Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Big Disney Fan
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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farerb wrote:
Big Disney Fan wrote:But Disney as we knew it forever will be gone.
Disney always changed throughout history:
1. 1928 - 1967
2. 1968 - 1983
3. 1984 - 2005
4. 2006 - 2019
So this change doesn't mean much to me. It was bound to happen at some point.
No, I wasn't referring to the people in charge. I was referring to the company itself.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

Post by JeanGreyForever »

A lot of this sounds like hyperbole to me. Between the MCU, Star Wars, all the Disney Parks, the brand recognition of Pixar, and the most iconic family films of all time that are embedded deep into the global consciousness, there's no way a company like Disney will ever go away.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Disney CEO Bob Chapek Elected to Company's Board of Directors
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... rs-1290427

Josh D’Amaro Named Chairman of Disney Parks and Rebecca Campbell Named Chairman of Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer and International
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/josh-d ... ational-2/
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Disney Faces ‘Acute’ Challenges Post-Pandemic: How Soon Can Parks and Movies Recover?
https://www.thewrap.com/disney-post-pan ... es-sports/

Disney CEO Bob Chapek Shares How High School Sports Influenced How He Runs Walt Disney Company In Podcast Episode
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/20 ... t-episode/

Event Recap: Bob Iger Q&A at 2021 Clio Awards, Accepting Honorary Award
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/article ... ary-award/
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Bob Iger and Bob Chapek don't get along anymore.
Tension is building between Disney chiefs Bob Iger and Bob Chapek over the future of the Mouse House, four people told Insider. One senior executive at a non-Disney studio who’s familiar with Chapek’s thinking said many in Hollywood believe the two men are no longer as friendly as they had been, that Chapek is eager to get on with running Disney on his own terms, and that Iger has been stalling his exit for too long. “It’s just common knowledge. They don’t get along,” this person said. “It’s awkward with Bob Iger around, and it’s a long goodbye, and Chapek is sitting there saying, ‘I just want to run the company.”’

Chapek succeeded Iger in February 2020 to become the company’s seventh chief executive, but his experience is limited to the parks and consumer products. As Chapek stepped up, Iger became executive chairman and kept responsibilities for the content unit to give Wall Street confidence in Disney’s movie and TV making. He’s set to depart at the end of the year.

The New York Times reported in April 2020 that Iger was reasserting control because of how much the pandemic had ravaged Disney’s business. “When Bob [Iger] inserted himself back into the company, it was a huge slap in the face. The concern was that Bob Chapek couldn’t handle it,” said the senior studio executive.

A cinema industry executive familiar with the thinking at Disney said Iger is frustrated that Chapek may have harmed the company’s carefully cultivated relationships in the all-important China market with its “Black Widow” release strategy. Disney’s choice of July 9 to release the latest Marvel movie internationally bumped into China’s month-long celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party’s 100-year anniversary. The cinema industry executive noted that China has yet to give a release date for “Black Widow.” Widespread piracy of the movie also threatens to hurt the China box office.

Marvel also was displeased with the decision to simultaneously release “Black Widow” in theaters and on streaming, two sources close to the company said. One said the view at Marvel is that the PVOD decision caused piracy issues and hurt the box office performance. “Black Widow’s” debut was viewed as successful, booking $80 million in North America theaters its opening weekend and a further $60 million in streaming revenue, but the film nose-dived in its second week.

The stumble is leading to chatter among industry sources that Chapek’s positive reception on Wall Street could be cooling. Jessica Reif Ehrlich, a senior media and entertainment analyst at BofA Securities and longtime Disney watcher, said Chapek has done a great job of managing through the pandemic and that she expects Disney’s theme parks to do “extraordinarily well.” “The questionable part is the content side of the business, which was Bob Iger’s strength. I don’t know how much of a learning curve he still needs. He has been open to experimentation, though this last one [‘Black Widow’ release strategy] is a big one, missing the whole China window,” Ehrlich said. “No Marvel movie has ever seen such a decline in the second week of a theatrical run or even in the Saturday and Sunday of opening weekend. It is an embarrassment. It seems like a mistake. Those decisions go right to the top, but it’s still early and we’re in very unusual times.”

