I'm sure there are a few out there who are sick of my complaining over the failure of Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Prince Caspian film. But, I just had to write about recent comments made by CEO Bob Iger on the subject at a conference.

Okay, in Iger's mind, the reason Caspian failed is because it is a pretty competitive multiplex out there. He feels there are "too many movies being released." He also thinks the marketplace is "very delicate, very fragile." The Mouse CEO also highlighted the fact that Disney has cut back on movie production in recent years and is therefore hopefully making better decisions about the cinematic concepts it backs.

These comments sound like excuses, Bob. Sure, it's competitive out there. Marvel's (NYSE: MVL) Iron Man and Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are certainly overshadowing the brand equity of Caspian. But, is that the real reason the movie performed as poorly as it did? An interesting little note in the article is that Disney originally was going to use the same releasing strategy for Caspian as it did for the first Narnia epic. The studio intended on opening the sequel during the most recent Christmas season. But, here's why it didn't: producing partner Walden Media was opening its own movie at that time, one that was being distributed by Sony (NYSE: SNE).

Disney (NYSE: DIS) reported earnings earlier in the week, and once again, Bob Iger pleased Wall Street with the media company's latest results (for a look at the numbers and an options-trading idea for Disney, see Brent Archer's recent piece about the Mouse). They more than beat expectations, but as a Disney shareholder, I'm somewhat blase about the whole affair. Sure, Iger is being feted as a CEO wunderkind who has successfully steered the S.S. Disney into prosperous financial seas after taking the wheel over from failed captain, Michael Eisner. But, you know, I've owned Disney for ten years now, and I just don't like the price action of the stock -- it hasn't gone anywhere since the last split back in 1998. And, I can't say that the stock performed spectacularly this week post the earnings win.

I think Iger needs to start worrying about the stock. Yeah, he'd probably tell me something like "I'm busy leveraging the Disney brand to differentiate its content from other media concerns to drive increases in returns on capital and earnings per share -- the stock will take care of itself." Ha! The stock has done nothing. Iger should pay attention to the sad long-term range that symbol DIS has been in for what seems like an eternity. Here's my suggestion -- double the dividend, Bob. You can do it.

A look at the company's most recent 10Q (for the quarter ended March 2008) shows an interesting cash-flow story. Okay, cash from operations for the last six months came in at $3.3 billion. Capital expenditures and acquisitions together equaled $759 million. Dividends were $664 million. Add $759 million and $664 million together and you get $1.4 billion. I think there's a lot of breathing room there, Bob. In fact, if you brought dividends up to an even $2 billion, you still would have covered cap-ex and acquisition costs. And remember, Disney pays an annual dividend, so that $664 million was for the whole year! Imagine if you spread $2 billion out over four quarters. You could easily double it, Bob. In fact, a check of the most recent 10K shows that cash flow has been excellent the last few years. Disney, by my calculations, could have supported a much higher dividend back in 2005!

Look out, DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) -- your arch enemy, Disney (NYSE: DIS), wants to be king of animation at the cinema over the next few years. Actually, I suppose other companies who produce animation, such as Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and Viacom (NYSE: VIA), should watch out as well.

According to a Disney press release, ten cartoons will be released through 2012. The lineup sounds pretty impressive. We'll be seeing the third Toy Story movie in the summer of 2010, and two years later, audiences will be revving up for a Cars sequel. During the holiday season of 2011, a Pixar fairy tale called "The Bear and the Bow" will be weaving its magic (hopefully) in the multiplexes, which is interesting, because during the summer of that same year, Pixar will be releasing something called "newt", so fans will get two Pixar properties three years from now. Other animated projects include Bolt, which will use the voice talents of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus, and The Princess and the Frog.

Whew, there was a lot of cool intellectual properties in that press release, and as a Disney shareholder, I am excited at the prospects. But this isn't just about a bunch of cartoons, my friends -- not at all. This is a huge test for Bob Iger. Was he correct in spending billions to acquire Pixar and its talent trust, specifically John Lasseter? Mr. Lasseter, the chief creative officer for both Walt Disney Animation and Pixar Animation Studios, has a lot of pressure weighing down upon his shoulders. Not sure if he would actually admit that, but he does. He's the man who's supposed to see Disney's animation assets into the future, to bring Disney's animation brand back to prominence. Many people thought that Disney was losing its way in terms of traditional animation; to add insult to injury, some were questioning whether Pixar, when it wasn't part of Disney proper, was what Disney used to be -- innovative in its creativity, obsessed with quality, and driven to provide a moving experience for animation fans whenever they sat before the silver screen.

So, we'll see whether those billions invested in the Pixar acquisition truly will reap stellar returns on invested capital. It will be the performance of the non-Pixar films that will tell the tale.

Disclosure: I own shares of Disney; positions can change at any time.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) held its annual shareholder meeting last Thursday, and a couple interesting things were discussed, according to a Hollywood Reporter piece.

