly captured the accent and demeanor associated with her English roots. More recently, Dotrice contributed her voice to a Mary Poppins read-along and appeared in the ABC documentary, Walt Disney: Man Behind the Myth (2001).

Matthew Garber* (actor) - Garber lives forever in Disney’s classic live-action motion pictures The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Gnome-Mobile (1967). Teamed with co-star, childhood friend and fellow Disney Legend Karen Dotrice in all three features, Matthew won the hearts of Disney audiences with his fresh, uninhibited and infectious personality. Matthew’s unusual lack of inhibition in front of the camera quickly inspired Disney’s publicity department at the time to coin him “the youngest method actor in movies.�

Leonard Goldenson* (former Chairman of the Board of ABC) - Leonard H. Goldenson, Founder and former Chairman of the Board of the American Broadcasting Company, Inc., is one of television’s unsung heroes. In 1954, Goldenson defied skeptics who believed movie studios could not be lured into television when he struck a deal with Disney to provide ABC with The Wonderful World of Disney. His many other pioneering achievements include Monday Night Football and live international coverage of the Olympics.

Bob Gurr (Imagineer) - For nearly 40 years, Gurr helped move many a happy Disney theme park guest aboard vehicles and ride conveyances of his own design. As he’s often quipped, “If it moves on wheels at Disneyland, I probably designed it.� And he certainly has, developing more than 100 designs for attractions ranging from Autopia to the Matterhorn Bobsleds to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Monorails.

Irwin Kostal* (conductor/orchestrator) – An award-winning conductor and orchestrator, Kostal brought his innate musical genius to such Disney classic motion pictures as Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1972) and Pete’s Dragon (1977). He received Oscar nominations in the category of Best Music, Original Song Score and Adaptation for all three films.

Ralph Kent (Imagineer) – Kent was originally hired at Disney to develop marketing materials for the Jungle Cruise, Enchanted Tiki Room and other classic attractions. From there, he created training materials for attractions at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, including it’s a small world. In 1965, Ralph designed the first limited-edition Mickey Mouse watch for adults. Kent also spent time as director of Walt Disney Imagineering East, overseeing Florida staff support for EPCOT Center and Tokyo Disneyland, and was also a Disney Design Group corporate trainer.

Mel Shaw (animator) – An animator and story man, Shaw is an “elder statesmen� of animation. His talents contributed to Fantasia (1940), Bambi (1941) and The Wind in the Willows, which later became a segment in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). Additionally, he illustrated the first Bambi children’s book for Disney while also offering skill and knowledge to such Disney motion pictures as The Rescuers (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Beauty and the Beast (1992) and The Lion King (1994).
PostMon Sep 20, 2004 4:51 pm
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Andromaton

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Video Business Online reports that Marvel Comics will hold a nationwide open casting call for its first upcoming animated DVD premiere movie, The Avengers. Fans can send in audition tapes for voices of Marvel characters Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, along with other characters that may be included in future Marvel and Lions Gate Home Entertainment DVD premiere releases. The Avengers will be released direct-to-DVD in 2006. [free registration required for Video Business Online]

http://videobusiness.com/login.asp?msg=e2&referPage=videobusiness.com/article.asp&referQryString=articleID=8723~catType=NEWS
PostMon Sep 20, 2004 4:52 pm
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Andromaton

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Bandai Ent. has announced a limited theatrical engagement for Yoshiyuki Tomino’s MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM F91. The film will begin its run in theaters on Oct. 1, 2004 in New York with a screening at the Festival of Anime to follow soon after on Oct. 10.

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM F91 was originally released theatrically in Japan in 1991 where it helped to re-launch the GUNDAM franchise as a separate feature without ties to the original series characters or story continuity. The theatrical feature will be presented in its original Japanese language with English subtitles. Key creative members from previous GUNDAM projects have also lent a hand in the theatrical creative production including Kunio Okawara for mecha designs and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko for character designs.

“The GUNDAM franchise is celebrating its 25th Anniversary in Japan and along with a new GUNDAM series [GUNDAM SEED] on TV, the highly anticipated ZETA GUNDAM release on DVD, and now the theatrical/DVD release of GUNDAM F91 here in North America, this is definitely turning out to be a great year for old and new GUNDAM fans alike,� said Jerry Chu, marketing manager, Bandai Ent.