Analyst Rich Greenfield, partner at LightShed Partners, meanwhile, believes Chapek was right to release “Black Widow” on streaming at the same time as in theaters since movie lovers are not returning to the theaters in great numbers. “Simply relying on movie theaters isn’t going to work in the future.”

One rumor going around Disney is that Chapek plans to stop putting executives on multi-year employment contracts to get greater flexibility to hire and fire, a sign of how he may be seeking to put a bigger stamp on the company. The studio exec also predicted Chapek plans some restructuring at the company this fall. Some of Iger’s closest lieutenants, PR consigliere Zenia Mucha and general counsel Alan Braverman, are hitting the exits, which will give Chapek more freedom to alter Disney’s power structures. Disney is working to replace Mucha and using the opportunity to overhaul its corporate communications strategy, two sources told Insider.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/tension ... pek-2021-7
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

Post by PatrickvD »

Iger really needs to stop cozying up to China. That country has literal concentration camps within its borders. Absolutely revolting to think we’re all looking the other way. So much for ‘never again’…

I get that you can make a lot of money there, but when they start dictating what can be in your movies then that’s a problem

The Mulan remake was unwatchable anyway.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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I can see Hollywood catering less to China in the future. They've been favouring a lot more local titles over imports, with only the rare Hollywood movie like a "Godzilla vs Kong" or a "Fast & Furious" pulling in decent numbers. With Black Widow still without a release date in China and with people on social media already criticising Shang-Chi and China angry at Eternals director Chloe Zhao for comments she made in interviews, even Marvel isn't quite as safe a bet there as it used to be. It's a very unpredictable market and the smallest thing seems to offend them (there was a whole ridiculous controversy in China, because John Cena called Taiwan a country). I think the tide is going to shift regarding Hollywood's relationship with China.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

Post by Disney's Divinity »

Yeah, it jumped out at me that Iger was very concerned about Chapek interrupting China's celebration of its dictatorship. :roll:

Still, that last paragraph about Chapek's plans is a bit eerie, particularly the part about wanting more ease with which to fire people.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Walt Disney to move thousands of jobs from California to Florida
https://www.winknews.com/2021/07/25/wal ... o-florida/
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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whoah. I know its just about following the money(tax credit) and that its bad in a way since many will lose their jobs and not come over, but I love the idea of moving jobs to Florida. Could we possibly see the return of the florida animation studio? Or am I overthinking things?
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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I wonder if Disney would do that... Isn't climate change causing California to be a dangerous place to live? Florida isn't sunshine and rainbows, but anything has to be better than the US's west coast, right? I wonder if they'd consider moving the whole department or some of it over here...
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Florida is literally sinking into the ocean so I doubt this decision is about climate change…
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Doubt we'd ever see the whole department move over, nor would I want them to. The reason the florida studio was as good as it was, was that you had this studio that they didn't micro manage to death, because the majority of their focus was in CA.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Apparently, the rift between Iger and Chapek led to Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit.
Turns out that corporate rifts have consequences. It’s an open secret in Hollywood that Disney Executive Chairman Bob Iger and CEO Bob Chapek have been estranged for months, dating back to the very start of last year’s pandemic. Now the consequences of that estrangement are becoming clear.

My sources tell me that Iger and Chapek do not interact regularly. But that is pretty damn obvious, given the embarrassing lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson filed last week, accusing Disney of breaching her contract for box office-based profit participation on “Black Widow” after the movie was released day-and-date on Disney’s streaming service Disney+. And worse, there was that insane foot-in-mouth response to the lawsuit in which a spokesperson for a company that laid off 32,000 workers last year officially castigated Johansson for “callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.” And then revealed her $20 million base salary.

