For many years, there has been a perception that the Walt Disney Company is this mysterious and impenetrable entertainment giant. To this day, the general public discuss rumors and tall tales surrounding Disney in all its incarnations, from whispers about the parks to legends about the studios. Though most, if not all, of the long-standing urban legends are debunked, there are still many things that fans do not know about Disney.
It cannot be denied that Disney holds sway over the entertainment industry – few actors and professionals would ever openly oppose the Mouse. It’s just not a smart career move. Because of Disney’s influence, the details and inner-workings of the company’s deals are often kept closely guarded. Disney officials remain tight-lipped on their contracts, projects, and dealings. Likewise, the contracted actors and professionals, as well as the Disney employees, rarely kiss and tell. Even in the age of social media, Disney’s jar stays lidded.
While Disney may not be the shadowy organization some people like to imagine it as, the company is still quite secretive, especially regarding contracts and deals. Many details are kept from the public or are quietly revealed, which allows them to go overlooked by most. What follows are some of the most interesting pieces of information that the majority of the public failed to spot.
Here are 16 Secrets Behind Disney Deals and Contracts.
16. The Three Disney No-Nos
The director of Pete’s Dragon David Lowery, did something that few directors ever do: he spoke about his Disney contract. Though it’s a simple and seemingly harmless move, it is rare. In his discussion with Ain’t It Cool News, Lowery revealed that, in his Disney contract, it stated that he could not include three things: people passing away from overly specific injuries, or people smoking. “Those are literally the three things you are not allowed to put into a Disney film.”
If we mentally go through our Disney collections, we can see where some of these things don’t ring true.
The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, and Something Wicked This Way Comes all feature those types of situations, which means these rules must be new. The only thing clear about these rules is their mystery.
15. Robin Williams and The Picasso
Here’s a story from the podcast Scapegoat: when Disney called Robin Williams to take on the Genie in Aladdin, they apparently only offered him $75,000. Disney allegedly claimed that the small side character shouldn’t be worth more, so the was justified. Williams agreed but with one reported stipulation: Aladdin not use Williams as a primary promotional vehicle. He didn’t want it to be used against his other film around that time, Toys, to which Disney agreed.
Then Scapegoat reports that Disney reneged on their agreement – the company used Williams’ Genie to promote the film much more than they had reportedly agreed and even used him in merchandise. Williams wanted to sue, but couldn’t because it was only a “handshake agreement.” After mud-slinging between the two sides, Disney sent Williams a $1 million Picasso painting. The LA Times reported that Williams then threatened to burn the painting on live TV, though he never went through with the burning, and never forgave the studio.
14. How To Maintain The Illusion
In the early days of Disney animation, the studio employed a strict policy for its voice actors.
In the films Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi, the studio didn’t credit the voice actors.
Though the studio never confirmed why, Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White, said she knew the reason, suggesting that “[Walt] thought it would spoil the illusion if you knew who the people were who provided the voices in the film.”
Shortly after the film’s premiere, Caselotti performed some of the film’s songs at a Los Angeles night club. In the crowd, radio host Jack Benny overheard Caselotti and invited her to his show. Despite Caselotti agreeing, Disney denied the request when the show’s producer called asking for permission. Some reports claim that Disney signed Caselotti to an exclusive contract and held her out of films, but those appear to be unfounded.
13. Disney Presents SEAL Team 6
Shortly after Osama Bin Laden’s elimination made SEAL Team 6 famous, a legal trademark battle began. There, at the front of the line for the trademark rights for the name SEAL Team 6, sat Disney. NBC News reported that Disney planned to create a show in the same vein as JAG, which makes sense. What doesn’t make sense, and is largely the reason why Disney’s request is mocked by the public, are the other things that Disney wished to create from the trademark.
In the trademark application, Disney suggested that it planned to create “stockings” and “snow globes.” After all, nothing says Christmas like SEAL Team 6. Thankfully, the application never went through. After the Navy pursued legal action to protect its name, Disney withdrew its application.
12. The Aladdin Sequels That Never Were
When Robin Williams got into Disney studios to record the Genie’s voice, he did what he’s known to do: he improvised. As Williams went off and performed multiple flawless takes for every scene, Disney kept the tape rolling. The resulting hours and hours of voice work that went unused were locked away.
