Bob Iger is Back!!!

[Sotiris]

Disney’s board of directors has said it would announce in early 2026 its pick to succeed Iger. The company is widely expected to promote from within, with parks chief Josh D’Amaro and television head Dana Walden considered the leading contenders by employees and people who work with Disney. The two executives met with Disney’s board this summer in Orlando, Fla., to discuss their visions for the company should they become CEO, according to people with knowledge of the meeting.

Whoever is named as the next CEO is expected to work alongside Iger for a while to learn the ropes before officially taking over, according to a person familiar with the board’s thinking. Iger’s contract expires next December.

D’Amaro, who chairs Disney’s experiences unit that includes theme parks, consumer products, cruise ships and videogames, is widely considered the leading contender to be the next CEO. His strongest rival is Walden, a veteran television executive who is co-chair of Disney entertainment, which includes streaming. Supporters of D’Amaro say he is analytical, comfortable talking to Hollywood talent who’ve collaborated with the parks and a charismatic public ambassador for the Disney brand. D’Amaro’s vision for Disney’s future includes giving videogames a bigger role at the company and integrating gaming technology throughout its creative processes, said a person familiar with his thinking. The Experiences boss, who has been with Disney since 1998, championed a $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games last year and has overseen the relationship with the “Fortnite” maker.

Walden is less of a Disney native, having joined when it acquired the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox in 2019. But her backers say she is the company’s most experienced and accomplished creative executive. Hit film and TV content, they say, is the engine that powers all of Disney’s businesses. She shares oversight of streaming and helped manage that business’s improving profit margins. She also has experience managing some of the company’s most delicate and important commercial and creative relationships, from the recent carriage dispute with YouTube TV to September’s benching and reinstatement of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Veteran film executive Alan Bergman, who runs streaming with Walden and oversees brands such as Pixar, Lucasfilm and Avatar, is considered unlikely to replace Iger by employees and company partners.

ESPN head Jimmy Pitaro, Disney’s other top operating executive, has expressed he is in his “dream job” and doesn’t expect to become CEO given his lack of experience in scripted entertainment and parks, according to people with knowledge of the matter. His contract has multiple years left on it, according to one of the people.

Many employees have aligned behind-the-scenes with D’Amaro or Walden, but no candidate wants to be seen as engaging in politicking, said people close to the company. Even so, every move and public appearance by senior executives is interpreted through the lens of how they may be positioning themselves for a post-Iger world.

The board hasn’t said whether it might consider appointing co-CEOs. Disney has never had multiple leaders before, though it has at times had a CEO working alongside a powerful deputy—another possibility in the post-Iger configuration.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/business/media/disn ... o-f571257c

[PatchofBlue]

She also has experience managing some of the company’s most delicate and important commercial and creative relationships, from the recent carriage dispute with YouTube TV to September’s benching and reinstatement of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Wasn't she also on the committee that pulled the plug?

[Sotiris]

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Reach Landmark Agreement to Bring Beloved Characters from Across Disney’s Brands to Sora
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney ... agreement/

Why Disney Is Betting $1 Billion on OpenAI as Tech Wars Escalate
https://www.thewrap.com/why-disney-is-b ... -analysis/

Bob Iger Insists $1 Billion OpenAI Deal Is Not a Threat to Disney Creators, Voice Actors
https://www.thewrap.com/disney-openai-s ... tman-cnbc/

Dana Walden Says Disney Will Approach Its Use of AI Together With Filmmakers and Actors
https://www.thewrap.com/dana-walden-dis ... creatives/

Disney Ends $1 Billion OpenAI Partnership After Sora Shuts Down
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/t ... ting-down/

RIP Sora: An AI Stepchild Neither Disney Nor OpenAI Really Wanted
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/b ... -dead-why/

Sam Altman Says OpenAI and Disney Are Still in Talks About Collaborating Despite Sora Shutdown
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/b ... -reaction/

Why Disney’s Sora Deal Marks a Turning Point in the AI Wars
https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/d ... 236611940/

OpenAI Just Spiked Bob Iger’s Final Big Strategic Deal. For Disney, Maybe That’s Lucky
https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/w ... 236698901/

Disney’s OpenAI Deal: Soulless Exploitation Or Necessary Innovation? Former Mouse House Animators Have Thoughts
https://deadline.com/2025/12/disney-ope ... 236651227/

Death Of Disney’s OpenAI Deal Exposes Hollywood’s Vulnerability To The Capriciousness Of Big Tech
https://deadline.com/2026/03/disney-ope ... 236765266/

How Disney’s OpenAI Deal Changes Everything
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 236456928/

The Sora-Disney Collapse: What Does It Mean?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 236546434/

[Farerb]

The real Disney company died when Roy Disney died.