The film takes place many years after the devastating One Year War. The Earth Federation has begun constructing new space colonies to replace the former Side 4 cluster. This new Frontier Side now consists of four colonies, among them the Frontier IV colony where young Seabook Arno lives with his father and his sister Reese. Their peaceful lives are disrupted when the colony is attacked by the Crossbone Vanguard, an elite fighting force seeking to reestablish the aristocratic ideals of the Ronah family. Fleeing from the attacks, Seabrook is forced to pilot the F91 Gundam in defense of the Space Ark training facility in a journey to escape a new and destructive war.

The New York theatrical screening will take place at ‘The Imaginasian’ theater located within midtown Manhattan at 239 East 59th Street. Visit www.theimaginasian.com for more information.

The San Francisco theatrical screening will be presented at the LOWES theater at the Metreon located at 101 Fourth in downtown San Francisco on Oct. during the Metreon Festival of Anime. GUNDAM F91 producer Nobuo Masuda and well-known GUNDAM enthusiast Mark Simmons will be on hand for a panel discussion on the film and its production prior to the screening. Passes to Metreon Festival of Anime are $15 and are available at www.acteva.com/go/metreon.
PostMon Sep 20, 2004 4:59 pm
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Andromaton

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it's going here because sky captain is more cg than anything else...

Paramount’s groundbreaking CGI adventure, SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, managed to capture the box office for the weekend ended Sept. 19, 2004, ringing in $15.5M in its debut, but well below expectations. The studio blamed the September timeslot, preferring the original June opening against SPIDER-MAN 2, but reiterated that the vfx intensive movie wasn’t ready, with 13 effects houses recruited to help complete nearly half of the 2,000 vfx. The list included: ILM, Luma Pictures, Rising Sun Pictures, Hybride Technologies, Ring of Fire, SW Digital, Pixel Liberation Front, Pacific Title Digital, Café FX, Engine Room, The Orphanage, R!OT and Digital Backlot.

Buena Vista’s MR. 3000 bowed in second place with $8.67M. Screen Gems’ RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALPSE dropped to third in its second week, with an expected 62% decline. With vfx by C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, Mr. X Inc., Animated Extras International Ltd., Fantasy II Film Effects and Soho VFX, the horror sequel managed $8.65M for a total of $37M. Universal’s WIMBLETON debuted in fourth with $7.1M. New Line’s CELLULAR thriller finished in fifth with $6.7M and a cume of $19.7M. Paramount’s WITHOUT A PADDLE came in sixth with $3.6M and $50.3M. Miramax’s popular Asian import, HERO, settled for seventh with $2.8M and a cume of $46M. Fox Searchlight’s NAPOLEON DYNAMITE moved up two spaces to number eight with $2.28M and a cume of $33.3M. DreamWorks’ COLLATERAL grabbed the ninth spot with $2.2M and $95.9M to date. Buena Vista’s THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT finished 10th with $1.9M and a cume of $91.8M. Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com.

One of the most eventful bows of the week was that of Go Fish's anime sequel, GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE, which reeled in a very impressive $317,722 in only 47 theaters for a per screen average of $6,760
PostTue Sep 21, 2004 12:16 am
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Nobuyuki

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As a follow-up to page 18 in the original "Animation News" thread, the official word from AIC and Kodansha:

September 16, 2004
The full-scale TV anime series project for "Ah! My Goddess" has been officially launched after fifteen years of serialization in printed form.
The broadcasting is scheduled for 2005 on the TBS [Tokyo Broadcasting System- N.] BS-i and CS "TBS channel".

