With the unexpected return of Bob Iger last month for a new stint as Disney CEO, the entertainment giant’s veteran chief financial officer Christine McCarthy has emerged as a leading contender to take over the top job.
22.11.2022 - 04:33 / deadline.com
Many Disney employees woke up this morning trying to make sense of a surreal Sunday night that some say felt like a dream.
The Hollywood spectacle couldn’t have been scripted any better. As top Disney executives were filing into the Dodger Stadium hospitality tent for Elton John’s final North American concert, which streamed live on Disney+, news broke of Bob Iger replacing Bob Chapek as Disney CEO. The jaw-dropping move sent Disney shares soaring and industry tongues wagging, but it also raises some thorny questions for the media giant despite the familiar hand taking the controls.
Chapek was expected to be at the Elton John concert, sources said, but canceled his appearance by midday Sunday. His top lieutenant, Kareem Daniel, Chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, went to the stadium but left before the concert started as people around him were reacting to the bombshell announcement, we hear.
The future of Daniel and his division instantly fell into a serious limbo, with Disney exchanging “RIP DMED” messages Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, Daniel was gone in Iger’s first major move after meeting with Disney’s senior executives all morning. The unified, streaming-centric distribution structure also is being scrapped and will be replaced by “a new structure that puts more decision-making back in the hands of our creative teams and rationalizes costs,” Iger said in a company memo.
It is unclear when exactly Chapek was told about the shakeup, some sources indicate it was Sunday in a brisk conversation with Disney board chairman Susan Arnold, who made the announcement of Iger’s return Sunday night.
As for Iger, one well-placed person told Deadline that the CEO return has been in the offing since
With the unexpected return of Bob Iger last month for a new stint as Disney CEO, the entertainment giant’s veteran chief financial officer Christine McCarthy has emerged as a leading contender to take over the top job.
Bob McGrath, who was a longtime cast member on the beloved children’s show Sesame Street, has died at age 90, his family confirmed.
When Michael Eisner was making a ceremonial exit as Disney’s CEO in 2005 he acknowledged that the intrigues of succession had become “Shakespearean.” Rival corporate factions were vying for power. Some insiders were persuaded that Eisner never would actually depart.
“There is a lot to do,” Bob Iger told Disney staffers today of the state of the company he is now running again. “Quickly,” added the newly re-minted CEO at a town hall at the company’s Burbank HQ heralding his official return.
Death, taxes and films that bomb at the box office.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson has entered the running to replace Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.
Aussie actor Hugh Jackman was best known for musicals like “Oklahoma” when the Wolverine role was offered to him in the early 2000s. At the time, director Bryan Singer and 20th Century Fox had lost their original choice, Dougray Scott, to Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible II.” After “X-Men” became a huge hit, Jackman was briefly considered for the role of James Bond in what would end up being 2006’s “Casino Royale.” He turned down the part paving the way for Daniel Craig to ultimately take the reins from Pierce Brosnan.
Disney stock faded more than 1% on the second day of Bob Iger’s return engagement as CEO, reflecting investors’ divergent outlooks on the media giant’s prospects
The National Grid has issued an alert for potential power cuts tonight. It warned that increased energy usage on Tuesday 22 November could cause power cuts at around 7pm.
The surprise return of Bob Iger as Disney CEO, replacing his own replacement Bob Chapek, is not without precedent in corporate America, as Jimmy Kimmel reminded viewers last night.
Bob Iger, who was reinstalled as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. yesterday, will be eligible to receive up to $27 million in each of the two years he is under contract to lead the company.
Kareem Daniel is exiting Disney as head of its Media and Entertainment Distribution division, one day after the ouster of CEO Bob Chapek.
Among those quite happy with the re-installment of Bob Iger as Disney’s CEO was exhibition giant, AMC’s Adam Aron, who took to Twitter in the wake of the news exclaiming, “Based on box office grosses, Disney is the biggest film maker of any movie studio. Bob Iger coming back to again lead Disney as its CEO is a big deal. Let me shout this from the mountain top. I have the absolute highest respect for Bob Iger.”
So much for the retired life of Bob Iger. Deadline reports that after less than a year into retirement, Iger returns to the Walt Disney Company as CEO.
Disney shares busted out of the starting gate, rising 8% in early trading on a wave of optimistic sentiment about Bob Iger’s return engagement as CEO.
Wall Street has already embraced the news that Bob Iger has returned as Disney’s CEO, replacing Bob Chapek’s short and tumultuous reign: Shares in the entertainment giant climbed nearly 9% in premarket trading on Monday, to $99.85. Chapek, the former Disney parks chief who himself replaced Iger as CEO less than two years ago, has struggled during his brief tenure amid COVID pressures, economic issues as well self-inflicted management wounds — and Disney’s shaky revenue picture has driven its stock price down 41% since the start of the year.