With the Hollywood backlash that was caused by the firing of Dick Cook as head of Walt Disney Studios, you’d think the guy had evaded the US government for 30 years after being convicted of statutory rape. Zing. But that’s not at all the case. Instead, the Cook was one of the few well-liked executives in Hollywood, one that many actors felt comfortable with. Unfortunately, his great HR skills didn’t make for great movies, and he was let go by Disney head Bob Iger last month.
Now the LA Times reports that his replacement will be Rich Ross. No, not that big rapper dude that sings (raps?) all those truly terrible songs. Ross was previously a television executive who helped to revive the Disney Channel and changed it into the innocence-killing, girls-taking-camera-phone-pictures-of-themselves-naked, moneymaker that it is today. Iger hopes that Cook will be able to bring about the same sort of dubious revitalization to the movie side of his company.
As the Times points out, it says a lot that Iger called on a television executive to take over the film side of Disney. This is definitely not some inside-hire that will run things exactly as Cook did. Iger knows that the studio has been releasing duds, and he’s looking to completely change the path that Disney live-action films have gone. While that could be a good thing, when you consider the quality of Disney’s recent pictures (Escape to Witch Mountain?), it could also mean that we’re just going to get the Disney Channel on the big screen. I’m not interested in seeing The Rock wear a purity ring.
