Rumor Hollywood insiders say there's growing tension at Disney as CEO Bob Chapek chafes at Bob Iger's 'long goodbye'

[the.dreamfinder]

Iger’s, well I guess Zenia’s, greatest achievement has been the way he has been able to so unquestionably rewrite recent history. His tenure as COO, during which time Hong Kong Disneyland was cut down for “cultural” reasons, is completely ignored. It was known that he wanted to be CEO of Capital Cities/ABC, but, likely to set himself up for his political ambitions, he is now the reluctant leader who saved Disney when Roy called, who wanted to retire time and again but stayed to guide a cherished American institution when the Board just couldn’t find anybody else to lead, he stayed when a new CEO was found and graciously stepped back in to lead during a the chaos of the pandemic. Look at him! He’s just like George Washington!

He’s truly the embodiment of humility and sacrifice!

 

[el_super]

it’s fairly universally agreed next gen is a fail. Not controversial.

I don't see it as a fail. They may have overspent on it, sure, but adopting a technology first stance was a huge culture change in the company and sorely needed.

There's a whole thread somewhere on here of people desperate to keep Fastpass+, so it seemed good for something.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I don't see it as a fail. They may have overspent on it, sure, but adopting a technology first stance was a huge culture change in the company and sorely needed.

There's a whole thread somewhere on here of people desperate to keep Fastpass+, so it seemed good for something.

Almost all of the construction in the parks wouldn’t be happening if it had succeeded.

 

[el_super]

False, he only started to object when Eisner forced him out and the stock price tanked. He was there for the ABC acquisition talks, the cheapo parks in Anaheim, Florida, Paris and Hong Kong, and the direct to video sequels. He never objected because the stock was doing well.

Also an interesting point on Roy's departure: he left in 2003, right when attendance started to tick back up post-9/11 and Disney had a couple of hit movies with Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean. So to Wall Street the "Eisner is poison" mantra was, initially, not well received.

It was two years between the start of Save Disney and Eisner's departure.

The two biggest issues of the Iger years where his Franchise mandate that has largely continued, with little deviation (Mystic Manor, Roaring Rapids), and the wholesale destruction of Imagineering under the guise of “cost savings” as projects like Pandora, Galaxy’s Edge and Cosmic Rewind go dramatically over budget without much being gained.

WDI was allowed to bloat beyond any reasonable expectation under Iger, I can only assume, as a way to ensure his positive rep with the fan community.

Which is why it made sense to bring Chapek in to be the bad guy and finally clean house, all while retaining some creative control behind the scenes. Iger didn't want to be the bad guy.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I don't see it as a fail. They may have overspent on it, sure, but adopting a technology first stance was a huge culture change in the company and sorely needed.

There's a whole thread somewhere on here of people desperate to keep Fastpass+, so it seemed good for something.

The one area it was successful is data mining.

 

[el_super]

Almost all of the construction in the parks wouldn’t be happening if it had succeeded.

I know these arguments get a little mushed together so apologies if this wasn't you specifically, but it seems contradictory to think that the parks are receiving construction that proves that Fastpass didn't work, while also saying that the parks have been terribly underbuilt for years. Can both things really be true?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don't see it as a fail. They may have overspent on it, sure, but adopting a technology first stance was a huge culture change in the company and sorely needed.

There's a whole thread somewhere on here of people desperate to keep Fastpass+, so it seemed good for something.

It was a shield for a huge and necessary IT upgrade that Wall Street wouldn’t tolerate…

that’s a “win” on many levels…

but the fastpass component is not successful. It made a public mess of their inventory and increased angst. Not something Disney is in tbe business of (until now)…

and both fastpass and + were meant to drive more Volume of ancillary sales…where all the profit is.

it did not. But forced them down another path.. They promised higher dollars…and they delivered…buy aggressively and repeatedly increasing prices of everything.

that is not a sustainable trajectory…it’s never happened for a volume business longterm and it will not be so for Disney. Even Disney.

so they scrapped it. They’re idiots…not morons.

they’ll monetize capacity because they simply didn’t keep up with the demand for it…so they have to kill the demand. Again…not the business Disney is down with.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Which is relatively low budget per minute in movie terms. The thing with streaming services is it is much harder to determine the return on investment for particular content. With TV it could be measured by ad revenue vs. spending. For movies it is box office and ancillary revenue vs. spending.