I talked with a half-dozen executives familiar with Disney and its culture. It seems that Iger either intentionally allowed Chapek to shoot himself in the foot with Johansson’s team by failing to step in and negotiate an alternative to a lawsuit, or that he is so disconnected from his successor that he was not in the loop to step in as he usually would. Either possibility says bad things about how leadership and succession is working at Disney.

One Disney insider told me that Iger found the lawsuit “mortifying” and thinks that Chapek and the company “bungled it.” But Zenia Mucha, Disney’s chief communications officer, wrote in an email: “None of this is true period.” She declined to elaborate. “What do you expect?” asked a former Disney executive who called it an “irksome” rookie error. “Chapek and Iger are not spending time and comparing notes and working to mutual success, which is kind of what you look for in a succession plan. Talent is important. You should proactively say: ‘Let’s figure this out.’”

As TheWrap has previously reported, Chapek — who rose to CEO after decades running the theme parks division — has always been called out for one big hole in his résumé: no talent relationships. And this is where having Iger as executive chairman seemed absolutely critical. Having chosen Chapek after rejecting other veteran executives (Jay Rasulo, Tom Staggs, Kevin Mayer), the smooth-talking Iger could groom Chapek, supposedly, in this area of weakness. Iger might also have warned Chapek off leaving this in the hands of his distribution chief Kareem Daniel, an engineer turned investment banker with a ton of power — and also zero experience managing talent.

“This signals that everything fell apart,” the first Disney insider said. “There are checks and balances in place to prevent things descending into lawsuits and insults… You have to blow by all the different restraint systems designed to keep everyone working together and playing nice. Scarlett’s team didn’t just go to the courthouse and sue.” This executive also noted with surprise the “anger” in the company’s statement about the lawsuit, which I can confirm both shocked and insulted Johansson and her team. Another Disney watcher said it doesn’t even matter, given the fallout, whether the rift is real or not. “It’s a clear sign of dysfunction if anyone wonders if Iger was involved or not. “That in itself is proof of the rift,” this person said.

How did it begin? Early in the pandemic, when Chapek had only been CEO for a few months, Iger gave an interview to Ben Smith at The New York Times stating that he was stepping back in to a more active role to help lead through the crisis. That was news to Chapek — he felt blindsided and undermined. It has been a slow, ongoing drift since then, according to my sources, who have been gossiping to me about this for at least six months. But only now have the consequences of that corporate estrangement become clear.
Source: https://www.thewrap.com/inside-disney-b ... o-blunder/
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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I guess Disney as a company is incapable of transitioning without a boatload of soap opera style drama. What a ridiculous mess this is.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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It might be too early to judge his capabilities as a CEO, especially since he's had to deal with a global pandemic, but I'm so far unimpressed with Chapek. I think the only good thing he has done was add the Star tier to Disney+. This Johansson lawsuit thing is bad, but the biggest example of his penny pinching that theme park fans warned about was the closing of Blue Sky. Closing a reliable source of content when you're trying to build a successful streaming service was a blunder of a move, in my opinion.

I stand by my opinion that Peter Rice should have been made the new CEO. He has a long history of good talent relationships, which Chapek has been criticised for lacking, and he wouldn't have closed Blue Sky. Rice coming from a movie and television background made him the perfect choice to lead an entertainment company and Iger made a big mistake not choosing him as his successor.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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I think Iger wants to return to the studio in part because his political aspirations went ker-plunk! earlier this year. I think he was hoping to get a position in the Biden Administration and that didn't happen. They probably realized Democratic voters don't want a millionaire businessman as one of their party leaders. Besides, the party has better candidates like Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg on whom they'd rather focus their efforts of resume-building than a hard sell like Iger.
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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At least I'm getting all this drama out of Bob Chapek's reign :lol: will Tina Fey please step in and write a 30 Rock executive sitcom based on all of this?
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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Disney CEO: Talent Deals Undergoing “Reset” After Scarlett Johansson Lawsuit
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235017791/
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Re: Bob Chapek Named CEO of The Walt Disney Company

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I have more behind-the-scenes drama for you, Rodrigo! :wink: I quoted the juiciest bits below.
[...] Iger decided to open the meeting by offering his parting advice. A longtime critic of over-reliance on market research rather than instinct and taste, he made an inspirational plea for the value of talent. He touched on the challenges of managing creators but stressed that every transaction at Disney — parks, consumer products, movies and television — starts with creativity.

