Walt Disney Studios

Rich Ross, the television executive who helped revive the moribund Disney Channel, now has to prove he can work movie magic at Walt Disney Studios. The 47-year-old former talent department head has been tapped by Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert A. Iger to fill the post formerly held by Dick Cook, who was ousted as chairman of the studio Sept. 18 after clashing with his boss and failing to deliver enough hits over the last year. Iger will look to Ross to reinvigorate Disney's flagging box-office fortunes and develop film franchises that can be sold across the entertainment giant's lines of businesses -- including theme parks, consumer products and television -- as well as grapple with a host of technological issues that are quickly reshaping Hollywood.

Dear Disney: I don't pretend to understand the vagaries of filmmaking or the pressures of corporate America in an economically challenged year, but I do know a few things about your target audience since, as the credit-card-wielding, annual-Disneyland-pass-holding mother of a 10-, an 8-, and a 2-year-old, I pretty much am she.

With all the signs of a classic Hollywood shake-up, Dick Cook, the longtime head of Walt Disney Studios, abruptly left the company Friday afternoon after 38 years. The news, which came just as offices were emptying out for the weekend, stunned the entertainment industry for its suddenness, even as it revealed a rift between Cook and Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger. The studio has had an uneven box-office performance and has been struggling creatively. It lost money in its most recent financial quarter.

Oliver Martin "Ollie" Johnston Jr., the last living member of the celebrated "Nine Old Men" of Disney animation whose work set the standard by which all character animation is judged and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, has died. He was 95. Johnston died Monday afternoon of natural causes at a long-term care facility in Sequim, Wash., according to a news release from Howard E. Green, vice president of studio communications for Walt Disney Studios.

As Hollywood grapples with the difficult economics of its business, Walt Disney Studios has canceled plans to partner on the next film in the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." A Disney spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that the Burbank studio decided not to exercise its option to co- finance the third movie in the franchise based on C.S. Lewis' classic children's books because of "budgetary considerations."

Walt Disney took a small step away from animation in the 1940s with the live-action/animated features "Song of the South" and "So Dear to My Heart," and in 1950 he made his first foray into pure live action, "Treasure Island," in England. The impetus was financial -- British law required American film companies to use a percentage of the money they made showing films and shorts in England to produce movies there. So Disney financed 80% to 90% of "Treasure Island" with those funds.

In the new computer-animated comedy "Ratatouille," Remy the rat dreams of becoming a great chef. But Remy has a problem: He's an unwelcome intruder in the kitchen of a gourmet Parisian restaurant where he yearns to work. Likewise, Walt Disney Co. and its Pixar Animation Studios knew early on that they could end up chasing their tails if they didn't figure out how to sell "Ratatouille's" unsavory plot to kids and their parents who have plenty of choices.

A new chapter has just been written in Hollywood about the never-ending tension between "the talent" and "the suits." It can be found in a soon-to-be-published tell-all book that offers something very rare, indeed: a candid recounting, complete with tears and recriminations, of a messy divorce between a movie studio and one of the world's most famous writer-directors. In "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M.

Despite last weekend's record debut of its "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," Walt Disney Co. is moving ahead with plans to slash hundreds of studio jobs and curtail the number of films it makes in an effort to squeeze costs. Across-the-board layoffs are expected to hit every major domestic and international sector of the movie studio, people familiar with the plans said, including production, postproduction, legal and business affairs, marketing, distribution and home video.

Totaled together, the first two "Chronicles of Narnia" films grossed nearly $1.2 billion around the world, making it one of the most successful box-office franchises in recent years. So why would Disney, which co-financed and co-produced the films with Phil Anschutz's Walden Media, walk away from such a valuable property? The back story is messy, involving an ugly dispute between Disney and Anschutz, a true battle of the titans.