With streaming content, they have to try and figure out how much an investment is worth in terms of subscriber retention and additions. Basically, if Disney+ didn't have The Mandalorian, how many subscribers would cancel and how many wouldn't sign up.

They know viewership though and can assess success based on that.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I know these arguments get a little mushed together so apologies if this wasn't you specifically, but it seems contradictory to think that the parks are receiving construction that proves that Fastpass didn't work, while also saying that the parks have been terribly underbuilt for years. Can both things really be true?

Yes, because there was a limit to how much attractions per guest per hour could be suppressed. Satisfaction isn’t binary, it is a spectrum.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Almost all of the construction in the parks wouldn’t be happening if it had succeeded.

Nah…they had to because you can’t run parks the way they did from 99-2009…

but the lack of available slots in the system exacerbated the whole thing. You can’t hide what you don’t have…and they don’t have it.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

The one area it was successful is data mining.

Not really, they can’t monetize it in the ways they wanted to.

 

[skypilot2922]

I really am convinced that they see park guests as stupid. Are there some who will blindly pay whatever Chapek demands? Sure. But I don't think there are nearly as many as they've conned themselves into believing there are. I also think it's arrogant of them to think they can herd us like cattle and we won't notice.

As a long time lurker and recent user I seem to recall @WDW1974 stating explicitly that Iger and the BoD feel that theme parks are 'Stupid Entertainment for Stupid people'. As I know more than a few PhD's who love classic disney and many of them grew up near Disneyland it's a complete misreading of the Disney market. Especially at AK it's amazing how Imagineering captured the flavor of several diffrent continents in a few acres, One of my friends is a MD by training but she leads tours in Nepal, peru and other distant places and even she is amazed at how well. AK captures the feel of those lands. sure it's not perfect but for many of us a visit to the parks is a visit to an art museum but the art is structures and their placement, Just as Grand Central Terminal in NYC is a work of art of urban planning, Have you noticed you almost never bump into someone there, That is because the traffic flows are so exqusitely designed.

The current Disney BoD their arrogance beggars belief.

 

[UNCgolf]

They know viewership though and can assess success based on that.

Only to an extent, though.

Obviously more viewership is better than less, but it's hard to know if the viewership is actually driving subscription/retention or if people are watching just because it's there. That's why it's harder to determine overall ROI. Would any of these people have cancelled their subscription if this show didn't exist? and so on.

 

[jpinkc]

Lol I was, but Mando, Loki, etc have changed my mind. I just hope they can keep the quality over the long run. They also should do more of the Disney history stuff as my daughter eats that up and the behind the scenes like the AK Behind the scenes was good!

 

[skypilot2922]

Only to an extent, though.

Obviously more viewership is better than less, but it's hard to know if the viewership is actually driving subscription/retention or if people are watching because it's just there. That's why it's harder to determine overall ROI. Would any of these people have cancelled their subscription if this show didn't exist? and so on.

Or Since many of the phone based subs auto convert to paid subs how many subs are actually zombie subs paid for but used only once and user figures nah not for me but never explicitly cancels

 

[lazyboy97o]

As a long time lurker and recent user I seem to recall @WDW1974 stating explicitly that Iger and the BoD feel that theme parks are 'Stupid Entertainment for Stupid people'.

This is my phrase and is not a quote. Just a summary.

 

[UNCgolf]

Or Since many of the phone based subs auto convert to paid subs how many subs are actually zombie subs paid for but used only once and user figures nah not for me but never explicitly cancels

That wouldn't affect show viewership figures, though.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

This is my phrase and is not a quote. Just a summary.

Spirit’s phrase was “You can’t walmart Walt Disney World without walmarting America first”.

Naturally, that wasn’t very popular in certain quarters.

 

[skypilot2922]

This is my phrase and is not a quote. Just a summary.

Ah sorry for the mis-attribution, I seem to recall @WDW1974 saying something along those lines though

 

[el_super]

It was a shield for a huge and necessary IT upgrade that Wall Street wouldn’t tolerate…

that’s a “win” on many levels…

but the fastpass component is not successful.

Ok I ... sort of agree with this. I don't think the current implementation of Fastpass is working, and definitely needs adjusting and a top-down re-imagining, but overall the concept is still sound and integrating technology into their process was vitally important. Even if things like mobile order, virtual queues, Photopass and park reservations are all clunky and unfinished, it's still better to have them than not to have them.

I don't believe those really would have evolved had there not been a major effort (and funding) to push NextGEN.