Starting this year, Disney's stock price has been tanking hard. Even with all the moves Michael Eisner's pulled to turn things around, nothing's worked.
In Hollywood, people are buzzing with rumors. They say Dunn beat Michael Eisner so bad the guy's too scared to even fart these days.
Is that really what's going on?
Nah, that's total nonsense!
Sure, Dunn crushed Disney at the box office—that's a fact. But here's the thing: the movie market's just a small slice of the pie. Disney's sitting on a market cap of over 40 billion bucks. A couple of films underperforming at the ticket booth? That's not gonna send the stock into a tailspin.
The real reason Disney's stock is wobbling is the slump in their core asset: the B TV Network.
Last year, Time Warner merged with AOL, and in the mess of cable TV disputes, Time Warner and Disney went head-to-head in a massive showdown.
Disney came out on top, big time. Time Warner ended up signing a lopsided $3 billion deal and their CEO even had to issue a public apology.
Back then, B Network had their ace in the hole—Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. That show pulled them out of the basement among the big three networks, leapfrogging NB and giving them a real shot at challenging B Network's top-dog status.
At that peak, Disney's stock hit an all-time high, with a market cap soaring past 45 billion dollars!
But Michael Eisner forgot one thing: B Network's got Viacom behind it, and Viacom's got Shizuka Redstone pulling the strings.
Even Barry Diller—Eisner's old boss—got wrecked by Shizuka back in the day. So what chance did Eisner really have?
B Network didn't waste time. They fired back with two killer shows: Survivor and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ready to take Millionaire head-on.
They leaned hard on Viacom's massive audience reach through their networks, H and 1, hyping up the new shows like crazy.
Michael Eisner, though? He was cocky about Millionaire. He figured if it could take down Time Warner, Viacom wouldn't stand a chance either.
At the time, Disney had just gotten humiliated by Dunn's Spider-Man in the movie market. They needed a win somewhere else to save face.
And so, the showdown kicked off—sharp and fierce.
Millionaire and Survivor aired in the same time slot, forcing viewers to pick a side. It was a straight-up brawl!
The premiere? Millionaire pulled in 16.8 million viewers, while Survivor clocked 15.5 million.
Michael Eisner dashed off a smug letter to shareholders, crowing about Disney's big victory!
But that didn't last long.
By the second episode, Millionaire took a brutal hit—losing a million viewers. Meanwhile, households tuning into Survivor shot up to 19 million.
The Washington Post even ran a headline: "Survivor flattens Millionaire!"
By the time Survivor's finale aired, it was pulling a jaw-dropping 50 million viewers—half the homes in America were watching!
The only silver lining for Eisner? Survivor was a seasonal show, while Millionaire aired weekly, year-round.
But then came CSI, stepping up to keep pounding Millionaire into the ground.
At its peak, Millionaire ran four episodes a week. Now? It's down to one. The show's clearly on its last legs.
With B Network's ad revenue tanking, Disney's stock plummeting just made sense.
So, the one who really took Disney down wasn't Dunn—it was Shizuka Redstone!
Shizuka just stayed behind the curtain, quietly calling the shots, while Dunn got all the glory out front.
With both movies and TV in the gutter, tensions inside Disney started boiling over. That's when Roy Disney stepped up, ready to axe Michael Eisner and bring in a new CEO.
Problem is, Roy's got less than 1% of the shares. He's got the heart, but not the muscle.
Meanwhile, Michael Eisner's spent decades cozying up to Disney's big-shot shareholders: the Bass family.
That crew holds nearly 11% of Disney's stock—enough to pretty much run the show at shareholder meetings.
With the Bass family in his corner, Eisner's been able to rule Disney like a dictator.
But when luck runs dry, even drinking water gets you in trouble.
The Bass family had leveraged loans and Disney stock to scoop up a bunch of tech shares. Then the 9/11 crash hit, the market tanked, and Disney's stock shriveled. Now brokers and margin lenders are breathing down their necks, demanding repayment or more collateral.
To scrape together $2 billion, the Bass family dumped 1.35 billion Disney shares.
That left them with just 80 million shares—barely 4% of the total.
The Bass family's influence crumbled, and Eisner's biggest backer went down with it!
Right now, Michael Eisner's on the edge of losing everything. He's juggling saving the stock price, rallying shareholders, and shoring up his power—all to keep Roy Disney from sweeping him out the door.
So when Kirk Douglas called, begging him to go hard after Dunn, wasn't that just stirring up trouble for no reason?
Dunn hasn't even jabbed at Disney in months. Eisner finally had a breather to focus on Roy Disney.
Picking a fight with Dunn now? That'd be insane!
Michael Eisner was pissed!
Not at Dunn, though—at these old Hollywood fossils still stuck in the past.
Sure, he used to be a Hollywood movie guy—ran Paramount, even.
But now? He's the chairman of the Walt Disney Company!
He's on the same level as media titans like Ted Turner, Shizuka Redstone, and Murdoch!
Bossing him around like that? They've got no clue who they're dealing with!
"Roy Disney, Kirk Douglas—these Hollywood geezers are driving me up the wall!"
Eisner slumped in his office chair, fists clenched, fuming more by the second.
Even if he lost his mind, he wouldn't go after Dunn right now.
"Hm? Dunn?"
A spark flickered in Eisner's mind, and a wild idea hit him.
He'd tangled with Dunn Walker before and learned the hard way what that kid was capable of.
Especially after seeing Dunn Films' new mission statement—his ambition was off the charts!
Big ambition means big ruthlessness.
Ruthless to others—and just as ruthless to himself.
Eisner sat in his office for an hour, watching the sun dip below the horizon. Finally, he took a deep breath, grabbed his phone, and dialed a number he hadn't called in forever.
"Hello, this is Dunn Walker."
"Dunn, it's me."
"Who?"
"Michael Eisner."
"Huh?"
On the other end, Dunn froze, stunned. After a beat, he gritted out two words: "Hello, Eisner!"
read my new story
NBA Grind to NBA King
MCU I am Frieza
naruto dbz