Williams laughed at the suggestion of a sequel, but according to The New York Post’s interview with an ex-Disney executive, Disney tried to make a fourth film happen after Williams’ passing.
These plans, which would see Disney open the vaults and use Williams’ material from the cutting room floor, almost got realized if not for Williams’ will. When he wrote his will, he made sure he got the last laugh – he ordered that neither his voice nor his jokes be used by Disney for at least 25 years.
11. Bambi’s Big Secret
Donnie Dunagan is a name that most people are unfamiliar with, but almost everyone knows his voice. In 1942, Dunagan voiced Young Bambi in the Disney classic, Bambi, but as mentioned above, Disney didn’t credit voice actors back then, so Dunagan’s role went almost entirely unknown and unrecognized to almost everyone for many years. Dunagan never acted again after Bambi.
When he turned 18, he joined the Marines and over the next 25 years, rose through the ranks until he retired, always keeping his role a secret. Then in 2004, 62 years after his time with Disney, the secret leaked. According to Dunagan and his wife, only then, after the former actor’s secret got out, “did we open the old boxes I’d sealed for 50 years, with newspaper clippings about my time in Bambi.”
10. Disney’s Off And On Relationship With McDonald’s
Disney and the fast-food giant McDonald’s were in business together for a decade. After each film’s release, McDonald’s dropped a toy into its Happy Meals. The cross-promotional deal worked well for both sides, but according to The LA Times, Disney wished to distance its brand from fast food and, specifically, childhood obesity. In 2006, Disney cut ties with McDonald’s.
Disney didn’t make an official statement on the breakup, choosing to end their relationship as quietly as possible.
Steve Jobs, then-chief of Pixar Animation Studios, addressed the split. “There is value” he said “…but there are also some concerns, as our society becomes more conscious of some of the implications of fast food.” However, in 2018, Disney and McDonald’s reconnected – the restaurant’s healthier offerings and its decision to hide unhealthier options off the menu appear to make them a compatible business partner for Disney once again.
9. Carlos The Caffeination Guy
Back in 2007, Carlos Benavides got his big break at Disney: he made it to the credits of a film. He started on Meet the Robinsons, but Benavides isn’t an animator or a voice actor, a writer or a producer. He’s the coffee guy and he’s credited as such in every film he works on as Caffeination. Though the studio may not have known it at the time, but it started a tradition of sorts the day it began to acknowledge Benavide in the credits.
Since that first recognition, Benavides the Caffeination Guy received credit in eight more Disney features: Bolt, Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana. Little is known about the man, but his legend grows with each new film. Disney’s love for Carlos is strong and infectious, turning him into a trivia question and a bit of Disney celebrity.
8. Star Wars Top Secret Theater Terms
When theater owners received Star Wars: The Last Jedi from Disney, it came with a list of contract demands. First, rather than the standard 40%-55%, Disney requested a 65% take of all tickets. Second, the studio required each theater to play the film in its largest auditorium for a full four-week run, no matter what. The latter stipulation would create problems for smaller theaters with limited auditoriums.
That stipulation is mandatory regardless of ticket sales, so theater owners must comply even if only half the auditorium’s seats are filled. Furthermore, if a theater breaks the terms of the contract, it is required to pay an additional 5%, bringing Disney’s total take up to 70%.
Despite the steep demands, there is still obviously incredible value in showing the film.
After all, the crowds that Star Wars brings in to theaters allow owners to more than make up any perceived losses from ticket percentages on concessions alone.
7. Reclaiming Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
The story of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is long and complicated, therefore we’ll give you a Coles Notes version of it. In 1927 before Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney, his animation team, and businessman Charles Mintz, were looking to create a new series of animated shorts.
They came up with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and created 26 shorts starring Oswald, and sold them to Universal Pictures. Now, since Mintz was the distributor, he technically owned Oswald. This allowed him to sign a three-year deal with Universal for Oswald behind Disney’s back, he even hired several of Disney’s animators to deliver the shorts.
Despite his best efforts, Disney lost all rights to the rabbit. Fast-forward almost 80 years to 2006 and Walt Disney Co., saw the opportunity to bring Oswald home. When NFL broadcaster Al Michaels wanted out of his Disney-owned ABC contract to join Universal-owned NBC, the two companies made a trade: Michaels for Oswald.
