Normally when a studio executive leaves it isn’t really worth mentioning, because it happens so often, but it’s a bit different when Dick Cook leaves Disney. He’s worked for the House Of Mouse for 38 years, starting out as a ride operator at Disneyland before working his way up the ranks to become Chairman of Walt Disney Studios in 2002. He’s also extremely well liked in the industry and his departure from the company is said to have left Hollywood in shock.
While the official word is that Cook resigned, rumours immediately started to circulate that actually he’d been fired by Disney CEO Bob Iger. It’s known the two didn’t see eye-to-eye on how to run the studio, with Iger publicly stating in a conference call to Wall Street in May, that he was disappointed by Disney’s recent live-action slate, including underperfomers like Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Race To Witch Mountain and Bedtime Stories. The rumour, spread by people like Nikki Frinke, was that Cook had been called to an 11th hour meeting on Friday afternoon and fired, hence the announcement that he was leaving coming at 5pm LA time, when everyone was about to go home for the weekend.
However even she has now changed her mind and it appear Cook did indeed resign and chose the time to do it himself, preferring to step down rather than accept running the studio in a completely different way to how he felt was correct, but which Iger was pushing for (Cook is said to be something of a traditionalist, while Iger wants to shake up the way business is done at the studio).
However Iger may have underestimated quite how important Cook was to Disney. Steven Spielberg is said to be extremely upset, as Cook was one of the main reasons Dreamworks signed a distribution deal with Disney. In an interview with the LA Times, Johnny Depp has also thrown the future of Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 into doubt. At the moment there’s no official deal in place for him to star in the film, and that because of Cook’s departure, “There’s a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment. [for Pirates 4],” Depp said ” It was all born in that office.” Depp also saluted the former Disney Chairman, calling him “A friend inside an insane system. He’s someone I understand and I think he understands me.”
It’s also Iger who helped steer Disney’s succesful purchase and integration of Pixar, as well as setting up the documentary strand, Disneynature, and helping with recent deals, such as the purchase of Marvel and starting the Double Dare You Films imprint with Guillermo Del Toro.
With the news coming so late on a Friday afternoon, there was also little time for anyone to step forward as a succesor, although John Lasseter and Marvel Chairman Kevin Fiege have both already been mooted.
However it would appear Robert Iger knew what was coming, as only eight minutes after Variety posted their news that Cook was leaving, they put up another story about how cool and collected Bob Iger is. There was no actual news in the story, and indeed no mention of Dick Cook – it was essentially just a puff piece about how great he is and how there haven’t been the sort of contstant ructions under his tenure as CEO that there were with Michael Eisner – but it can’t be coincidence the two trade paper stories appeared so close together, and it suggests Iger is keen to ensure that everyone knows the studio is still in safe hands, no matter how much they may have liked Cook.