[Sotiris]

Bob Iger Warns Netflix Purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery Gives Streamer ‘Pricing Leverage’
https://www.thewrap.com/disney-bob-iger ... paramount/

[Sotiris]

Ayaz, 47 years old, isn’t a likely candidate to replace Iger, but is widely viewed as a potential “next next” CEO.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/business/media/disn ... g-de165847

[Sotiris]

Disney to Continue Investing in China, Bob Iger Says
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/b ... nvestment/

[Kyle]

This company will never get its groove back as long as it continues prioritizing china.

[Sotiris]

Bob Iger’s 2025 Pay Rises to $45.8 Million as Disney Board Reaffirms That Succession Is Imminent
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 236482013/

[Sotiris]

Disney succession: Inside the search for a CEO to replace Bob Iger
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... at-to-know

Can Josh D’Amaro Break Disney’s Succession Curse?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/busi ... y-ceo.html

Disney Is Close to Picking Parks Chief D’Amaro as Next CEO
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... s-next-ceo

Iger Has Told Associates He Plans to Leave CEO Role Before Contract Expires
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/iger ... s-35406a7b

[Disney's Divinity]

I'll believe he's leaving when it happens. He only left the first time because he had political aspirations, and when that (as anyone could've guessed) didn't pan out, he quickly undid Chapek and got his job back.

I don't feel any particular way about it all. Admittedly, it did feel for a moment while he was out that the company was listening to fans more. But I mean, they've done away with the DMC, so the likelihood of even more niche releases is nil now no matter who's in charge. And everything else (franchising, sequels, remakes, etc.) will continue whether he's there or not.

I still hope they simply fold PIXAR under WDAS and simply make them a subdivision that produces any further sequels / offshoots to PIXAR IP. WDAS has the longer history, its original films are the highest on the highest-grossing animated list (Frozen, Zootopia, TLK), it should have two franchises in the highest-grossing trilogies soon (Frozen, Zootopia), and the last original film between either studio that made much of a mark on the zeitgeist was Encanto, so... Plus, WDAS has returned from dark times multiple times, so it's easy to look at the past for clues how to revive, whereas PIXAR is still a question mark now they've entered their first dark period.

[Kyle]

Nah, the two should stay mostly separate, they have different cultures with their own pros and cons. We need that diversity.

[PatchofBlue]

Disney Beats Wall Street Earnings Estimates as Succession Looms
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 236491770/

“I think what is noteworthy is that when I came back three years ago, I had a tremendous amount that needed fixing. But anyone who runs a company also knows that it can’t just be about fixing. It has to be about preparing a company for its future and really putting in place, taking steps to create opportunities for growth so well,” Iger told the analysts. “The good news is that the company is in much better shape today than it was three years ago, because we have done a lot of fixing, but we’ve also put in place a number of opportunities, including the investment across our experiences business to essentially expand at every location that we do business and on the high seas.”


“I also believe that in a world that changes as much as it does that in some form or another, trying to preserve the status quo is a mistake, and I’m certain that my successor will not do that,” Iger added. “So they’ll be handed, I think, a good hand in terms of the strength of the company, a number of opportunities to grow and and also the exhortation that in a world that changes you also have to continue to change and evolve as well.”

[Sotiris]

Bob Iger’s long goodbye
https://www.ft.com/content/460389f9-3d7 ... c3209c88b0

The article is behind a paywall, so here are the juicy bits.

Iger has not spoken about his first departure and subsequent return to Disney in depth. He prefers not to even say Chapek’s name now — instead habitually referring to him as “my former successor”. But the saga has become the stuff of Hollywood legend.

In early 2020, Disney was on a roll following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the launch of Disney’s streaming platform and a 2019 global box office of $11bn. “We were humming,” says Iger. At Nike, a fellow Disney board member, Mark Parker, had just become executive chairman. “So I thought, that’s the model. I’ll be executive chairman. I’ll focus on creativity. We will avoid going through a public succession process . . . It was a construct which, I’ve not clarified this publicly, would have me basically managing the creative side of the company.”

After deliberations, the board agreed. Iger kept the role of executive chairman as well as creative oversight of the company’s vast output. He also kept the office, with the private shower he often used for the long days that bled into a swanky premiere. Chapek moved down the hall — a situation Iger is keen to defend. “He was keeping the trains running on time. Why should I leave the office? I’m not leaving the company. I’m staying as the senior executive.” Chapek did not respond to requests for comment. Many regarded that management structure as inherently unstable. Iger says Chapek had accepted this structure as part of the job. “But that became the tension quite quickly after that,” he admits. “It quickly went bad. Covid made that a lot harder, in fairness to him and everyone.”

