《冰雪奇缘》重塑迪斯尼魔法？

    11月27日，沃尔特•迪斯尼公司(Walt Disney)首席执行官兼董事长鲍勃•伊格尔出现在电影《冰雪奇缘》(Frozen )首映礼的时候，他已经确信，这部以两姐妹为主线的动画音乐剧很特别，它是一部重回迪斯尼赖以成名的魔法世界的动画巨制。等到摄制人员名单一一出现在银幕时，他早已哽咽得不能自已。“幸亏我带着3D眼镜，”他说。“这是我出任沃尔特•迪斯尼公司CEO以来最自豪的时刻。”

    《冰雪奇缘》正在融化伊格尔的内心，不仅仅是因为它正在生成冷冰冰、硬邦邦的钞票——迄今为止，甚至在进入中国和日本市场之前，这部电影已经斩获了6.69亿美元的票房——还因为，这部电影是迪斯尼动画工作室 (Disney Animation Studios)在多年令人失望的表现之后接连推出的第三部成功之作。它似乎表明，这家动画片巨头终于重新回到了巅峰。“我意识到，‘天哪，迪斯尼动画正处于理应属于它的位置上，’”他说。“这种兴奋之情是发自内心的。让我觉得由衷高兴的倒不是营收增长，因为营收是按季度计算的，而是一件更宏大、更长久的事物。”

    《冰雪奇缘》讲述了两位疏远的公主两姐妹历经艰辛团聚在一起，最终为她们的家园解除冰封的故事。这部电影正在创造一系列重要的数字：它是有史以来首映周票房最高的动画电影，整体票房预计将很快超过《狮子王》(The Lion King)；它获得了两项金球奖提名，或许也将获得奥斯卡评审委员会的肯定；它是亚马逊网站(Amazon)和 iTunes商店销量最高的电影专辑。（显然，目前正在美国各地肆虐的“极地涡旋”也起到了推波助澜的作用；当人们本身就生活在冰天雪地的时候，他们似乎就不介意观看一部讲述冰雪世界的电影。）

    此外，《冰雪奇缘》还具备迪斯尼公司所称的“特许经营”潜力。它意味着，这部电影的人物和主题将穿越这家公司的各个部门，最终转化为数不胜数的产品，从玩具到主题公园游乐设施，再到互动角色，不一而足。这是一笔庞大的买卖，因为迪斯尼公司目前只有为数不多的特许经营品牌。“这部影片带来的收益不只是票房，”詹尼资本市场公司(Janney Capital Markets)资深媒体和娱乐分析师托尼•怀伯说。“他们肯定会在整个娱乐产品链打造这些品牌，这是迪斯尼公司历来遵循的经营之道。”

    1984年和1994年之间，也就是迈克尔•艾斯纳和杰弗里•卡森伯格执掌迪士尼动画的鼎盛时期，这家公司推出了一部又一部令人叹为观止的音乐剧。其中，最耳熟能详的当然是《小美人鱼》( The Little Mermaid)、《狮子王》(The Lion King)和《美女与野兽》(Beauty and the Beast)。随后，精灵之尘终于枯竭。多年来，这家工作室的作品总是无精打采，差强人意。随着梦工厂(Dreamworks)和皮克斯( Pixar)等公司强势崛起，后来居上，迪斯尼动画的士气愈发消沉，人才纷纷出走。伊格尔说：“我们经历了一段漫长的困难时期，出于各种原因，我们当时无法制作出能够提升迪士尼品牌形象的电影。”这正是迪斯尼动画工作室在2006年斥资70多亿美元收购皮克斯公司（这也是伊格尔出任CEO后的首个大动作）的主要原因。

    于是，从7年前开始，皮克斯公司的两位联合创始人约翰•拉塞特（现兼任迪士尼动画和皮克斯的首席创意官）和埃德•卡特莫尔（现任这两家工作室的董事长）着手分配他们在迪士尼动画和皮克斯的工作时间，每周往返于旧金山湾区和阿纳海姆市之间，以期重新激发潜伏在迪斯尼动画身上的那股魔力。他们不是尝试着将皮克斯公司蒸蒸日上的文化移入陷于困境的迪斯尼动画，而是确定了另一个目标：重振起初让迪斯尼动画如此独特的事物——在技术上大胆突破，充满神奇的童话故事。然而，尽管两家公司时常互播对方的电影，以获得反馈意见，但它们的员工其实并没有一起制作电影，即便是在危机时期也不例外。拉塞特和卡特莫尔认为，让两家公司的特性保持分立至关重要。

    When Walt Disney CEO and Chairman Bob Iger showed up at the premiere of film Frozen on Nov. 27, he was already sure that the animated musical about two sisters was something special, a return to the magical essence that made Disney, well, Disney. By the time he got to the credits, he had choked up. "I was glad I was wearing [3-D] glasses," he says. "It was my proudest moment as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company."

    Frozen is melting Iger's heart not just because of the cold, hard, cash it's generating -- it has grossed $669 million so far, and it hasn't even opened in China or Japan -- but also because the success of the film, the third in a row for the studio after years of disappointment, appears to show that Disney Animation Studios is finally, finally back in the groove. "I realized, 'My goodness, Disney Animation is where it rightfully belongs,'" he says. "The exhilaration was profound. It's not about the bottom line. The bottom line is for the quarter. This is for something bigger and longer."

    The tale of two estranged sister princesses who must come together to de-ice their homeland,Frozen is racking up the big numbers. It was the No. 1 all-time Disney animation debut, and it is expected to soon pass The Lion King in overall box office; it's been nominated for two Golden Globes and may get an Oscar nod; it's the No. 1 album on both Amazon and iTunes. (Apparently, the "polar vortex" helped; people didn't seem to mind watching a story about an icy world when they were actually living in one.)

    Frozen also has what Disney (DIS) calls "franchise" potential, which means that its characters and themes will translate across the company to everything from toys to theme park rides to interactive characters. It's a big deal, because there are only a relative handful of franchise brands at Disney. "They're not just making money inside of that film window," says Tony Wible, senior media and entertainment analyst at Janney Capital Markets. "In that Disney fashion, they set it up across the whole spectrum."

    In the Michael Eisner/Jeffrey Katzenberg heyday between 1984 and 1994, Disney Animation rolled out one musical blockbuster after another. There was The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and many others. And then the pixie dust dried up. For years, the offerings were listless and underperformed. Morale dropped and talent departed as companies like Dreamworks and Pixar took the lead in animation. Says Iger: "We went through a long period where, for a variety of reasons, we weren't making the films that drove the perception of the company and the brand." That was a major reason why Iger's first big move as CEO was to spend over $7 billion to buy Pixar in 2006.

    And so, starting seven years ago, two of Pixar's co-founders, John Lasseter (now chief creative officer of both Disney Animation and Pixar) and Ed Catmull (now president of both studios), began to split their time between Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, commuting between the Bay Area and Anaheim every week in hopes of rekindling that Disney magic. Rather than trying to graft Pixar's thriving culture onto Disney's struggling one, they determined that the goal was to resurrect what had made Disney so special in the first place -- the technically audacious, yet magical, fairy tale. But while they screened films for each other to get feedback, Pixar employees and Disney employees didn't actually work together on films, even during crunch times. Lasseter and Catmull believed it was critical to keep the two identities separate.