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

[_caleb]

So what changed?

I've posted my perspective on this in a few different threads here, but I think the entire world has changed: technology (and our use of it for entertainment), demographics/segmentation of audiences, and competition have all changed pretty dramatically in the last 10 years or so. The pandemic seems to have accelerated these changes.

Disney is pulling back on its increasingly volatile and expensive businesses (linear and box office), leaning into its stronger business (parks), and building a new business (streaming). Disney is in the middle of a major pivot to its Direct-to-Consumer strategy. During this time, box office will necessarily take a lower priority than it historically held and parks are going to receive less investment and be milked for all they're worth.

When Paramount and Warners merge or fold, maybe we'll come to appreciate the foresight Disney had in making the change. I just think many have grown impatient during this lackluster in-between time.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

They've had a losing streak at the box office while pivoting to streaming, but you're trying to say the guy who hired Kevin Feige, Pete Docter, Ryan Coogler, Jon Favreau, Shonda Rhimes, Gareth Edwards, etc. "doesn't hire people who know about making movies?"

Yes…because they’re making bad movies

Results based business. The Star Wars handling alone leaves little doubt…a litany of obvious mistakes and half attempts at course corrections

And a billion or two in bad lands

 

[_caleb]

Yes…because they’re making bad movies

Results based business. The Star Wars handling alone leaves little doubt…a litany of obvious mistakes and half attempts at course corrections

And a billion or two in bad lands

If you go back and look at the list of directors I included, what bad movies did they make?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If you go back and look at the list of directors I included, what bad movies did they make?

Well feige is a producer…great run but now they’re kinda lost…
Shonda rhimes left for Netflix years ago…and was never a “bob hire”. She produced content bought by abc
Gareth Edwards was ejected by kath for having the audacity of trying to make Star Wars for fans.
Coogler is good…Pete doctor is good.
Favreau is playing “hard to get”…likely on purpose. Smart guy

Who else you got?

 

[MrPromey]

AE was really cool…a change of pace

And stitch could have worked if they hadn’t done a cheap makeover of a scary ride

Funny - if AE had been ALIEN and they'd put it in Studios, it might still be there.

 

[_caleb]

Well feige is a producer…great run but now they’re kinda lost…
Shonda rhimes left for Netflix years ago…and was never a “bob hire”. She produced content bought by abc
Gareth Edwards was ejected by kath for having the audacity of trying to make Star Wars for fans.
Coogler is good…Pete doctor is good.
Favreau is playing “hard to get”…likely on purpose. Smart guy

Who else you got?

There's a long list, including at WDI, but you're just going to be dismissive of anyone I mention.

You're free to focus on the failures, but I still see enough that keeps me interested. I don't love everything Disney is/does, but I find plenty to enjoy.

 

[MrPromey]

The money wasn’t really the problem, it was just off. We needed something like racing academy at studios, just fun.

No, they absolutely went cheap with Stich.

They plunked down a lot to convert that space from Mission to Mars to AE.

The guest layout stayed but everything was gutted . The only thing about the theater that really stayed was the concrete levels for the seats and with the preshow area, similarly, the individual viewing levels.

But when Stich came in, they just rescripted the preshow into something much less entertaining while keeping all the same stuff and then pretty much left everything exactly the same in the main show other than swapping out the single audioanimatronic and adding the two KOKA arms which from an aesthetic standpoint, stuck out like a sore thumb from everything around them.

They went in there with the mindset "how do we basically keep exactly what we have and make this a stitch attraction?" and the limitations that put on what they could do is what ultimately wreaked it.

That was about as lazy and budget of a conversion as you could possibly make.*

*and every time I'd go in and see the cop robot in the pre-show after converting to that from what it had been, I'd be reminded of the more-than-a-little-bit menacing use of Tim Curry's voice acting that would come across as both professional and yet sinister in its apparent lack of concern for life which helped set the tone for the events to come.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

There's a long list, including at WDI, but you're just going to be dismissive of anyone I mention.

