News Bob Iger is back! Chapek is out!!

[el_super]

They are talking about parks, and to a lesser extent - stock price.

At this point though, these things are in opposition to each other. The fans want cheap and easy access to the parks. Granting those would probably hurt the stock price though. Iger won't change it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Here's an anecdote that was interesting to me: I have friends who work adjacent to Wall Street and are pretty well-read on the ins and outs of F500 financials. They know very keenly about the losses the company has in D2C this year, they know about missing EPS, they know how skittish investors are because Wall Street investors are their clients.

Yet they are asking me about the parks and if they think Chapek’s operation of them contributed to his departure. Maybe, just maybe, the abuses the park division have endured stateside over most of the last 2 decades have finally breached containment of us cynical nerds and entered the public consciousness. Maybe, just maybe, this has actually been identified as a problem that needs to be handled before all of the toothpaste is out of the tube.

Wall Street is not giving this a free pass…I’m rather shocked. A lot of criticism leveled towards Iger right now too. He’s getting blamed for the whole thing…which happens to be true.

All chapek really did on his own was be an idiot that couldn’t give speeches or answer questions. That is really all.

 

[Fordlover]

After letting this news simmer for a bit I've been looking at feedback among many different venues of social media. Specifically NOT fan sites, but comments and responses to a wealth of articles and news reports.

And that feedback is, surprisingly, focused on parks. They suck, they are crowded, it's too expensive, never going back, no more magic, not the same anymore, money grab, you did this to yourself, bound to fail, squeezed as much as you could, etc.

I'm seeing very little response to news articles and opinions citing IP or movies or streaming or the other Disney silos. These comments are not mentioning streaming subscriptions or cruise ships or current theatrical releases or.............anything else.

They are talking about parks, and to a lesser extent - stock price.

Anecdotal? Perhaps. But check it out for yourself. Delve outside this forum for a bit. Maybe Iger will hear what the rest have ignored:

It's the parks, stupid.

They feed/support the wants and desires and motivations and success of everything else Disney does. If the parks fail, so fails the rest of the domain.

I agree mostly.
The park situation is what initially lead me to cancel our '22 trip (nothing was booked yet). The dust up with the state, and released conference calls of a "not so secret agenda" is what cemented my decision to spend no further dollars with WDC. No parks/hotels, no Disney+, etc.

For the first time in my life, we are planning our trip to Orlando for spring break '23 that will not involve a WDW property.

I'm hoping with the CEO change to see a WDW I'm willing to spend my money at again, but I'm not optimistic.

I miss the days when Disney was only about entertaining my family and taking my money, and left the political commentary to the pundits and Florida voters to decide.

 

[JusticeDisney]

Simply put, this is phenomenal news for anyone who loves WDW. Does it mean that everything is suddenly going to be perfect? Of course not. But there is no reasonable argument that this isn't an instant massive upgrade.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

At this point though, these things are in opposition to each other. The fans want cheap and easy access to the parks. Granting those would probably hurt the stock price though. Iger won't change it.

The fans want value for their money spent on the parks…not cheap parks.

You’ve yet to make contact when the log on this

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Simply put, this is phenomenal news for anyone who loves WDW. Does it mean that everything is suddenly going to be perfect? Of course not. But there is no reasonable argument that this isn't an instant massive upgrade.

Iger didn’t run disnsyworld well the first time…he built a ton of dvc…

I am interested if he decides to “stamp” it out the gate this time?

Couple of announcements would go along way heading into a recession with a giant new park being built up the way

 

[Bocabear]

I am certainly optimistic that this will mean some good things for the brand and hopefully for the parks...

 

[fotofx]

Would you rather criss-cross the park looking for physical tickets/tapping or just pick your next ride while you're in line? I for one prefer mobile. The DLR version of Fastpass was great, without needing to book a FP+ months in advance.

I think having to go to the ride makes it more likely the pass will be used. The Genie lines I am sure are full of reservations that go unused.

 

[fgmnt]

Wall Street is not giving this a free pass…I’m rather shocked. A lot of criticism leveled towards Iger right now too. He’s getting blamed for the whole thing…which happens to be true.

All chapek really did on his own was be an idiot that couldn’t give speeches or answer questions. That is really all.

we have been waiting for the scales to fall from the eyes of the general public and institutional investors for years. even if now is not the time, we may be closer than ever.

 

[Trauma]

So I called Disney to ask if I could use gift cards to pay for Genie Plus.

The women who answered the phone was the happiest customer service rep I have talked to in awhile.

While she was “checking” she was even singing Disney songs.

I asked her if she worked from home or an office. She said they where in an office building.

I asked her how everyone felt this morning now that the Villian that was running the company into the ground was fired.

Her response I did not expect since I assume it’s a recoded line.

She said everyone was hugging and giving high fives. She said cast members where so happy some had tears of joy.

Think about that for a minute.

This guy was so hated by his employee’s they are crying freaking tears of joy that he is gone.

 

[dreday3]

So I called Disney to ask if I could use gift cards to pay for Genie Plus.

The women who answered the phone was the happiest customer service rep I have talked to in awhile.

While she was “checking” she was even singing Disney songs.

I asked her if she worked from home or an office. She said they where in an office building.