Main staff-
(Note: All names are in Japanese naming order, family name first)
Original comic:Fujishima Kousuke(Monthly magazine "Afternoon",Kodansha)
Director:Gohda Hiroaki
Series concept:Gohda Hiroaki, Watanabe Hiroshi
Character design:Matsubara Hidenori
Mechanic design:Murata Toshiharu
Music:Hamaguchi Shirou
Art director:Katou Hiroshi
Composit director:Nakajima Hidetake
Color design:Matsuyama Aiko
Editing:Migiyama Syota
Animation production:AIC

Main Cast-
Morisato Keiichi:Kikuchi Masami
Belldandy:Inoue Kikuko
Urd:Touma Yumi
Skuld:Hisakawa Aya
Tamiya Senpai:Yanada Kiyoyuki
Otaki Senpai:Futamata Issei

Opening theme-
"Open Your Mind~Chiisaina Hane Hirogete~"
Lyric:Ishita Youko
Composer:Tanaka Kouhei
Arrangement:Kishimura Masami, Hamaguchi Shirou
Vocalist:Ishita Youko
©Fujishima Kousuke·Koudansha/"Ah!My Goddess" Production Committee
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PostTue Sep 21, 2004 3:00 am
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ROBRAM89

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Andromaton wrote:
Video Business Online reports that Marvel Comics will hold a nationwide open casting call for its first upcoming animated DVD premiere movie, The Avengers. Fans can send in audition tapes for voices of Marvel characters Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, along with other characters that may be included in future Marvel and Lions Gate Home Entertainment DVD premiere releases. The Avengers will be released direct-to-DVD in 2006. [free registration required for Video Business Online]

http://videobusiness.com/login.asp?msg=e2&referPage=videobusiness.com/article.asp&referQryString=articleID=8723~catType=NEWS


I think I'd be a good Tony Stark. Might have to give that a try...
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PostTue Sep 21, 2004 6:18 pm
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Andromaton

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The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors today issued a statement saying they expect to hire a new CEO by June 2005 after a search that will include both inside and outside candidates to replace Michael Eisner, who is retiring in 2006. Disney will hire an executive search firm and will consider President Robert Iger as a candidate. The board, which has been meeting for two days, said it has full confidence in Eisner and expects him to assist in the transition and remain with the company until 2006. They also took special note of the fact that today marks the 20th anniversary of Michael Eisner's service as Chief Executive Officer, and formally acknowledged his recent decision regarding the CEO position.
PostWed Sep 22, 2004 12:04 am
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Article on Pixar being told they can't expand from eastbayexpress.com

Nobody tells Steve Jobs what to do. As the head of both Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, he has snubbed guys like Michael Eisner and lived to laugh about it. Five of Pixar's movies have grossed a total of $2.6 billion, and now that its distribution deal with Disney has dissolved, executives from rival movie companies are banging at its door, begging to be its next partner. Jobs' arrogance is legendary on the tech beat, and the culture inside his companies resembles a paranoid cult, as employees hunker down inside their glossy campuses, hiding their secrets from the world. Steve Jobs can punch anyone he wants in the nose. But 380 people in Emeryville's working-class flatlands have just told him to go to hell -- and gotten away with it.

Pixar executives have long planned to triple the size of their headquarters, which is located just across the street from Emeryville's City Hall. In May and early June, a few citizens asked whether, as long as the company's officials were going on a building jag anyway, they wouldn't mind humanizing the Stalinist entrance to their compound. The company curtly declined and offered the city a take-it-or-we'll-leave-it ultimatum. That prompted city Councilman Dick Kassis to opine that "Pixar is more important to Emeryville than Emeryville is to Pixar," before he and his colleagues voted to approve the expansion.

But a few weeks later, a small group of flatlands neighbors, aided by the left-leaning, Oakland-based East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Development, stopped the company right in its tracks by putting a measure opposing the expansion on the November ballot.

All they had to do was collect 380 signatures, and the future of one of the most sophisticated companies in the world suddenly became uncertain. Only in Emeryville could this have happened.

If you like corruption, influence-peddling, and the mob -- and, really, who doesn't? -- then you should love Emeryville. At least, the Emeryville that was. Ever since it earned the sobriquet "Butchertown" a century ago, E'ville has served as the repository for all the things we need to live, but don't want in our neighborhoods. Run by a succession of old-fashioned political bosses -- the last of whom, former Police Chief John LaCoste, used to administer the city from his bar stool at the Townhouse Bar and Grill -- Emeryville has historically done everything possible to accommodate such industries as meatpacking, gambling, and the oldest profession in the world.

