The stuntman son of the man who Nissa Diederich took over from at 20th Television last year is suing the EVP and the Walt Disney Company for retaliation and putting him on a career killing blacklist.
02.12.2022 - 01:05 / deadline.com
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.
Eisner himself heightened the drama by “forgetting” to introduce his announced successor, Bob Iger, at key functions. Iger famously stormed out from one of them.
Wall Street, too, was nervous about a transition. Under Eisner’s 20-year reign Disney’s revenues had increased from $1.6 billion to $30 billion and major investors doubted whether Iger or anyone else could successfully govern such a politicized Disney. Veteran employees openly yearned for a return to the peace and focus of old Walt’s tenure.
They still do. Now, with Iger assuming the helm a second time, some Disney denizens see similar Shakespearean subplots re-intruding in the script. Their question: Can anyone, even Iger, actually govern Disney given its inner contradictions and intrigues?
The Iger mythology, they point out, was built on the acquisition of entities like Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and even Fox. These ventures had one common thread: they were created by visionaries obsessed by a specific product. They were not conglomerators hungry to hype quarterly earnings or to appease shareholders with new synergies or structural redesigns.
Just as Eisner had recruited Iger, after repeatedly expressing his doubts, Iger had passed the mantle to Bob Chapek amid similar misgivings.
Eisner’s choice proved inspired. Iger’s didn’t, but now it’s time for Iger’s Act II.
To many, the Magic Kingdom circa 2022 seems a maze of tensions as it tries to mobilize its complex constituencies. A symbol is the
The stuntman son of the man who Nissa Diederich took over from at 20th Television last year is suing the EVP and the Walt Disney Company for retaliation and putting him on a career killing blacklist.
The fate of ESPN, Disney’s prize asset and a reliable generator of cash flow even in uncertain times, remains the subject of vigorous debate in industry and finance circles.
When James Cameron delivered Avatar in 2009, none of us quite grasped that this was not a movie but a constellation of movies – one that will represent a multibillion-dollar investment in the coming years. One iteration is even booked for 2028.
And so it begins. Thirteen years after the first Avatar arrived in movie theaters, conquered and continued to conquer the global box office as the highest release of all-time with $2.9 billion worldwide, Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to the James Cameron directed 3x Oscar winning 3D sci-fi movie arrives with a global outlook of $525M in what is Disney’s widest global release ever at 52K screens, surpassing Avengers: Endgame.
Two years ago, Bob Iger pointed to the rafters and said, the future of our business is on streaming and Disney+. By then, everyone had a streaming service or one in the works, and it ushered in the age of #TooMuchContent.
The King of the World won’t be at the L.A. premiere tonight for Avatar: The Way of Water after testing positive for Covid.
Holiday parties are usually a mix of people and purposes but hosts this year are intent on cross-pollinating the stars of film with those of Hollywood’s exo planets – YouTube and TikTok. So will Robert DeNiro enjoy trading secrets this year with PewDiePie? What will Leonardo Di Caprio confide to MrBeast or Liza Kushy or Bryan Lourd to FaZeApex?
Yesterday’s DC chaos about the unplugging of Patty Jenkins’ version of Wonder Woman 3 coupled with rampant rumors of the studio’s new co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran turning the comic book label upside down sans a Henry Cavill Man of Steel 2 and possible re-casting of many current big superhero roles has left the town with a bad case of PTSD.
Disney + Basic, a cheaper version of the 3-year-old streaming service, has officially gone live.
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.
When Disney launches the ad-supported tier of Disney+ later this week, about one-quarter of current U.S. subscribers are expected to opt for the lower-cost version with ads, according to new research from Kantar.
Having just arrived in Los Angeles, Prince Philip faced a covey of reporters with photographers snapping away. “You asked about my mission to America,” he said. “The Queen and I are dedicated to helping the underprivileged. Mind you, we realize that an underprivileged child in Los Angeles is one who doesn’t have his own swimming pool.”
Disney said an upcoming restructuring under new/old CEO Bob Iger could result in impairment charges. It also noted that, as expected, it’s acquired the remaining 15% of streaming tech company BamTech it didn’t already own, paying $900 million. The news was tucked in a long year-end SEC filing today after a tumultuous ten days for the company.
“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.
Tom McCarthy is a very clever writer who has succeeded in drawing audiences to a difficult genre: thrillers about newspapers. He won an Original Screenplay Oscar for Spotlight, made in 2015, was a riveting movie about how the Boston Globe exposed a cover-up involving a defrocked priest. His new ABC series Alaska Daily focuses on a hot New York journalist (Hilary Swank) who is exiled into covering crime in Anchorage.
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 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.
Dancing with the Stars‘ first season on Disney+ has come to end! So much change has already been announced going into tonight’s season 31 finale. First, judge Len Goodman and Cheryl Burke have called it quits. Then, Disney gave Bob Chapek the heave-ho and rewarded Bob Iger with his old CEO seat. A desperate plea from the cheap seats, Mr. Iger: return the mirror ball to ABC! I think we can all agree that this streaming experiment has gone the way of the polka: no one wants Disney+ anywhere near the ballroom. Perhaps moving it back home to Mondays on ABC can be your next major decision after lowering the price for the Genie+ line-skipping service at the parks?
Call it a holiday tradition as common as sweet potatoes on the Thanksgiving table, but Disney is going to rule the five-day holiday stretch again after wins in 2016 (Moana), 2017 (Coco), 2018 (Ralph Breaks the Internet), 2019 (Frozen 2) and last year (Encanto), as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s third weekend looks to do $40M over Wednesday-Sunday and Disney Animation’s Strange World hopes to squeeze out $30M+. All of this occurs as Bob Iger is re-installed as the CEO of Disney and the studio’s distribution czar Kareem Daniel exits.
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.