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

[BrianLo]

Disney doesn’t turn on a dime…so if it “peaked” on paper in 2019…the wheels were turning several years before. They really started to run out of steam around 2015 objectively…decline interest started in that ballpark.

And to that “it takes time”

It does, but it's shocking how quickly damage can erode the company and how long positive change takes. I really don't have a metric to support your feelings of the company peaking in 2015. Certainly not WDW, which was still a hot mess and celebrating Colortopia as the strongest new offering of the year. Studios had their Avengers finale. Frozen 2 over indexed, as did Lion King. It was the best parks financial performance and their best Studios financial performance that year. D+ launch was seen as a raging success (at the time). Disney also launched probably the only actual viable merchandise comparable to the original trilogy that year with Grogu.

Slaphead has some public snafus that cause damage…but he didn’t have enough time to scratch the surface really.

Chapek was in the Parks role since 2015.

As CEO somehow the guy managed to dismiss a large portion of WDI, send Studio talent reeling, install a hated studio hierarchy, slash most active parks projects, get into it with Florida in a major way, bring a hostile investor to the doorstep, overpromise Wall Street unobtainable streaming goals, overspend vigorously in India.

Oh ya... and get fired.

It's kind of shocking what he was able to do in 18 months, to be honest.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It does, but it's shocking how quickly damage can erode the company and how long positive change takes. I really don't have a metric to support your feelings of the company peaking in 2015. Certainly not WDW, which was still a hot mess and celebrating Colortopia as the strongest new offering of the year. Studios had their Avengers finale. Frozen 2 over indexed, as did Lion King. It was the best parks financial performance and their best Studios financial performance that year. D+ launch was seen as a raging success (at the time). Disney also launched probably the only actual viable merchandise comparable to the original trilogy that year with Grogu.



Chapek was in the Parks role since 2015.

As CEO somehow the guy managed to dismiss a large portion of WDI, send Studio talent reeling, install a hated studio hierarchy, slash most active parks projects, get into it with Florida in a major way, bring a hostile investor to the doorstep, overpromise Wall Street unobtainable streaming goals, overspend vigorously in India.

Oh ya... and get fired.

It's kind of shocking what he was able to do in 18 months, to be honest.

The “parks role” have no power. They don’t control budget nor policy.

Not to throw sympathy at chapek…but it is a thankless job. You make excuses for greed based moves and take the arrows from the most loyal watchers/fans.

By design.

Those decisions are made by the guy on the other end of the leash.

And I’m not talking just chapek…all P&R heads have been HATED for 30 years…not coincidentally when the era of great domestic parks expansion ended.

By design. Human shields.
Think about it…Pressler, Rasulo, staggs, chapek and now current dude are all incompetent demons from Mordor

Just Check the threads.

 

[Brian]

I don’t think anyone here really disagrees

Except for those that had a nervous pee and voted for bobs puppet board in April with their 10 shares…and have enjoyed a 22% loss in value since

 

[BrianLo]

The “parks role” how no power. They don’t control budget nor policy.

Not to throw sympathy at chapek…but it is a thankless job. You make excuses for greed based moves and take the arrows from the most loyal watchers/fans.

By design.

Those decisions are made by the guy on the other end of the leash.

And I’m not talking just chapek…all P&R heads have been HATED for 30 years…not coincidentally when the era of great domestic parks expansion ended.

By design. Human shields.
Think about it…Pressler, Rasulo, staggs, chapek and now current dude are all incompetent demons from Mordor

Just Check the threads.

I don't disagree, which is why if you look under the hood the parks spending abruptly stopped the second he took over. Some of that is forgivable, I don't mind them thinking the world was ending for a hot second there.

Parks spending was 'good' from 2016 - 2019. He definitely slashed it on promotion. We're still very much living in the aftermath of that.

I think lower lying fruit though like Genie/Genie+ are all on him. Iger may have been writing the cheques at the later stages, but Chapek was making the latter bad decisions.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don't disagree, which is why if you look under the hood the parks spending abruptly stopped the second he took over. Some of that is forgivable, I don't mind them thinking the world was ending for a hot second there.

Parks spending was 'good' from 2016 - 2019. He definitely slashed it on promotion. We're still very much living in the aftermath of that.

I think lower lying fruit though like Genie/Genie+ are all on him. Iger may have been writing the cheques at the later stages, but Chapek was making the latter bad decisions.

They misread the Covid market and financial conditions…

Should have followed Comcast and built and instead they started red lining things. Big mistake.

But ole Bob was “senior creative director”…or whatever the hell at that time. Wouldn’t give up his office.

He couldn’t override Chapek? That dog don’t hunt.

