Love Fest Begins for New Disney Studios Chief; But Will It Last?

Peter Schneider hasn’t even returned from vacation in Mexico to start his new job as head of Walt Disney Studios, but here’s a good bet: His office is filled with $300 baskets of flowers and gifts, and his phone sheet is filled with congratulatory calls from agents, managers, lawyers and producers, most of whom he’s never met.

Even though Hollywood knows little about Schneider, the former Disney animation chief, who was named this week to replace Joe Roth, is the new guy in Hollywood to kiss up to and take to lunch at Barneys.

“I guarantee you all the agents will know Peter Schneider by next Tuesday,” said Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

He’s right. Hollywood will go into overdrive next week when Schneider returns from vacation.

A casual dresser who talks in rapid bursts and has described himself as nerdy, Schneider not only has to ratchet up his own schmoozing skills with Hollywood’s creative and business community, but inside Disney he has an even tougher challenge.

Although he is considered intelligent, quick-witted, creative and energetic, his sometimes abrasive, hot-tempered and volatile style--not the least of which is a penchant for dressing people down in meetings--has frequently alienated executives in Disney’s live-action film group.

While Roth could get angry, his temperament overall is more relaxed and his management ways more collegial. “Peter’s management style is completely counter to Joe,” said a top Disney executive. “He can be very emotional. Something can happen in a meeting, and he’ll fly off the handle.” Roth, said the source, has a more “consistent demeanor,” rarely revealing whether he’s up or down.

Schneider, 49, a Midwesterner who attended Purdue University and started his career in live theater, joined Disney in 1985 after working on the arts festival tied to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

He oversaw Disney’s hugely successful animation group that hit full stride in the 1990s, working with former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and Disney Vice Chairman Roy Disney. Schneider also gets high marks for working alongside animation chief Tom Schumacher to develop Disney’s successful stage shows, such as the Tony-winning “The Lion King.”

He developed a fan and powerful ally within the company in Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and a major company shareholder. Schneider also became a favorite of Eisner’s. He’s considered especially adept at internal company politics.

For sure, Schneider is much more a company man than his predecessor.

Some ex-Disney executives believe Schneider’s management style is an outgrowth of the demands placed on him when he ran animation. He worked almost exclusively with in-house, salaried employees rather than actors, directors and producers who can easily go somewhere else. He also was constantly under intense deadline pressures because animated films are up against inflexible release dates related to tie-ins with fast-food chains and toy makers.

But the problem many see is that what worked in making animated films doesn’t in the live-action area. Schneider needs to quickly build close ties with many big stars, directors and producers, whose relationships are critical to the packaging of major movies.

Schneider has little experience doing that, having moved over to the live-action film group from animation just one year ago.

He also isn’t well-known socially in Hollywood. Schneider, whose hobbies include playing bridge online, lives near Pasadena with his wife and two daughters rather than on the Westside or in Malibu where most entertainment executives live.

But Eisner says he isn’t concerned. Since Disney is a major film studio, he says, it invariably attracts the best talent. “If you have good scripts, the talent will come,” Eisner says.

Eisner compared Schneider’s experience to his own when he made the transition from a television executive to a movie studio executive when he joined Paramount Pictures in 1976 from ABC.

“When I became head of Paramount and put John Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ I had never seen a movie daily,” said Eisner, noting: “Nobody is totally equipped.”

Schneider is overseeing his first major live-action film, “102 Dalmatians,” the sequel to the Disney’s hit “101 Dalmatians.”

“He’s one of the most supportive people I’ve ever worked for,” said Ed Feldman, who is producing the film. “I didn’t know him before this picture. He’s given us everything we’ve asked for, and hung tough for us.”

Eisner also pointed out that many of the studio’s top production executives, particularly motion picture group co-presidents Todd Garner and Nina Jacobson, have strong talent relationships. But their relationship with Schneider is said to be quite strained, according to Disney sources.

Schneider will have to work hard to ingratiate himself with the co-presidents and with other key executives, including Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group Chairman Richard Cook, the affable 29-year studio veteran who is said to also have reservations about his new boss.

If Schneider doesn’t develop relations with executives, producers and directors, they could simply go around him to Eisner. It’s easy to imagine Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the feisty New York-based brothers who head Disney-owned Miramax Films, doing just that.