[…] These controversies were not helped by the relationship at the top, according to former Disney insiders. People close to Chapek’s thinking claim Iger and his team undermined Chapek. One argued that Iger thought he could “control” Chapek, who had previously been a “loyal soldier” and that Iger took to criticising him after the relationship broke down. “Did [Chapek] make a ton of mistakes? Yes. But was the deck stacked against him? Also yes,” the person says.

In November 2022, less than a year (“10 months and three weeks”, Iger specifies) after Iger’s departure, Chapek was kicked out in a boardroom coup. The story of what happened behind the scenes in those intervening months has become a source of fascination for Hollywood. One of the prevailing narratives among some of the town’s powerbrokers, and those close to Chapek, is that Iger was pulling strings from outside, whispering in the ears of the Disney board. Iger clearly disagreed with Chapek’s strategy. “There was no urgent need to make drastic changes,” he says. “And yet he did, and he brought in bureaucracy and he brought in layers of management.” But he denies backroom plotting. “Another misperception is that when I was out of Disney, I was fomenting and trying to undermine him, which was completely untrue.” When it came, Iger’s return happened swiftly. One Friday, he got a call from Susan Arnold, then Disney chair. Iger turned to his wife, Willow, and asked what to do if Arnold asked him to return. “She said: ‘You have to say yes.’ She said: ‘You know you love those people, and you love the company.’” Iger said yes. “It was nothing premeditated. I had no time to think about it,” he insists.

[…] Emboldened, Iger began to look for more deals. “We put together a list of acquisition targets. Marvel was one, Star Wars was another, James Bond was one. We had a list and I figured let’s just tick them off and buy them all.” Only James Bond — now controlled by Amazon — got away.

[…] The fourth, the $71bn acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019, attracted more questions. It was criticised as too expensive, leaving the company laden with debt. Iger maintains that was unfair given that the cost was mitigated by the tens of billions of dollars of disposals (including its stake in Sky) resulting in a final price of $54bn.

[…] There were also deals that never happened. Iger says he was close to acquiring Twitter from Jack Dorsey “at a very attractive price” to turn it into a global distribution platform for Disney. But he got cold feet on the morning of the deal, worrying that it would be “a horrible distraction”. The bigger deal would have come from nascent talks to merge Disney with Apple — a merger which, Iger thinks, would have been “truly transformational and equal”. “We talked about it internally, and we had some conversations with Apple about it, but it never went anywhere.” Why not? Iger shrugs: “Well, Apple didn’t show that much interest.”

[…] Those who have worked closely with Iger say he can be ruthless. Some point to the departure of potential successors such as senior executives Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer as the casualties of his rolling tenure in the top job. Even D’Amaro describes Iger as demanding — a “self-proclaimed perfectionist”, who would push his teams on details and results.

[...] Iger’s most outspoken critic has been Nelson Peltz. […] “It was a little ugly,” says Iger, still smarting two years after the attack. He scrambled into meetings with almost two dozen of Disney’s largest investors. Iger and the board defeated Peltz’s challenge following a shareholder vote in April 2024, but the activist has not halted his criticism. He recently told a conference that Iger had pushed for D’Amaro’s appointment as “a reason to stay on”, implying his continued influence behind the scenes.

The biggest worry for investors is now a share price that remains lower than a year ago despite good recent results. […] Theme parks now make up about 60 per cent of the profits — it used to be that studios, TV and parks made up about a third each. He concedes Disney needs to bring up the profitability of the streaming business to provide “a bit more of a balance”.

[…] He has been here once before, he says, “not knowing what it would be like to not have a title, not having an office, not all the infrastructure that comes with it, not knowing whether I get dinner reservations. You know . . . Who am I?” Leaving Disney is a “huge emotional shift . . . It’s just this . . . It’s an ending,” he manages, at last.

[…] He insists he won’t be calling D’Amaro. “I said to Josh, if you want advice, you call me. I’m available 24 hours a day, but I’m not going to call to give you advice . . . I am being very careful not to impose myself.”

[PatchofBlue]

Oh, boy. Disney could have survived the streaming wars. It could have survived Chapek. But it never could have survived the streaming wars and Chapek.

I don't think Disney needs a single other acquisition, now or ever, but Disney owning James Bond does interest me, only in that I have no natural investment in James Bond. I never even saw the Daniel Craig films. I started plowing through them when they were on Netflix earlier this year, but I was going chronologically and didn't even make it to the Pierce Brosnan films, and I wasn't really that tickled by them.