Starting in the '70s, long after most of the city's infamous gambling houses and brothels had been shuttered, Emeryville's city fathers began casting about for another cash cow.

They started with luxury waterfront housing, but abandoned that after the middle-class residents who moved into these apartment complexes threw out the very bosses who had built their new homes.

Within a few years, Emeryville's new leaders hit upon a different path to prosperity. Starting with Chiron and Sybase, the city council set out to turn Emeryville into the East Bay's tech and retail maquiladora, green-lighting every development no matter how huge or incompatible with frivolities such as parks, public land, or rational traffic engineering.

Since most of the new developments took place on the east side of the railroad tracks, the waterfront yuppies were largely indifferent to how massive Chiron would get. Once again, the city was open for business.

But Pixar wasn't the only one who noticed the city's anything-goes attitude. After a successful campaign to pass a living-wage ordinance at the Oakland airport, East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Development executive director Amaha Kassa turned his attention to the small city to his north. Last year, the organization studied whether Emeryville's development policies have benefited its poorest residents.

Its conclusions were alternately absurd and sensible. Although Kassa acknowledges that Emeryville has built more affordable housing than its neighboring cities, it is nonetheless exacerbating the housing crisis by -- get this -- creating so many jobs. "Of the affordable housing demand generated by all new jobs from 1991 to 2000, Emeryville provided only 27 percent of needed units," reads a typical example of the study's convoluted logic. "Other cities in the region have had to absorb at least three out of four new worker households."

In addition, the study assigns a low priority to the terrible gridlock created by Emeryville's runaway growth, although this is clearly the worst development-related problem. But Kassa's most important conclusion is an interesting one: that the days when Emeryville had to roll over for big business are gone, and the city can now ask for something in return without running the risk of these companies fleeing for the suburbs. Impoverished East Palo Alto, for example, demanded that IKEA set aside a number of well-paying jobs for local residents, while Emeryville asked for nothing from its IKEA store.

In essence, Kassa thinks Emeryville is so perfectly positioned as a corporate headquarters that its leaders can start pressuring companies to help fund job training, child care, and affordable housing construction. When Pixar executives announced their new expansion plans, Kassa met with a group of low-income Emeryville residents and decided that the time had come to put this theory to the test.

"It's not about Pixar; it's not about any one corporation," he says. "It's about the future of development in the city, and whether Emeryville's going to be a developers' playground or a community responsive to the needs of its residents. ... Is this the best deal possible? If not, do residents want the council to take the issues of jobs, housing, and neighborhood impact seriously?"

Frankly, few local companies invite blackmail quite like Pixar. The firm's corporate culture is notoriously secretive, arrogant, and just plain creepy. When asked to list the financial contributions Pixar makes to Emeryville's free bus service or affordable housing funds, a spokeswoman named Karen not only refused to comment, but refused to even provide her last name. "We prefer, 'A Pixar spokesperson declined to comment on the expansion,'" she said. That's just weird.

Fortunately, Patrick O'Keefe, Emeryville's director of economic development and housing, is a little more, well, normal, and he listed Pixar's very considerable contributions to civic life. The company already donates money to local food banks and city-run arts and music education programs, to say nothing of the economic benefit the city receives from the spending of hundreds of Pixar employees.

The property taxes garnered from the expanded facility would total $3.5 million a year, $750,000 of which must be spent on housing. In addition, Pixar has agreed to pay the city $1.5 million in mad money once the expansion is finished. So when Kassa and his colleagues asked the city council last May to ask a little more from Pixar, councilmembers took one look at these numbers, laughed him out of the room, and green-lighted the deal.

They sure ain't laughing anymore. Kassa and a group of forty residents circulated a petition to overturn the council's decision, stop the expansion, and negotiate a better deal. Within thirty days, a collection of working-class moms who spent a Saturday or two walking precincts had collected enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot. Company executives used to negotiating multimillion-dollar deals with Fortune 500 companies realized that 380 insignificant nobodies had just stopped the Pixar juggernaut.

