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" &amp;quot;NEVER HAVE A FRIEND IN THIS TOWN.&amp;quot; For years, that was Michael Eisner&amp;#039;s mantra. And whether it&amp;#039;s because of those words or in spite of them, Eisner has proven to be almost indestructible. He has survived more peril than Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, who once literally dangled from the window ledge of a burning hotel. Eisner has reigned for nearly twenty years at a company, Disney, that he doesn&amp;#039;t even own. He&amp;#039;s held on despite a bad heart, bad blood with once-loyal board members, and a job performance that has been, in many ways... not good.  Eisner has presided as Disney bled talent, as ABC languished, as profits declined. Yes, things have been worse at competitors like AOL Time Warner and Vivendi, but you know what? The bosses at those companies lost their jobs. Many people predicted that Eisner also would be long gone by now. Not since Mark Twain has someone&amp;#039;s demise been reported so prematurely. Even now, Eisner is in charge as he wages potentially costly fights on numerous fronts. He&amp;#039;s at odds with Steve Jobs over Pixar, the animation hit machine that Jobs runs and that simply couldn&amp;#039;t be more important to Disney. He&amp;#039;s at war with Harvey Weinstein, the cochairman of Miramax, which Disney owns but doesn&amp;#039;t really control. And he&amp;#039;s embroiled in high-profile litigation over royalties from Winnie the Pooh potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet Eisner keeps on ticking. Eisner&amp;#039;s penchant for protracted and often expensive fights is not new, of course. The most vivid and memorable example \u2014 so far \u2014 is his war with former Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, who sued over his payout after he was ejected from the studio in 1994. In the early going, Katzenberg certainly would have settled for less than $90 million. But after a long and embarrassing battle, Disney had to cough up more than $250 million. The cases of Jobs and Weinstein involve similarly willful adversaries. But because Miramax is far less important to Disney than Pixar, Weinstein is more likely to wind up in the kind of messy public rupture that keeps Hollywood entertained. &amp;quot;Right now, the relationship is not a good one,&amp;quot; acknowledges Bert Fields, one of Weinstein&amp;#039;s attorneys and also Disney&amp;#039;s most persistent legal foe. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a shame, because you&amp;#039;re talking about two talented individuals who should be able to solve these problems. But I have substantial doubt as to whether Disney will really solve them. My experience suggests they won&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; Fields&amp;#039;s experience includes not only his handling of Katzenberg&amp;#039;s case but also his representation, for almost three years, of the plaintiffs in the Pooh litigation. (Fields withdrew from the case in June for reasons that he won&amp;#039;t disclose; he says he still believes the plaintiffs will prevail.) In fact, a prominent producer with ties to Disney claims that Eisner finally decided he&amp;#039;d had enough of Weinstein when it became known that he had retained not only famed litigator David Boies but nemesis Fields as well.  At this point, it seems clear that Disney and Miramax are engaged in the legal proceeding known as &amp;quot;fucking with each other.&amp;quot; The fight is, naturally, about money and control. For some time, Disney and Miramax have been auditing each other. Disney started it, and Miramax countered earlier this year. While details of the underlying conflict are few (Harvey and his brother, Bob, are laboring under a confidentiality agreement), it seems that the Weinsteins could be gearing up for a Katzenberg-style claim over compensation. One huge disagreement involves the accounting standard that is applied in calculating the bonuses paid to the Weinsteins. A source with knowledge of the contract contends that it clearly states that Disney must apply the accounting rules that were in effect when their deal was drafted, in 1993. Since then, the industry has adopted new standards (among others, those governing amortization of a film&amp;#039;s costs). If those were applied, says a former Disney executive, &amp;quot;a ton of money&amp;quot; would be at stake. For a time, he said, it potentially could reduce the Weinsteins&amp;#039; bonuses \u2014 as much as $20 million a year each in the past \u2014 to nothing.  Perfectly encapsulating the underlying issues is Miramax&amp;#039;s expensive but not obviously commercial upcoming holiday film, Cold Mountain. Based on the best-selling Charles Frazier novel, the Civil War-era drama was directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) and stars Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. Industry sources estimate that the budget is nearly $90 million. (Miramax says its cost is about $12 million less because of tax breaks in Europe, where most of the film was shot, but then the number still approaches $80 million.) The big budget might have made more sense if the picture had starred Tom Cruise, as planned, but he dropped out after a bruising salary negotiation with Weinstein.  More important, another studio \u2014 MGM \u2014 was supposed to split the cost of production. Last fall, with filming under way, MGM backed out because it couldn&amp;#039;t get Miramax to agree to put a cap on its share of the cost. The picture was shooting in Romania, and MGM was getting increasingly nervous, says an executive at that company. &amp;quot;In the middle of them saying, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s fine,&amp;#039; there were floods there,&amp;quot; he recalls. &amp;quot;They couldn&amp;#039;t even contact the set, and they&amp;#039;re saying everything&amp;#039;s fine?