6. Disney’s CIA Operatives
When Disney set out to build Disney World in the ’60s, he required an enormous amount of land (40 square miles) as cheap as possible. To do this without the Florida residents getting wise to his plans for the land, he needed to purchase everything quietly. Otherwise, land prices would sky-rocket and people might oppose a theme park landing (and a Disney-owned city) in the middle of Florida.
The ploy enabled the company to control land use, city-generated money, and the elected officials.
This is where the CIA apparently comes in. According to the book Finding Florida by T.D. Allman (via The Daily Beast), William “Wild Bill” Donovan, considered “The Father of the CIA,” and his law firm allegedly aided Disney agents in establishing a “disinformation campaign” throughout Florida. Meanwhile, another CIA agent Paul Helliwell, reportedly advised Disney to create “phantom cities” within which Disney World would exist.
5. Disney Battles The Los Angeles Times
While the story is known to many, a recap of the details of the LA Times and Disney feud can’t hurt. It all started in late September when the paper published a two-part piece that questioned Disney’s business ties with the city of Anaheim, California. This piece, what Disney saw as “unfair coverage,” led Disney to ban the Times from its film screenings and its properties. This created a tidal wave.
In a move of solidarity, several large papers and many of the critics’ associations decided to exclude Disney films from their coverage. Not long after that, Disney chose to lift the blacklist of the Times, and while Disney suggested the coverage was unfair, it never asked the paper to retract the claims, which might suggest that the Times’ report is accurate if nothing else.
4. The Other Side Of The Lucasfilm Sale
When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he said that he made the move to “protect” the Star Wars property. The terms were made quite public, and many saw the more than $4 billion sale as the steal of the century.
Lucas’ decision to donate the bulk of that money to charity made the entire sale seem even more one-sided.
Don’t fret, Lucas made money in the transaction. The sale included approximately $2 billion in Disney stock. At the time, Lucas became the second-largest non-institutional shareholder of Disney stock behind the late Steve Jobs. Just two years after the sale, those stocks doubled in value. On the Disney side of things, they reportedly recouped the Lucasfilm price tag in Star Wars merchandise alone, which seems like a favorable deal for both sides.
3. Removing Disney Park Cast Members
When Los Angeles Magazine printed a story from an ex-Disneyland cast member, the publication shed light on the parks and how cast members are managed, revealing some secrets along the way. According to Dave Gardetta, a former Jack Sparrow at Disneyland, the male cast members are warned about flirtatious women. Gardetta claims that he received instructions to “see women as trouble.”
Now, this line of thinking may be the result of former characters being pulled from the parks. Esmeralda, for example, used to be at Disneyland but Gardetta says she was pulled for being too flirtatious, and the male visitors began “acting out.” Similarly, Tarzan, dressed in only a loincloth, apparently got removed because female visitors kept pinching his butt. Because of that, Gardetta told new cast members “Don’t complain if girls flirt with you too much. If you do, they’ll pull the character from the park.”
2. Anything But Disney Hobbits
When J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of The Lord of the Rings, sold the film rights to United Artists in 1968, he added a very directed addendum to the sale. He wrote, “It might be advisable […] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible […] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).”
This meant that Disney can, in no way, be involved in the creation of a Lord of the Rings film or anything related to the story.
Though Tolkien admired Disney’s talent, he described the man in letters as “hopelessly corrupted.” This might be a result of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs making dwarfs and other legends and myths into children’s play things.
1. Anthony Daniels And the Kremlin
When Anthony Daniels, the actor who plays C-3PO in Star Wars, speaks about the Disney machine, he describes the studio as demonstrating a “Kremlin attitude.” In comparison to the old days on Star Wars, the new films, according to Daniels, take themselves far too seriously. “The secrecy has been beyond ludicrous,” he said “…for heaven’s sake, it’s a movie. When I got the script, it was typed in black on paper of the deepest red, so you couldn’t photocopy it. I got a hangover just reading it.”
Daniels also recalls being reprimanded for a harmless tweet he sent out mentioning that he met an actor from the new trilogy. “Immediately I received a message from Disney,” he said, adding in the studio’s response. “Remove the tweet! You’re not allowed to say that!”
What did you learn about Disney deals and contracts? Let us know in the comments!
