News The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors Extends Robert A. Iger’s Contract as CEO Through 2026

[lazyboy97o]

I really can't believe Eisner has gone through this George W. Bush-like revisionism now that he's out of the spotlight.

It's like people just simply don't remember or don't wish to acknowledge the problems simply because they don't like what they have now. Make no mistake, I don't think the company is at all in it's peak days at the moment, but you're kidding yourselves if you think Eisner's got nothing to do with that.

At the end of the day, the company would not be run like it is today had Eisner not led it into a dark age. Every single thing Disney does today is because the company and its board lives in fear of getting back to how things were when Eisner was forced out. He had his time of brilliance, absolutely, but by the end, Eisner was a cancer eating away at the company.

Disney was failing on all levels by the end of his run. The animation studio was in tatters, the parks were aging and stagnating, and the wheels of the whole operation were falling off. For all of Eisner's ideas and ambitions, he just couldn't ever figure out how to make it all work harmoniously. He had only two modes: spend as much money as humanly thinkable on a massive project that turns out great but sticks a knife into the company's chest, or work so on the cheap that the books are protected by the project is an absolute joke. He couldn't make those two things meet in the middle.

Iger is simply a response to Eisner. The company's decisions today exist as a result of the hole they were dug into then. Now, that is not to say Iger's done a perfect job of things. He hasn't. He's made a ton of mistakes, and that's been even more true since his return. But the one mistake he hasn't made (yet anyway) is losing control of everything so severely that Walt Disney's own family has to step in for fear that the whole thing was going to collapse.

Iger kept and promoted the people at the core of Eisner’s worst years. You keep trying to play history teacher but you don’t really know it.

 

[Lilofan]

I really can't believe Eisner has gone through this George W. Bush-like revisionism now that he's out of the spotlight.

It's like people just simply don't remember or don't wish to acknowledge the problems simply because they don't like what they have now. Make no mistake, I don't think the company is at all in it's peak days at the moment, but you're kidding yourselves if you think Eisner's got nothing to do with that.

At the end of the day, the company would not be run like it is today had Eisner not led it into a dark age. Every single thing Disney does today is because the company and its board lives in fear of getting back to how things were when Eisner was forced out. He had his time of brilliance, absolutely, but by the end, Eisner was a cancer eating away at the company.

Disney was failing on all levels by the end of his run. The animation studio was in tatters, the parks were aging and stagnating, and the wheels of the whole operation were falling off. For all of Eisner's ideas and ambitions, he just couldn't ever figure out how to make it all work harmoniously. He had only two modes: spend as much money as humanly thinkable on a massive project that turns out great but sticks a knife into the company's chest, or work so on the cheap that the books are protected by the project is an absolute joke. He couldn't make those two things meet in the middle.

Iger is simply a response to Eisner. The company's decisions today exist as a result of the hole they were dug into then. Now, that is not to say Iger's done a perfect job of things. He hasn't. He's made a ton of mistakes, and that's been even more true since his return. But the one mistake he hasn't made (yet anyway) is losing control of everything so severely that Walt Disney's own family has to step in for fear that the whole thing was going to collapse.

One difference is Iger and the Board are two peas in a pod. When Stanley and Roy led a 45% shareholder revolt to get rid of Eisner it worked. The Board stripped him of his chairmanship and Eisner quit shortly after.

 

[Dranth]

You're all discussing what eras of Disney were good and such, but here's something that's really clear now...

Even the Disney of the early 2010s that gave us Frozen 1 and Mystic Manor is gone. That's how entrenched the franchise mandate has become and how much the company's creativity is dried up in the last 10+ years.

And anything that doesn't adhere to the mandate must go. Park infrastructure, the back catalog, everything.

It's the opposite of what a creative driven company does, led my a man who genuinely believes he's making creative decisions when we green lights Toy Story 9.

This is certainly true on the parks side of things but not nearly as much as people make it out to be with the studios.

Since Iger took over the first time, Disney has had 35 animated theatrical releases (including ones that should have been released during Covid and assuming I didn't miss any). Of those, 25 were originals which works out to 71% of all animated features under Iger were original.

If we want to limit it to just 2010 onward, 19 originals were released out of 29 which is 65%.

Yes, Iger has shifted more to sequels in the second half of his tenure but even with the upcoming bout in production, he is still going to have more originals. Also, let's not forget that after the bad run the studios had, they need a good, solid stretch and as much as it pains me, sequels generally do substantially better. Finally, they have done this before where they go sequel crazy for a few years before returning to mostly originals for a stretch so I expect the same this time.