&amp;quot; Weinstein tried to get another studio to pony up for a piece of the film. He found no takers. He tried to find foreign investors last May at Cannes, but so far Miramax appears to be on its own. That makes Cold Mountain the biggest-budget film that it has ever tackled alone. (The studio had a foreign partner covering $65 million of the cost of the even more expensive Gangs of New York.) &amp;quot;Harvey couldn&amp;#039;t say no to Minghella, and he loved the script,&amp;quot; says a Miramax source. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s been a ton of movies that nobody wanted to bet on and Harvey was right, including Chicago.&amp;quot; Eisner apparently does not relish the opportunity to find out whether Harvey will be right again, and it&amp;#039;s hard to blame him for that. But the real problem, according to former Disney executives, is that Miramax&amp;#039;s business plan does not contemplate any budget that big. In theory, Disney could contend that the Weinsteins have breached their agreement, giving Disney nuclear capabilities ranging from wresting control of the company from the Weinsteins to their dismissal. One of those former Disney insiders adds that it might be hard for Disney to apply the letter of the agreement now, since Miramax has breached the deal previously without a challenge from its corporate parent. But Disney has been known to go to war with unpersuasive arguments in the past. With Cold Mountain, Weinstein is headed in the precise direction that Eisner doesn&amp;#039;t want him to go. A former Weinstein associate says the Miramax chief is thirsting to be a mogul with money along the lines of producer Joe Roth, who makes big-budget movies and pays big-star salaries and even wins favor with the press. To be Roth, Weinstein needs more than the reported $700 million a year that Disney provides. That may be why Weinstein, to the surprise of many in the industry, has announced plans to make pricey &amp;quot;tent pole&amp;quot; movies with outside backers. The exercise will require him to hook up with other deep-pocketed financiers. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;ll make a lot of friends among those people and treat them well and charm and cajole them,&amp;quot; says one executive who has worked closely with Weinstein. &amp;quot;And then [if] Michael throws him out, it&amp;#039;s an insurance policy.&amp;quot; Would Michael throw him out? No one at Disney will comment on any of this (and Weinstein will say only, through a spokesman, &amp;quot;Any successful relationship periodically needs to overcome bumps in the road&amp;quot;). But there are certainly rumors that Eisner has decided he&amp;#039;s had his fill of Weinstein \u2014 who is abrasive enough to make it tough to choose sides in this fight (though Fields contends that Miramax&amp;#039;s forty-plus Oscar nominations last year, compared with zero for Disney&amp;#039;s live-action films, prove that Weinstein has his virtues). &amp;quot;If Harvey is vulnerable at all, they&amp;#039;ll kill him,&amp;quot; says a prominent producer confidently. But Fields says he doesn&amp;#039;t believe that. &amp;quot;It would be a disastrous decision for the shareholders,&amp;quot; he says. According to Fields, it&amp;#039;s the Weinsteins who want out \u2014 on their terms. He says they have offered three times in writing to buy back the Miramax assets. &amp;quot;We said, Tell the board to name its price. If it&amp;#039;s reasonable, we&amp;#039;ll pay it,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;They won&amp;#039;t submit it to the board. [It&amp;#039;s] as if they really want to have another war.&amp;quot; A former high-level Disney executive \u2014 and there are so many \u2014 predicts that in the end, neither man will pull the trigger. Harvey &amp;quot;will push and push, but when it comes down to losing the company, he&amp;#039;ll back down,&amp;quot; this executive says. And the same goes for Eisner. &amp;quot;You think Michael could stomach losing Miramax?&amp;quot; he asks. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no way.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s certainly the logical prediction. But many would have wagered heavily that the stakes were too high for Katzenberg&amp;#039;s case ever to go to trial. Bettors should have a much easier time predicting the outcome of the Pixar fight. Disney&amp;#039;s own animation capabilities are a shadow of what they were, and other companies that previously wouldn&amp;#039;t have dared to compete in this arena have raked in fortunes. Fox had Ice Age. DreamWorks had Shrek. Disney has Pixar, and that cannot change. At first, Disney hardly knew what it had in Pixar. The studio actually considered pulling the plug on the first Toy Story. Since then, Pixar has come up with a historic chain of hits: A Bug&amp;#039;s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and now Finding Nemo. Steve Jobs has correctly pointed out that Pixar is &amp;quot;the most successful animation studio in the world.