This terrifies and enrages councilmembers such as Nora Davis, who worries that Pixar will simply pack up and move. "Amaha is doing corporate extortion," she snarls. "They come into the community, and their message was, 'We should push these people up against the wall and extort more. More job training, more child care, and we can do it.' I believe they lied to the people of this city. ... Amaha Kassa and his minions come in from Oakland and say we could do better, and by the way, if we don't do better, we can always go back to our office on 17th Street and you're left swinging in the wind."

But frankly, Kassa is just playing by the same rules that Emeryville itself has played by for more than a century. With a population of little more than seven thousand people, and a legacy of indifference and disengagement from local government, this town was just small and nimble enough to remake itself without being hamstrung by the boisterous interest-group politics of its more sprawling neighbors in Berkeley and Oakland.

"For the past sixteen years, there's been very little interest in the city council elections," says Greg Harper, who sat on the council for thirteen years and was often the lone critic of the city's development deals, "which gives the city council the impression, rightly or wrongly, that people are content and they like what they're doing."

But now, the very qualities that made Emeryville what it is today are working against the old guard. A small group of dealmakers took control of a languid city and turned it into the best deal Big Business had ever seen in the East Bay, and now a small group of dealbreakers are using the same techniques to make Big Business pay to play.

If you knew the right buttons to push, you too could remake Emeryville in your own image. The city council has known this for years. Now, someone else has figured it out.
PostWed Sep 22, 2004 1:43 am
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ROBRAM89

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Andromaton wrote:
The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors today issued a statement saying they expect to hire a new CEO by June 2005 after a search that will include both inside and outside candidates to replace Michael Eisner, who is retiring in 2006. Disney will hire an executive search firm and will consider President Robert Iger as a candidate. The board, which has been meeting for two days, said it has full confidence in Eisner and expects him to assist in the transition and remain with the company until 2006. They also took special note of the fact that today marks the 20th anniversary of Michael Eisner's service as Chief Executive Officer, and formally acknowledged his recent decision regarding the CEO position.


*crosses fingers* C'mon, Roy Disney!
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PostWed Sep 22, 2004 8:12 pm
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ROBRAM89 wrote:
*crosses fingers* C'mon, Roy Disney!


Yeah, the pro-Eisner Board of Directors would do that. Rolling Eyes
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PostWed Sep 22, 2004 8:33 pm
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Nobuyuki

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I don't think Roy's in good enough health to actually serve as an effective Chairman.
I think it'd be nice if he could muster enough support for a candidate in line with his beliefs regarding what Disney should be.
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PostWed Sep 22, 2004 8:49 pm
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Andromaton

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At this point in time I'd be happy enough with Steve Jobs with the umm job. While I don't believe in everything he does, *coughapplecough* it's obvious he tries to put quality behind anything his name is attached to. At the very least making it look pretty.

Right now both of those is what Disney needs.
PostWed Sep 22, 2004 9:05 pm
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Andromaton

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The Ghost In The Shell sequel, Innocence, has proven to be a hit for DreamWorks' specialist Go Fish division. "In just three days, Innocence has already grossed an astounding $312,568 in US theaters and become the number one movie in 22 of the 48 screens it is playing at, including the renowned Arclight Hollywood in Los Angeles and Sunshine Cinema in New York", says the official release. "The anime film also had the distinction this weekend of getting the highest per screen average - over $6,500 - of any film currently playing in US theaters. In addition to its existing playdates, Innocence will expand in 7 more theaters this Friday and open in Baltimore, Denver, New Mexico and Sacramento". A complete list of theaters and more information on Ghost In The Shell 2 can be found on the film's official website.

http://www.gofishpictures.com/GITS2/
PostWed Sep 22, 2004 9:08 pm
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Andromaton

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When it was announced that the Nickelodeon hit SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS would be transitioning to the big screen, many fans believed that no new episodes would be produced.

However, Nickelodeon prez Cyma Zarghami announced yesterday that the show will return sometime in 2005 with 20 all-new episodes after the film swims its way through theaters.

"What could be better than announcing that the world's most beloved and optimistic sea sponge is coming back with 20 new episodes?" asked Zarghami. "SpongeBob is the most successful property in our 25-year history, and we're thrilled to bring his fans more adventures from Bikini Bottom. And maybe he'll finally get his driver's license."
PostThu Sep 23, 2004 7:21 pm
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