From a business perspective it makes sense, release a bunch of originals as you do need more franchises over time, see what works and capitalize on sequels before doing another round of originals. The problem with this last round of originals is few of them were good enough or made sense for a sequel so instead we are dipping back into the previous rounds.

For those that want to compare Eisner and Iger, they both put out roughly the same number of originals over the same amount of time. The only real difference (on the studio side) is that Iger put out a ton more sequels in the theaters on top of the originals. I attribute that largely to the landscape at the time each was CEO as Eisner had a ton of sequels as well, he just went the direct to video route. In this particular case, I prefer Iger's approach as quality sequels can be great and even the mediocre ones are better than most of the direct to video junk that was all the rage back in the late 80s and 90s.

 

[Tha Realest]

Illuminations just gave us Despicable Me 4, a mediocre film that has made nearly $1 billion at the box office. It is the sixth film in the franchise. Illumination is based in France and makes films with much lower budgets.

The Wild Robot, from Dreamworks, is a strong contender for best animated film this year and is sitting at $200 million. It is not expected to approach Despicable Me 4’s box office.

Dreamworks is outsourcing their animation outside the U.S. for all of their future films, leaving Disney Animation and Pixar as the only remaining fully in-house large animation studios in the U.S.

Moana 2 is being (and has been) produced by an animation team in Vancouver.

 

[Stripes]

Moana 2 is being (and has been) produced by an animation team in Vancouver.

Ah, I guess it’s just Pixar then. Quite sad if you ask me.

 

[britain]

Eisner‘s biggest flaw was that he simply started thinking small and insular. After Euro Disneyland and Wells’s death, his decisions betrayed a lack of self-confidence. They were still coming up with original ideas, but they all had tight budgets around their necks. He recognized the need for both true creatives AND popular IP, but let budgets and burnt bridges get the better of him.

“Why repair relationships with Pixar or buy Pixar when you can make Toy Story sequels yourself?”

“Why update Star Tours when that would require collaborating with George Lucas again?”

“Why build Westcot when DCA will do? It’s full of non-IP attractions!”

Though we may not like to admit it, big budgets based on popular IP is a much more profitable proposition, and Iger knows that well.

 

[Stripes]

Iger kept and promoted the people at the core of Eisner’s worst years. You keep trying to play history teacher but you don’t really know it.

He also forged a relationship with Steve Jobs, John Lasseter, and Ed Catmull after Eisner had spit in their faces and took advantage of each of their incredible talents in order to rejuvenate Disney Animation.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

Iger kept and promoted the people at the core of Eisner’s worst years. You keep trying to play history teacher but you don’t really know it.

And yet, the issues of Eisner’s worst years either are not here anymore or have dramatically improved. Every bridge he burnt was repaired. That suggests the problem ran deeper than those people. Almost as if Eisner was the problem and that’s why they pushed him out.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Disney fans are bending over backwards to pretend Eisner wasn’t a problem simply because his successor is also a problem.

 

[el_super]

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Disney fans are bending over backwards to pretend Eisner wasn’t a problem simply because his successor is also a problem.

Eisner's biggest flaw was thinking that Disney *meant* something beyond just the name. He understood the brand and wanted to protect it. It's a problem for the fan community to try to reconcile that fact with the fact that things didn't work out well for him. They deride Iger for buying all these outside properties and diluting the brand, but the fact is, Eisner's strategy wasn't going to work long term.

 

[HauntedPirate]

To be fair, he was still in diapers during the Eisner years.

I've been visiting this site (and participating in the forums, and there was an incarnation before the current one, if memory serves) longer than he's been alive.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

In the Eisner years, Disney still relied heavily on IP. Twilight Zone. Star Wars. Indiana Jones
Captain EO. Toontown. Buzz Lightyear. The Great Movie Ride. RnRC Aerosmith. It’s Tough to be a Bug. Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Tarzan’s Treehouse. Splash Mountain. Alien Encounter.

IP by itself isn’t the problem - Disney has always used IP in the parks.

Captain EO and Alien Encounter were not IP. Rock n roller coaster is a different category in my book as well as Great Movie Ride.

 

[Notes from Neverland]

The Wrap reporting that Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer are not seen as succession candidates for the CEO job. Dana Walden and Alan Bergman "have the early lead."

 

[HauntedPirate]

The Wrap reporting that Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer are not seen as succession candidates for the CEO job. Dana Walden and Alan Bergman "have the early lead."

I've not said it, but my money's been on Dana Walden for a while.

 

[Stripes]

Alien Encounter were not IP. Rock n roller coaster is a different category in my book as well as Great Movie Ride.

