Richard Cook to Become Disney Studios Chairman

Richard Cook, who began his 31-year career operating the steam train and monorail at Disneyland and helped build Disney’s vaunted distribution and marketing machine, is being handed the keys to the Burbank studio’s movie kingdom.

Cook is expected to be named today chairman of Walt Disney Studios, making him one of the most powerful movie executives in Hollywood. The appointment will end eight months of speculation that Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner would bring in a seasoned, high-profile outsider to run the studio.

Although Cook lacks the depth of relationships with top Hollywood agents, stars, writers and filmmakers that other studio chiefs have, the affable, low-key 51-year-old has spent his entire career on the marketing and distribution sides of the movie business, and is well respected within Disney and by the board.

He fills the key movie post at Disney left vacant since June’s departure of Peter Schneider, who quit after a difficult 18-month tenure. Schneider had headed Disney’s animation division for years, but he too was a relative stranger to many of Hollywood’s movers and shakers and had no experience overseeing live-action movies. By contrast, his predecessor, Joe Roth, who served six years as Disney Studios chief, was well connected in Hollywood circles.

After Schneider left, Eisner said he would take his time naming a replacement. Eisner is known to have talked to a number of top Hollywood figures as potential candidates, including producer Brian Grazer (“A Beautiful Mind”). Sources said Eisner was initially hesitant to give Cook the job because he lacked experience putting together the creative elements of big movies.

But ultimately, Eisner tapped one of his own trusted lieutenants, a quintessential company man who has never worked anywhere else. Cook has been instrumental in helping build Disney’s powerful distribution and marketing operations, which were in their infancy when he first joined the studio from Disneyland in 1977.

Since the mid-1990s, Cook has been responsible for launching Disney’s “grand-style” movie premieres, including the debut of “Pocahontas” in Central Park for 110,000 people; and last year’s “Pearl Harbor” on the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier in Hawaii.

Cook, who for the last six years has been chairman of Disney’s motion picture group, will now be responsible for the worldwide production, marketing and distribution of live-action movies for Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures. He also will oversee the marketing and distribution of the studio’s animated movies. He will report to both Eisner and Disney President Robert Iger. Tom Schumacher, who heads Disney’s bedrock feature animation division, will continue answering to Eisner and Vice Chairman Roy E. Disney.

Since last summer, Eisner has taken a much more hands-on role at the movie studio, attending story meetings and even giving script notes.

Eisner has been under pressure from Wall Street to stabilize the management at Disney, to improve the earnings and bump up a sagging stock price. In the last year Disney cut 4,000 jobs, and the company has struggled in many of its key business units, including ABC television and its movie divisions. A box-office leader for many years, Disney placed fourth in overall market share last year, behind rivals Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures, according to ACNielsen EDI Inc. Disney also has cut nearly 500 jobs in its venerable animation film division and expects to cut hundreds more by the end of next year.

By naming Cook, Eisner might appease those on Wall Street and in Hollywood who have been critical of the exodus of high level executives who have left the Disney fold for one reason or another, including Roth, former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and Disney President Michael Ovitz.

Cook is not expected to make any substantial changes in the kinds of movies Disney has made in recent years, which tend to be more moderately budgeted, less high profile and more family-oriented. Though Disney’s World War II drama “Pearl Harbor” grossed $450 million worldwide, it cost around $200 million to produce and market, and despite its performance was considered a disappointment given the huge amount of pre-release hype.

Eisner has publicly said he wants to make more “inspirational” and lower cost family fare like its box office hits “Princess Diaries” and “Remember the Titans.” In recent years, Eisner has mandated more financial discipline at the studio, slashing overhead by consolidating operations and jettisoning many producer deals.

Since summer, Cook has been helping to run the day-to-day operations of Disney’s studio, overseeing marketing and distribution, acquisitions and worldwide home video, while Nina Jacobson has headed production.

A native of Bakersfield, Cook began his career as a ride operator at Disneyland in 1970. He rose through the ranks at the theme park, catching the attention of Disney’s then top executive Card Walker, who asked him to join the studio in 1977 as manager of pay-TV and nontheatrical releases.