“The Business:” Kim Masters interviews Disney head Dennis Cook
Santa Monica-based KCRW radio station has an excellent weekly show on the movie business called, aptly enough, “The Business.” This week, host Kim Masters interviews Disney chief Dick Cook. Among his comments (from this article in The Wrap):
Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said Monday that the recession has forced the studio to dramatically cut its spending on films and talent.
In an interview on KCRW’s “The Business,” Cook said that the studio is cinching its purse strings — even for projects like the fourth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.
“The discipline on all of us has changed dramatically in just the last few months. I don’t see that changing quickly at all,” Cook said. “People are looking at every single project with the idea of, ‘How can we make it? Can we make it so that it’s economically viable? What are the constraints that we’re going to have to put on it? Or not doing it.’”
Asked if marquee actors are cutting their fees, with some signing on for half of their usual pay rates, the studio chief said, “Oh yeah.”
“There are some that haven’t quite gotten it yet,” he said. “It maybe hasn’t hit them. But … no one gets by this downturn.”
Here’s the audio interview:
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