Alien Encounter was inspired by Alien. Rock n’ Roller Coaster relied on the intellectual property rights of Aerosmith and The Great Movie Ride relied on MGM’s IP. (Including Captain EO was a mistake.)

 

[Stripes]

I've not said it, but my money's been on Dana Walden for a while.

I’ve watched several interviews of her and she strikes me as a great candidate. Intelligent, well-spoken, comes off as a great leader.

Pretty much the opposite vibe I got from Chapek.

 

[UNCgolf]

I think the general public finds comfort and joy experiencing familiar stories. Thanks to Eisner’s stewardship of Disney during the renaissance years and the Iger era, Disney now owns a vast number of familiar stories. Why not take advantage of them?

In the Eisner years, Disney still relied heavily on IP. Twilight Zone. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Toontown. Buzz Lightyear. The Great Movie Ride. RnRC Aerosmith. It’s Tough to be a Bug. Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Tarzan’s Treehouse. Splash Mountain. Alien Encounter.

Now, we did get Journey into YOUR Imagination (bye Dreamfinder), Test Track (bye World of Motion), Mission: Space (bye Horizons), Everest, Kali, and Kilimanjaro Safaris as well.

I didn't say they shouldn't use IP; just that it shouldn't be forced. Many (not all) of Disney's best attractions didn't use any specific existing media property. There's a lot more freedom in designing the best possible attraction that way, because when using an existing property you're already starting off in a box (some larger than others).

There's certainly a business benefit in relying on IP, both from a marketing standpoint and from an ROI standpoint. IP can prop up a mediocre or poor attraction (see Frozen Ever After) that wouldn't succeed without the IP. Note that I'm not saying IP automatically makes an attraction bad or worse than a non-IP attraction, because that's not true -- just that designers are limited when they're only allowed to use existing IP. They're also not really allowed to use the full Disney catalogue; it needs to be something that's still at least relatively popular (and probably expected to move merchandise). Disney likely wouldn't sign off on building, e.g., a Sword in the Stone attraction. They'd ask for a more recent IP instead.

Also, Alien Encounter as built wasn't an IP attraction even if the original idea was based around the movie version.

 

[denyuntilcaught]

Great Movie Ride was a mix of MGM, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Brothers IP.

Something I feel like would never happen again today given how competitive the studios are.

 

[Moth]

See, as it pertains to WDW, what I hear is, “if it hasn’t gone vertical by January 2026, they aren’t building it.”

So, tick-tock Tropical Americas, Monsters, Cars, and Villains. Tick-tock.

Since they're starting to prep close stuff for Tropical Americas- I wanna say that at least the Encanto portion of it is set in stone by this rule.

The other three... that'll be a fun race to see who can get to that point first, especially when it comes to Villains....

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Since they're starting to prep close stuff for Tropical Americas- I wanna say that at least the Encanto portion of it is set in stone by this rule.

The other three... that'll be a fun race to see who can get to that point first, especially when it comes to Villains....

I definitely agree that Encanto and the carousel are pretty close to 100% - I’m not sure if Indy is as solid but it could be if it’s all 1 “project.”

Rivers of America is a major project that honestly doesn’t seem like it has been totally thought through - but it also seems likely to proceed to the point they fill in the River unless things get delayed with permits. The worst case scenario is we lose the River and get virtually nothing.

Monsters is such a wild card…. I could definitely see it getting cancelled.

Actually, from a purely financial point of view I’d cancel monsters at DHS, and cancel ROA and build Villians at DHS where animation courtyard is taking over rock n coaster as well. DHS needs more stuff the most and it would certainly be cheaper to build it there vs. MK.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I was just comparing Disney of the early 2010s to the Disney of 2024.

I didn't mean to start a debate about why that's the case, or talk about Dreamworks, or something else, I just wanted to point out what I feel is the company now is at an even lower point creatively, despite the same CEO being in charge. It's my opinion this comes from a laser focus on output that has stifled creative thinking and led to the inverse of what @britain was saying about being great stewards of the IP they own. Both when it comes to running properties into the ground through unwarranted and uneven repetition across divisions, and leaving their media library to sit idle and largely go to waste, despite what some within the company hoped Disney+ would help.

Animated films take many years to develop. Movies like Encanto and Elemental were likely in pre-production long before the decade started. I believe now that such movies would be less likely to be given the green light because they don't offer obvious franchise potential, either to start one anew or tie into something like the Disney Princess brand.

I hope the company changes course in the future and proves me wrong, regardless of who is CEO.