A few weeks ago, at a Las Vegas video convention, Jeffrey Katzenberg, chieftain of the Disney movie jungle, was joined onstage by an adult lion to tout The Lion King, the most successful film in the company's history. Suddenly the beast wrapped its paw around Katzenberg's thigh. The audience gasped, the trainer scrambled, and the wiry mogul wriggled free, raising his arms in victory.
As it turned out, Katzenberg escaped the jaws of a lion but got devoured by a mouse. Last week the empire that Mickey built announced that Katzenberg, 43, was resigning Sept. 30, when his contract with the...