I asked her how everyone felt this morning now that the Villian that was running the company into the ground was fired.

Her response I did not expect since I assume it’s a recoded line.

She said everyone was hugging and giving high fives. She said cast members where so happy some had tears of joy.

Think about that for a minute.

This guy was so hated by his employee’s they are crying freaking tears of joy that he is gone.

Well, I kind of strongly dislike my boss that much too. It's not that uncommon.

 

[wdwmagic]

Simply put, this is phenomenal news for anyone who loves WDW. Does it mean that everything is suddenly going to be perfect? Of course not. But there is no reasonable argument that this isn't an instant massive upgrade.

There is no reasonable argument to say this is an instant massive upgrade. Most of the last 5 year decline at WDW was put in place by a combination of Iger, Chapek and D'Amaro. Two of those are still present. Chapek certainly had his short comings, as did/does Iger - especially when it comes to the parks.

 

[Ponderer]

But diminishing returns since they’ve push out.

True…better movies are the way to go…but the Star power has waned a bit too.

They need some X in their lives

I don‘t know if star power is all that big a deal now. I mean, people came for Iron Man, they came for Guardians - they didn’t come for RDJ and REALLY didn’t come for Chris Pratt. And look at this string of horror films with, at best, talented character actors in the leads. I can’t think of a time when star power was less relevant to a project’s box office success, for better or worse.

 

[Mmoore29]

That ship has sailed. Disney is all he has in terms of legacy. He’s likely going to try to do some damage control now that even casual journalists are catching on to the Fox blunder.

Fox isn't a blunder. These are complementary assets. And this is a better home for the Alien IP than Comcast ever would've been. I specifically cheered this one so that one day we'll get the Aliens legacy sequel from Neill Blomkamp.

 

[Raidermatt]

I agree, but it was a cool new toy that attracted and inspired a unique group of creative thinkers. I don't think you could assemble that kind of team with an established technology.

Well, I would counter with the team Disney assembled in the late 80's into the 90's, until Eisner drove them out.

Again, the talent is in the storytelling, not the technology. And that can be assembled at any time if you can properly identify it and empower it.

 

[PirateFrank]

Simply put, this is phenomenal news for anyone who loves WDW. Does it mean that everything is suddenly going to be perfect? Of course not. But there is no reasonable argument that this isn't an instant massive upgrade.

instant, massive upgrade? You do realize that the vast majority of Chapek's moves over the past 2 years were basically Iger initiatives that were ham-fistedly delivered by Chapek? The only difference between these two is in careful vs painful presentation of bad ideas. Nothing more. Iger tells you its raining while he's urinating on your back. Chapek made you watch.

Most of us would rather stay dry....

 

[Smiley/OCD]

Why does everyone want a 5th park when they can't maintain the thematic integrity of or properly maintain the parks they have?

Automotive analogy…it’s like having an 8 cylinder p/u that’s in such bad shape it’s only running on 6 cylinders and instead of repairing the engine, you go out and buy a 10 thousand pound trailer to make a cross country trip…fix what you have before you take on a new project.

The Disney boat is rocking in a category 4 hurricane with no anchor…Iger was brought in to ride out the storm. You don’t hire a captain who just got his boaters license to take the ship..:

 

[SpectreJordan]

Yeah. But the marketing definitely isn’t helping. The weren’t confident in Encanto either and they were wrong. The folks making these marketing decisions seem out of touch.

The marketing team for the animated movies needs to be restructured. Encanto didn't look too interesting from the trailers, but it turned out to be pretty good. Strange World doesn't look very good either, but hopefully it'll end up good.

 

[GimpYancIent]

There is no reasonable argument to say this is an instant massive upgrade. Most of the last 5 year decline at WDW was put in place by a combination of Iger, Chapek and D'Amaro. Two of those are still present. Chapek certainly had his short comings, as did/does Iger - especially when it comes to the parks.

True! Think about it though. It is a strong statement about how low Chapek had taken things when bringing back Iger (out of retirement) is looked at as a serious upgrade.

 

[Jason McBrien]

Difficulty

Part of the issue I think some people are missing is the scope of the Walt Disney company.

Currently the CEO of the Walt Disney Company is in charge of:
- Six large theme parks
- A cruise ship line with it's own islands and ports
- A travel company
- Four streaming services
- A music label (or two?)
- Multiple movie studios, along with theatrical and home movie distribution networks
- Multiple cable and broadcast television networks
- Multiple advertising, merchandising and licensing departments

Along with a slew of miscellaneous properties - movie theaters, brick-and-mortar and on-line stores, book publishing, magazines...

How, exactly, do you manage something like this? What qualifications do you need as a CEO to run a company like this? The answer, in my opinion, is that it is unmanageable. It's far, *far* too large.

The single best example I can come up with is the god-awful video advertisement they did for the Star Wars hotel. Disney is the single largest media company in the world, and the advertisement for their ultra-premium hotel property looked like it was produced for community access cable TV. The one thing that Disney, as a whole, should be able to do competently is put together an advertisement. The fact that, apparently, the theme park division can't make a call to corporate and get help putting together a really nice video for their premiere hotel shows that something is broken in the Disney management structure.

The entire company needs a reorganization. Chapek was not the person to do it. I don't think Iger is the person to do it, either.