Editing Roy E. Disney (section)

===Partnership with Eisner===
[[File:RoyEDisney07.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Disney in 2007]]

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Disney's department produced a number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed films, an era which has been called the "[[Disney Renaissance]]". ''[[The Lion King]]'', for instance, garnered nearly $1 billion<ref>{{cite web|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lionking.htm|title=The Lion King (1994) - Box Office Mojo|website=boxofficemojo.com|access-date=February 19, 2020|archive-date=May 17, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090517125117/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lionking.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> following its release in the summer of 1994<ref>{{cite web|url=https://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1994&p=.htm|title=1994 Yearly Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo|website=boxofficemojo.com|access-date=February 19, 2020|archive-date=September 22, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190922081228/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1994&p=.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Despite this, Disney experienced a marked decline in profits beginning in the late 1990s as it expanded into lower-grossing, though still profitable [[direct-to-video]] spin-offs and sequels.

Disney was concerned about [[Jeffrey Katzenberg]] taking too much credit for the success of Disney's early 1990s releases.<ref name="wakingsleepingbeauty" /><ref name="stewartJK">{{Harvnb|Stewart|2005|pp=160–186}}</ref> When [[Frank Wells]] died in a helicopter crash in 1994,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/05/obituaries/frank-wells-disney-s-president-is-killed-in-a-copter-crash-at-62.html | work=[[The New York Times]] | title=Frank Wells, Disney's President, Is Killed in a Copter Crash at 62 | date=April 5, 1994 | access-date=May 6, 2010 | archive-date=June 5, 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100605074532/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/05/obituaries/frank-wells-disney-s-president-is-killed-in-a-copter-crash-at-62.html | url-status=live }}</ref> [[Michael Eisner]] refused to promote Katzenberg to the vacated position of president. Eisner recalled, "Roy [Walt Disney's nephew and a force on Disney's board who Eisner says "could be a troublemaker"], who did not like him at all — I forget the reason, but Jeffrey probably did not treat him the way that Roy would have wanted to be treated — said to me, 'If you make him the president, I will start a proxy fight.'"<ref>{{cite news|title=Michael Eisner on Former Disney Colleagues, Rivals and Bob Iger's Successor|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-eisner-disney-colleagues-rivals-914841|publisher=The Hollywood Reporter|date=July 27, 2016|access-date=February 19, 2020|archive-date=October 6, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006104637/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-eisner-disney-colleagues-rivals-914841|url-status=live}}</ref> Tensions between Katzenberg, Eisner and Disney resulted in Katzenberg's resignation from the company that October. Katzenberg launched a lawsuit against Disney to recover money he felt he was owed and settled out of court for an estimated $250 million.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stewart |first=James B. |title=DisneyWar|year=2005|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=0-684-80993-1|title-link=DisneyWar}}</ref>

On October 16, 1998, in a surprise presentation made at the newly unveiled Disney Legends Plaza at the company's headquarters, Eisner presented Disney with the [[Disney Legends]] Award. Disney's pet project was the film ''[[Fantasia 2000]]'', a [[sequel]] to his uncle's 1940 animated movie ''[[Fantasia (1940 film)|Fantasia]]''. Walt Disney had planned a sequel to the original movie, but it was not finally released until December 17, 1999, after nine years of production under Disney. Like its predecessor, the film combined high-quality contemporary animation and classical music, but also suffered at the US [[box office]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}}