Disney's new mandate

Now under new studio management, the Mouse House is only interested in two types of movies: The $150-million+ blockbuster with lots of special effects and merchandising/marketing possibilities, and the $30 million youth-skewed feature with cheap talent on the verge of making it big. "Everything in the middle," one producer told NY magazine's Claude Brodesser-Akner, "is toast." That includes, by the way, a sequel to last year's "The Proposal," which starred Sandra Bullock and grossed $315 million worldwide. In the wonderful new world of Disney, it's a nonstarter.

To help pay for the whopping $10 billion Disney spent acquiring Pixar and Marvel in recent years, [CEO Bob] Iger decreed that as the world's largest licensor of consumer products, Disney needs its films not to merely succeed in theaters, but to sell gobs of spinoff merch, as well: In 2008, the company sold some $30 billion worth of licensed consumer products, and suffice it to say, exactly none of that came from Sandra Bullock hand towels.