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As Iger prepares to take the hot seat, the film goes to the heart of many of his dilemmas. At a recent analyst conference, Iger said Disney’s three main priorities were creativity, technology and international growth.

On TV, Disney is firing on all three fronts. Last year the company’s ABC TV division, which Iger ran, put out both Desperate Housewives and Lost. The second seasons are now attracting huge audiences in the US as the first seasons sell well on DVD and attract surfers to Disney’s internet sites. The shows have also proved an international sensation. A Brazilian Housewives is now being made for the South American market.

But life has been tough at the studio — and especially its animation division, which has had to rely on Pixar, led by Apple computer boss Steve Jobs, for major successes such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

While retailers and distributors are excited about Pixar’s next film, Cars, they are wary of Disney’s fare. A bust-up between Eisner and Jobs has left the future of that pact hanging in the balance. Marketing executives at Disney privately admit that a poor run of cartoons has made retailers reluctant to commit to merchandise ahead of a film’s opening.

Chicken Little is the first cartoon from Disney since its decision to drop hand-drawn cartoons in favour of computer-generated characters like those made by Pixar. For a tiny chick, Chicken Little has a lot riding on his head.

Executives say this is just the first of a new generation of Disney animated films. But if the sky falls in on Chicken Little, it will be a big blow.

At lunch — an ominous buffet of fried chicken — the audience was unsure about the film. Many wanted to leave before the afternoon show. But Cook had promised more surprises.

The few that did go missed two films that look set to provide Disney with a blockbuster Christmas: The Chronicles of Narnia, Disney’s film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which looks every bit as much swashbuckling fun as the first.

One forthcoming attraction was missing: Iger. The new Disney boss officially starts tomorrow, but at the end of last week he was in New York for the memorial service of ABC newscaster Peter Jennings, his daughter’s wedding and a Goldman Sachs conference.

Iger is one of the new, greyer generation of Hollywood bosses. In the 1980s and 1990s Hollywood was ruled by the giant egos of Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, Barry Diller and a host of names as large as the companies they ran and for whom Hollywood was the centre of the universe.

The new kings of Hollywood are a more subtle presence. Michael Lynton, who runs Sony and had a stint at Disney earlier in his career, has spent much of his life working in publishing. He has a shelf of Penguin Classics in his office. Brad Grey, now head of Paramount, was a talent agent and made television. His boss, Tom Freston, rose to prominence at MTV. Peter Chernin at 20th Century Fox, owned by Sunday Times parent company News Corporation, is the consummate corporate executive whose brief extends well beyond Hollywood.

In a sense, Iger is the flip side of Eisner, a role he played since he became Eisner’s deputy in 2000. A popular internal candidate for the job, he had his critics outside the firm. Stanley Gold, a former director, called him “a modest man with a lot to be modest about”.

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