Apparently, a mutual fund manager challenged management regarding a controversial miniseries called The Path to 9/11, claiming that Disney has decided not to exploit the project on home video because of political considerations. I vaguely remember this miniseries, but it seems to have been critical of President Bill Clinton, and since his wife is running right now, well, maybe the decision was based on not interfering with whatever momentum she may (or may not) have. The mutual fund guy said CEO Bob Iger has been a donor of Clinton (as one can imagine, Iger denies that politics are involved here).

I am really not sure if this guy has a legitimate point or not, or what his bias is, but let me say this -- if the miniseries did really cost $40 million, then it should be out on DVD, period. Shareholders should be angry about that. Content is king, new distribution platforms are the kingdom, and if this miniseries is controversial, then it might bring in a little bit of cash to the Mouse's coffers. Now, I obviously realize that not releasing the miniseries isn't going to break Disney -- but I do want the company to aggressively exploit any and all content, especially one that cost $40 million to generate.

Ah, the writer's strike is coming to an end, as Douglas McIntyre discussed over the weekend. Media companies like Viacom (NYSE: VIA), CBS (NYSE: CBS) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) are probably happy to put this work stoppage behind them. And as a shareholder of Disney (NYSE: DIS) and the conglomerate behind NBC Universal, General Electric (NYSE: GE), I should be pleased.

Yeah, I suppose I am, for the most part, but there's a side to me that was really ticked off during this whole affair. To be completely blunt, I'm not sure that screenwriters have such a unique talent, and I'm not sure that they deserve residuals at all. Let's be honest -- when a studio puts up capital to generate a filmed entertainment product, the only entity taking on risk is the studio, plus any partner(s) that the studio has lined up to further distribute the risk. Writers aren't taking on any risk -- they're simply getting paid to do a job that a lot of people can do. You, sir or madam, reading this post, probably have the ability to write a script. I just don't buy the notion that studios have to shell out residual payments, above and beyond a flat fee, to screenwriters for their work. The Hollywood movie industry is risky enough as it is -- there's really no way that anyone from Michael Eisner to Bob Iger to Peter Guber to Harvey Weinstein, can predict what will be a hit and what won't. It just can't be done. Millions can be spent on the development of a script, only to see such a sum wasted when it doesn't translate to the big or small screen.

The Consumer Electronics Show yesterday got what they wanted in a keynote speaker -- a big name. But did Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) CEO Bob Iger accomplish anything at the CES other than filling auditorium seats? Not likely.

Iger introduced Disney's new website, which he called "Disney.com on steroids." The new site will make Disney shows and characters easier to find, add Web 2.0 widgets and channels, and allow users to create their own personal channels.

This sounds promising, but there is a caveat. Disney, which seeks to avoid controversy at all costs, is playing it safe, not allowing users to upload information on the personal channels. So the personal channels will be anything but, similar in that aspect to a failed experiment by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) not that long ago. The rest of the changes are nice, but making the Disney characters easier to find on the website is hardly going to be a big traffic builder.

Technology companies succeed by being edgy and charging onto the scene without heed to danger (See: MySpace, YouTube), not by being vanilla and playing it safe as Disney, in typical fashion for them, is doing.

I don't fault Disney for protecting its sugar-coated image; it has built up a tremendous children's brand over a period of generations. But if Disney isn't willing to go all the way, it should step out of the way and let the real innovators use the web to its full potential.

One interesting note about the iTV that hasn't received all that much analysis as one would expect in the general media is the fact that the iTV has a small hard drive in it. Disney's Bob Iger let this little aside drop during a Goldman Sachs conference where the big announcement was how many Disney movies had been sold through iTunes in the first week.

The implication of the iTV device having a hard drive is interesting, because it beefs up the iTV's media capability. This isn't just an iTunes streaming device, but a competitor to digital video recorders like TiVo. Add to that this Roughly Drafted article that points out that the iTV has a HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) and you can see that Apple is going after a rich multimedia experience and that this is not a simple wireless settop box.

Mr. Iger even makes such a reference when he says at the same conference that "...it may be an opportunity to actually charge people for a TVR experience. In that if they've forgotten to set their TiVo device or their TVR or they just have no plan to do it but they want to watch an episode that they missed, they can go to iTunes, buy it for $1.99..."

Now, the iTV doesn't show signs of being able to snag cable content like your average DVR, which makes it not quite the universal replacement device. But it will be interesting to see how large the hard drive will be, and whether iTV will be able to be modified to work as a DVR by 3rd party programs or even Apple itself thanks to the hard drive. All this makes for iTV being a very interesting salvo in Apple's battle to become a media company with media solutions, and certainly an exciting development in Apple's quest to become the center of the digital entertainment arena, linking both the traditional entertainment area and the new.

Will iTV be able to solidly compete with DVRs, or will it just be an addition for the iTunes faithful? And will you be buying one?

Tobias Buckell is a freelancer, author, professional blogger, and owns shares in Apple stock.