&amp;quot; Astonishingly, Finding Nemo is on track to be the biggest-grossing film of the summer and possibly even of the year. Had Hollywood&amp;#039;s prognosticators been given a chance to wager that it would outperform The Matrix Reloaded, no one would have taken the bet. In the days before the film was released, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that no Pixar film had ever opened in the thick of the summer movie season and warned that Nemo faced a &amp;quot;tough task&amp;quot; in living up to the company&amp;#039;s past success. But if anyone thought that a soft performance by Nemo would weaken Pixar&amp;#039;s hand, well.  Pixar&amp;#039;s deal calls for Disney to pay half the cost of Pixar&amp;#039;s movies and collect half the income plus a distribution fee. Jobs is said to want a far different arrangement \u2014 modeled on George Lucas&amp;#039;s exceptional deal with Fox \u2014 in which Pixar would pay a fee only to have its films distributed. While Jobs has been talking to other studios, Pixar always seemed destined to stay at Disney; the alternative is to leave behind its library. But for Disney, losing Pixar now is simply out of the question. After Nemo&amp;#039;s performance, says one Pixar insider, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ve ever seen a situation where a company had more leverage.&amp;quot;  The strains in the relationship arose because Eisner squeezed when he should have hugged. Eisner insisted that sequels, like the second Toy Story, would not count toward fulfilling Pixar&amp;#039;s contract, which called for the studio to deliver five original pictures to Disney. Meanwhile, John Lasseter \u2014 the creative genius behind Pixar \u2014 had a strong idea for a third Toy Story. &amp;quot;Michael wedded himself to the letter of the deal as opposed to the spirit of the deal,&amp;quot; adds a former Disney executive. &amp;quot;He set back the relationship to where Steve said, &amp;#039;Okay, you&amp;#039;re not my partner.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s really the seminal moment in terms of this relationship.&amp;quot; What company would rebuff a creative genius offering to make a guaranteed blockbuster? Disney. &amp;quot;They spent a year and a half arguing about it. They could have been halfway through the movie,&amp;quot; says one of the former Disney executives. And, he adds, Eisner has missed many opportunities to cement his relationship with Pixar since then. &amp;quot;This is all personal,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;[Eisner] was always threatened by Steve, that&amp;#039;s all. He&amp;#039;s a smart guy, he gets his face on Time magazine, he&amp;#039;s loved by Wall Street. He&amp;#039;d be a perfect guy to take over Disney.&amp;quot; Obviously that thought has occurred to Jobs. In a May conference call, Jobs toyed with industry analysts by suggesting that he might buy Disney outright. Then he added, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll just leave that alone.&amp;quot; Eisner replied, in a fashion, after the huge Nemo opening. Conceding that the Pixar deal would have to be sweetened, Eisner added, &amp;quot;What Pixar has that we don&amp;#039;t have is John Lasseter.&amp;quot; It may seem peculiar to hurl an insult in the midst of a critical negotiation. But knowing that he was going to have to cave in to Jobs might not have put Eisner in the very best mood. And that&amp;#039;s why Eisner, despite logic, might not be so flexible when it comes to dealing with Weinstein. And there are those who admit they hope he won&amp;#039;t be. &amp;quot;Boy, I&amp;#039;d like to have a front-row seat at this fucking fight,&amp;quot; says a production chief at another studio. Hang in there, laddie. With a little luck, Michael versus Harvey could make Gangs of New York look like Mickey Mouse stuff. HOW TO BREAK INTO THE INDUSTRY  By Jamie Kennedy THIRTY-THREE IS YOUNG to write one&amp;#039;s memoirs, but Jamie Kennedy endured a lifetime of humiliation before landing The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. We asked the author of Wannabe: A Hollywood Experiment (August, Citadel Press) for some tips on making it in show business.  TAKE AN ODD JOB I worked as a house cleaner. I cleaned Janeane Garofalo&amp;#039;s bathroom, which was pretty funky. I&amp;#039;d usually do one prescrub and one scrub. But on her tub, I did three prescrubs and two scrubs.  NETWORK WHEREVER YOU CAN I bagged groceries. Mindy Cohn from The Facts of Life came in long after the show had been canceled. I asked, &amp;quot;What are you doing now?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Nothing,&amp;quot; she said, and she looked like she was going to cry. My manager saw that. Then he fired me. GET CLOSE TO CELEBRITIES When I was a page on Who&amp;#039;s the Boss?, I left my post to watch Tony Danza talk to the audience. A woman shouted, &amp;quot;Tony, can I see your ass?&amp;quot; He turned and flexed. The next day, my boss yelled at me: &amp;quot;You left your post to look at Danza&amp;#039;s ass!&amp;quot; Then he fired me. LAND THE RIGHT AGENT My agent sucked. I was going nowhere. So I invented my own \u2014 an old mensch with a raspy voice named Marty Power. I set up a phone line in a garage, and I&amp;#039;d make calls as him and say, &amp;quot;This kid&amp;#039;s hot! A cross between Robby Benson and James Woods. What can you do for me?&amp;quot; It worked. I got meetings. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE I played a black comedy club and I did a bit on what MC Hammer would sound like if he were Chinese: &amp;quot;Can&amp;#039;t chop this!&amp;quot; The crowd hated me. I ran out of there, and I heard the emcee say, &amp;quot;Keep on running, Jason Kennedy. Maybe yo ass&amp;#039;ll run into something funny!&amp;quot;   \u2014 AS TOLD TO CONNELL BARRETT "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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