And…member when Bob came back to save in 2022? He said “they went to far” on park tactics…

And they have intensified since. It’s a clown show.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think lower lying fruit though like Genie/Genie+ are all on him. Iger may have been writing the cheques at the later stages, but Chapek was making the latter bad decisions.

There is zero way that plan wasn’t on the books. They didn’t throw it together from scratch in a year. Microsoft couldn’t do that…Disney IT sure as hell couldn’t.

The seeds for that were planted years before. Bossman approved it.

Probably just accelerated a year or two

 

[BrianLo]

There is zero way that plan wasn’t on the books. They didn’t throw it together from scratch in a year. Microsoft couldn’t do that…Disney IT sure as hell couldn’t.

The seeds for that were planted years before. Bossman approved it.

Probably just accelerated a year or two

Operationally, I mean. Iger signed off on it, Chapek brought it to stage in 2019 after all.

But functionally and operationally I doubt Iger could tell us coherently how FP+ even worked to begin with.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Should have followed Comcast and built and instead they started red lining things. Big mistake.

It’s hard for me to imagine it happening, but If Universal takes the title from the MK, it will tracked back to this mistake right here.

I say it’s hard to imagine, but I am seeing all sorts of things around me happening that I couldn’t imagine could happen.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Operationally, I mean. Iger signed off on it, Chapek brought it to stage in 2019 after all.

But functionally and operationally I doubt Iger could tell us coherently how FP+ even worked to begin with.

So sounds like some shared responsibility then?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

It's kind of shocking what he was able to do in 18 months, to be honest.

The only major thing he did was make a political statement too loud after refusing to make a quiet political statement to keep the artists content.

I don’t think he handled anything else much different than Iger - but I’m willing to learn if he did?

 

[BrianLo]

The only major thing he did was make a political statement too loud after refusing to make a quiet political statement to keep the artists content.

I don’t think he handled anything else much different than Iger - but I’m willing to learn if he did?

I listed a bunch of them. There was major issues brought up on his streaming targets. India spending and rights flubs were his own. We've now had an Indian arm write off. We had it raised in that article how Iger and Chapek butted heads over these streaming targets. This mostly directly led to the pump (2021) and dump (2022) of the stock and invited Peltz in the door.

Lake Nona was his own, this lead to WDI brain drain.

Problems with talent was his own (we've all see how stilted and dorky Chapek is on stage, Iger is generally more collected and conniving). Kareem Daniel's reporting structure was Chapek and one of his crew. Everyone in the Studios flagged issues with this structure, including Iger as he left the door.

Slashing all of the parks budget was his own (though I can't honestly say Iger would have done differently).

Chapek put the pedal to the metal on D+ output and that we can indirectly say lead to a lot of studio problems, particularly in the case of Marvel. Iger has always, always, always been a less is more content guy. He's doing it again right now. Just look at how many major studios Iger had under his belt by 2019 and Disney still was the company putting out the least amount of product.

Chapek made some bad theatrical evasion choices to prop up D+. Maybe Iger has the benefit of hindsight on this one, so I'll call that another who knows difference.


Then of course Florida led to national brand damage. Iger sweeps things under the rug.

 

[JoeCamel]

As CEO somehow the guy managed to dismiss a large portion of WDI, send Studio talent reeling, install a hated studio hierarchy, slash most active parks projects, get into it with Florida in a major way, bring a hostile investor to the doorstep, overpromise Wall Street unobtainable streaming goals, overspend vigorously in India.

Oh ya... and get fired.

It's kind of shocking what he was able to do in 18 months, to be honest.

And he walked with 23M. Reward for poor performance is part of the problem with the company

 

[Lilofan]

And he walked with 23M. Reward for poor performance is part of the problem with the company

Chapek got off cheap. Ovitz approx 30 years ago walked away from Disney with over $100M.

 

[Disstevefan1]

So sounds like some shared responsibility then?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The only major thing he did was make a political statement too loud after refusing to make a quiet political statement to keep the artists content.

I don’t think he handled anything else much different than Iger - but I’m willing to learn if he did?

He had no savvy…

Was not a good executive

Was never close to qualified for that job

So here’s the thing…who’s to blame? It’s a little room behind a door that loves themselves. And their leader at that time.

It was never up to chapek to say “hey…I suck…this job is gonna eat me up”

 

[Serpico Jones]

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Strangely enough I may not disagree with Iger on that.

If it was my company, I would have offered a completely different product. Keep the Disney Vault rotation to eliminate churn and don’t invest too heavily on “direct to streaming”

Only release items from the Disney brand onto the platform. (I would include Pixar and Muppets in that brand).

And charge more. The goal being to charge more and appeal only to the core fans who won’t churn.

 

[Serpico Jones]

 

[HauntedPirate]

I have no idea who those last 2 lines could possibly refer to...

 

[Brian]