You're free to focus on the failures, but I still see enough that keeps me interested. I don't love everything Disney is/does, but I find plenty to enjoy.

WDI has NOTHING to do with movies

Why bring them into it?

The record there’s is a bit on the “tarnished” side of late as well.

Don’t blame them…top down organization

 

[Tha Realest]

They've had a losing streak at the box office while pivoting to streaming, but you're trying to say the guy who hired Kevin Feige, Pete Docter, Ryan Coogler, Jon Favreau, Shonda Rhimes, Gareth Edwards, etc. "doesn't hire people who know about making movies?"

Kevin Feige was with Marvel Studios years before they were acquired by Disney. Docter had been at Pixar for five years before Iger became a Disney employee. Edwards was so traumatized by how he was mistreated during Rogue One he didn’t direct another film for 7 years. Rhimes felt so unappreciated by Disney she left in a huff; either way, she is great at the television medium, but not filmmaking.

 

[WoundedDreamer]

I'm just trying to follow Bob Iger's example. You see, I learned the ins and outs of business watching Bob Iger. He taught me things like extract every penny out of a business. Never show loyalty to the people who make you successful. And don't be afraid to throw away tradition.

I am now applying the Bob Iger playbook to Bob Iger. #TeamPeltz

 

[_caleb]

Kevin Feige was with Marvel Studios years before they were acquired by Disney. Docter had been at Pixar for five years before Iger became a Disney employee. Edwards was so traumatized by how he was mistreated during Rogue One he didn’t direct another film for 7 years. Rhimes felt so unappreciated by Disney she left in a huff; either way, she is great at the television medium, but not filmmaking.

Did you think I meant that Iger created these people or gave them their first jobs?

Feige had indeed been with Marvel for along time when he was named President of Marvel Studios in 2019 by Bob Iger.

Pete Docter was indeed with Pixar for a long time when Bob Iger hired him as Chief Creative Officer of Pixar when Lasseter stepped down in 2018.

Garth Edwards was hired in 2015 by Bob Iger to direct 2016’s Rogue One. He was so traumatized by his treatment he directed The Creator for Disney in 2023.

Rhimes was a big loss for Disney when she took her Shondaland production company to Netflix, but she was a huge hitmaker at ABC, where Bob Iger gave her the network’s entire Thursday night programming. She also wrote the Princess Diaries sequel for Disney, but that was back in 2004, one year before Iger’s presidency.

 

[_caleb]

I'm just trying to follow Bob Iger's example. You see, I learned the ins and outs of business watching Bob Iger. He taught me things like extract every penny out of a business. Never show loyalty to the people who make you successful. And don't be afraid to throw away tradition.

I am now applying the Bob Iger playbook to Bob Iger. #TeamPeltz

But Peltz is saying that Iger hasn’t extracted every penny out of the business. That’s what Peltz says he intends to do.

 

[_caleb]

WDI has NOTHING to do with movies

Why bring them into it?

The record there’s is a bit on the “tarnished” side of late as well.

Don’t blame them…top down organization

I bring up WDI because we’re talking about Bob Iger’s leadership at Disney. I’m saying there are strong creatives across the company—at television, at the Studios, and at WDI. But if I list them, you’re just going to dismiss them all.

I’m saying Disney has made good TV, good movies, and good parks attractions under Bob Iger.

 

[Nubs70]

But Peltz is saying that Iger hasn’t extracted every penny out of the business. That’s what Peltz says he intends to do.

Peltz's problem is that Bob has failed create value. In the last many years, Bob would have gotten a better return on capital if he had not spent the money on $DIS and put the money into an S&P 500 Index fund.

Extraction of value is what Bob has been doing to the Parks for years.

 

[Casper Gutman]

A lot of very loud posters here are willing to burn everything they supposedly love to the ground in the hopes that it harms those they perceive as their “enemies.” We’d be in real trouble if this childish, spiteful behavior was an offshoot of a much broader cultural and political trend in America. Sure glad that’s not the case.

