For Eric Eisner, the son of former Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner, a March dinner at Nobu in New York capped a triumphant few weeks. In late January, the 34-year-old sold his first production, Hamlet 2, at the Sundance Film Festival, for $10 million—just shy of Little Miss Sunshine’s $10.5 million festival record. On Valentine’s Day, he proposed to his girlfriend, Stacey Bendet, designer of the trendy fashion line Alice & Olivia. That evening at Nobu, the families celebrated the engagement. With a glamorous fiancée at his side and a big movie deal in his pocket, Eric had every reason to feel he was on his way to becoming “Eric Eisner the producer” rather than “Michael Eisner’s son.”

After dinner, the waitstaff presented the couple with a cake. The inscription? CONGRATULATIONS, STACEY AND MICHAEL.

When he’s asked, as he often is, what it’s like to be Michael Eisner’s son, Eric likes to say that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It’s hard to argue the point. As a son of  Eisner—one of three—Eric hitches a ride on his dad’s plane instead of flying commercial, adopts his parents’ friends (such as the writer Fran Lebowitz), and considers Barry Diller, his dad’s onetime boss, a mentor. “Barry’s my man,” Eric says.

But when even the restaurant kitchen staff knows your dad’s name, it’s tough to be your own man. Early in his career, Eric relied on his father for a job; later, when he needed seed money for a new business, he tapped Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer and former Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth. But when it came time to start his own film-production company, Eric decided to go it alone. And that’s when things got interesting.

It all began innocuously enough. In 2004, Eric was in the process of selling a television show he’d co-created and was looking for a new challenge. A friend introduced him to Leonid Rozhetskin, a Russian-born American citizen who wanted to put his money into Hollywood. While Rozhetskin had no film experience, his résumé was impressive—undergrad at Columbia, Harvard Law School, and a couple of years at the law firm White & Case. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Rozhetskin had returned to Russia and made millions as a venture capitalist and investment banker. Among his clients was George Soros, who called on him for advice on Russian telecom investments.

Around Hollywood, Rozhetskin’s reputation was that of a freespending bon vivant who didn’t hide his love for the red carpet. Director George Hickenlooper took Rozhetskin to the premiere of his film Factory Girl, and he remembers Rozhetskin being mesmerized by the movie’s star, Sienna Miller. For the fortysomething Rozhetskin, hooking up with Eric provided both access and a certain level of assurance in a business known to be unkind to starstruck outsiders. For the younger Eisner, Rozhetskin offered a way to operate outside his father’s network.

While Eric and Rozhetskin might have seemed an odd pair—the lanky, mellow Holly­wood child and the pudgy, excitable Russian—they talked for the next two years about going into business together. Even as these talks progressed, Rozhetskin was having problems elsewhere. In 2005, Russian newspapers began reporting that local prosecutors were investigating Rozhetskin for fraud related to a telecom deal. Nevertheless, Irwin Russell, the Eisner family’s lawyer and a former Disney board member, vetted Rozhetskin and gave his okay. On January 18, 2006, Eric and Rozhetskin formed L&E Productions and started looking for projects.

Things for Rozhetskin quickly deteriorated. In June, IPOC International Growth Fund, a Bermuda-based investment firm, accused him of defrauding it of millions in a cell-phone deal. Rozhetskin retaliated in September 2006, filing a lawsuit in New York federal court. He claimed that IPOC was actually a money-laundering vehicle for Leonid Reiman, then Russia’s telecommunications minister. He also claimed that Reiman had threatened his life and strong-armed Russian prosecutors into opening the criminal investigation. Less than a month after Rozhetskin filed the suit, Russian prosecutors charged him with fraud and placed him on the country’s wanted list.

But Eric stuck by his friend. Eric had come across the script for Hamlet 2, a comedy that was being shopped by New Line about a high-school production of a sequel to the Shakespeare tragedy. Though many other producers passed, Eric loved it, and Rozhetskin quickly agreed to pony up about $9 million to produce it.

Shooting began in Albuquerque in September. Eric stayed on-site throughout, and Rozhetskin dropped in occasionally. The film wrapped in October, and co-executive producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger, the duo behind Little Miss Sunshine, persuaded Sundance organizers to squeeze Hamlet 2 onto the schedule as a late entry. The film was well received and prompted an all-night bidding war among distributors. The winner: Focus Features, Universal Studios’ specialty firm. At 8 a.m., Eric signed the papers—$10 million up front and half the proceeds after the film cleared a revenue target. In an email to the producer Carsten Lorenz, Rozhetskin boasted that he’d made a profit on his first Hollywood deal. Eric too reveled in his success. “I wish I could stop time and live in this calm zone,” he said.

Yet the euphoria was short-lived. On March 14, Rozhetskin traveled from London to his vacation home in Jūrmala, Latvia, a coastal city frequented by Russia’s wealthy. When an acquaintance dropped by to say hello, he found furniture knocked over and a pool of blood on the floor. Police discovered Rozhetskin’s car, its interior bearing traces of blood, abandoned in another part of the city. Preliminary DNA tests matched the blood to Rozhetskin.

Eric learned about the disappearance within days but refused to discuss it publicly and was anxious to keep the story out of the U.S. media. In England, where Rozhetskin was one of the founders of the business daily City A.M., tabloids have been filled with sordid details of his private affairs. Today, Rozhetskin remains missing, and friends and family believe he was murdered. Latvian police have not charged anyone with a crime related to the disappearance.

Eric is trying to move on. In late March, he took down the L&E website. He also began pushing forward with several projects he’d started with Rozhetskin, including a biopic about concert promoter Bill Graham. Hamlet 2, set to be released in late August, appears poised to make a splash. In April, the editors of Variety put the movie at the top of their list of the most anticipated events of the summer, while Rolling Stone featured it in a summer preview. For Eric, the buzz around the movie has new moneymen calling. His father is one he hasn’t ruled out.

Access Hollywood

Some unfortunate Tinseltown hookups.

Leonardo DiCaprio
In the late 1990s, money manager Dana Giacchetto defrauded DiCaprio and several other stars, and eventually spent two years in jail.

Anne Hathaway
Hathaway stood by her boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, as he faced charges ranging from embezzlement to check bouncing. Some cases have been settled out of court, the rest have been dropped.

James Earl Jones
Booking agent Alan Walker pock­eted about $1.5 million in fees that he owed Jones and others. In 2005, Walker was sentenced to five years in federal prison.—Julia Dennis