 

[Indy_UK]

I believe Disney needs the adult content now and in the future for streaming otherwise Disney+ would always be a bare bones service. But he still stupidly overpaid for Fox assets.

I am just so over Bob Iger and I think he knows that everyone wants him to go except his board members.

I agree with others, there’s nobody else coming to save Disney

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Peltz and his "team" will sell the entire company for parts. There will be no "magic". I don't disagree that the company has problems, but Peltz is not the solution.

Peltz and his team will have no possible chance of doing what you say… not without vanguard, black rock, and other major stockholders joining them anyway.

If buying 1-2% of a companies stock and getting 2 members elected to the board was all it took to takeover a company and force them to sell off parts for a quick profit there wouldn’t be a single large company left in the world. 2 seats can’t force anything, they can try to influence the other 10 members of the board and they can try to influence other major shareholders but they can’t do anything on their own.

 

[BrianLo]

So someone please feel free to correct my interpretations, but I think there are really only three structural changes Peltz actually seems to be proposing that differ from the current boards priorities?

1) Increasing Dividends
2) Reducing Proposed future planned Parks spending
3) More executive oversight and less creative oversight of future movies

There’s a ton of fluff in there and some clever distractions, especially on the second account where he is actually suggesting the company needs to plan to spend less money on the parks while talking out his rear and saying they historically didn’t spend enough… but oh well, don’t correct that after all.

The rest of his letter seems to be mostly a veneer of what Disney themselves have already suggested. Even the D+ demands don’t actually seem to suggest anything. They already have a plan there, I guess he just hopes to claim the 11th hour victory as his own when D+ flips to profitability this year like Iger planned 5 years ago?

 

[BrianLo]

Even if you don’t care if they build anything new, what about quality of what they have or had going down and costs going up to offset the other failing parts of the company? The parks are the money printing machine but they aren’t restocking the paper

yeah I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. Did you ever think that maybe part of the reason they haven’t greenlit big expansion projects in the parks yet and have teased us with just drawings for 2 years now is because other parts of the company are bleeding and at the end of the day it comes down to money?

I just want to say that the parks are really on an 5-6 year schedule. Iteratively from conception to actual content opening. Sometimes worse, sometimes faster, but five years. We are still on a Chapek hangover.

At the end of the day the most important and only thing I would put weight into is the SEC filings to upramp spend on the parks. I’d be just as down and out as the rest of you at the direction, but the intention is absolutely there. Concept art at D23 does not magically change that either. We just are barely 12 months out of that hangover and it’s going to be a few more hot minutes to see what you want.

I’m vaguely optimistic, but realistic that the parks future isn’t as bad as everyone opines, but also we aren’t magically going to be enjoying 7 e tickets in 2025 either.

Based on all the debt Disney has a company, it’s not exactly easy to invest in the parks. The fact is Disney+ still hasn't made a profit, and 2023 was the worst year for Disney at the box office in a very long time.

This is absolutely not a valid excuse when their competitor has twice the debt load and has massive (better known) plans.

Debt isn’t the issue. Chapek’s hard pivot to all his eggs in streaming and gutting of imagineering led us here.

Albeit in his mild defense he did pick up a mega ship at a total steal and I legit applaud his one maybe smart contribution.

 

[BrianLo]

It only took 5 years for Iger to destroy Pixar. We need Lasseter back!

What are you taking about? Elementals turned quite successful after all… and Luck is probably a movie most of you never bothered to watch.

I respect John Lasseter’s contributions to Pixar creative culture (for better and worse) greatly. He made the company. But Pixar very much was directed on the vision of multiple creatives collaborating. Left alone Lasseter isn’t exactly the true magic behind Pixar creatively. He doesn’t have a very solid track record if we are honest. His studio did. Him and those around him always were the magic behind Pixar.

He isn’t really Walt. He isn’t Miyazaki.