“In a world and business that is awash with data, it is tempting to use data to answer all of our questions, including creative questions,” he said. “I urge all of you not to do that.” If Disney had relied too heavily on data, he noted, the company might never have made big, breakthrough movies like Black Panther, Coco and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Though no outsiders were present, chatter about Iger’s talk soon began to seep through Hollywood. His words were interpreted as a shot at Chapek. Though a 28-year Disney veteran who most recently had overseen the theme parks and resorts, Chapek was an outsider in Hollywood. Known for cutting costs and raising prices, he was regarded by many with distrust if not outright hostility. So the version of the board retreat that made the rounds had Iger showing up Chapek, who was said to have followed Iger’s remarks by declaring in blunt terms that, in fact, Disney was now a data-driven company. It sent a chill through Hollywood.

Sources who attended the meeting say Chapek did not make such a bald declaration. They say he was merely being himself: a numbers-oriented, bottom-line-focused businessman lacking creative experience and without Iger’s polish and flair. Nonetheless, the retreat anecdote dovetailed with a narrative that was already taking hold among Iger confidants: that he had lost faith in Chapek and that his speech before the board was “a final warning” that Disney was veering off course.

[...] But even as Iger lingered, Chapek moved quickly to seize control, reorganizing the company in a way that diminished the power of some key Iger lieutenants as others have exited. “Every creative person is leaving or losing power,” laments one former high-level Disney exec.

[...] There have been signs of tension within Disney as well. In April, the Insider reported that Pixar’s Pete Docter was unhappy with the decision to skip theatrical and put Soul on the service in December 2020; animators were said to be dismayed when Disney then put Luca directly onto the streamer, both for no extra charge.

One Disney veteran — not a Chapek fan — compares a lunch with Iger to a lunch with Chapek. “A conversation with Iger was, ‘Where can I help you? Did you watch this new Icelandic thriller on Netflix? I just finished this book about Churchill.’ Bob Chapek is all about business. He sits at lunch, there is 60 seconds of small talk about his home in Key West, and then it’s all Bob sending messages about how things are going great. He is on-message.”

[...] As one success followed another, a former colleague says, Iger had started to feel somewhat underappreciated, and the pressure to pick a successor began to grate. Some former insiders think he had gotten a bit too much positive press for his own good. Iger sometimes expressed his amazement to friends that other industry figures pulled in huge paydays while running much lesser companies. In 2017, for example, then-CBS chief Leslie Moonves cleared $69.3 million while Iger was paid $36.3 million. In 2018, Iger got $65.6 million while Discovery’s David Zaslav raked in $129.4 million.

Iger says it was he who chose his moment to step aside. Plans for him to give way to Chapek as CEO began to take shape around Thanksgiving 2019, when he was a few months shy of his 69th birthday. By then, other internal candidates had come and gone. Iger had a bake-off that caused one potential successor, Jay Rasulo, to leave in 2015. The industry believed Tom Staggs had been anointed when he was named COO in February of that year, but if so, Iger changed his mind, and Staggs departed in April 2016. Sources say Staggs heard from associates that Chapek had actively undermined him.

[...] In the end, Chapek was the only real internal candidate. Given his lack of creative background, it may have seemed likely to Iger that the board would want him to stick around. Then came the challenges of the pandemic. Several sources believe Iger was sure his plan to run the creative side of things until the end of 2021 — and maybe beyond — would work out of necessity. “I think he thought Chapek was so not liked and so not a creative executive that he would for sure be needed for the foreseeable future,” says a former Disney insider. “He could be executive chairman for who knows how long, and Chapek could be a glorified COO.”

Several Disney veterans believe Iger did not anticipate how aggressively Chapek would move to take charge. In The New York Times in April 2020, media columnist Ben Smith reported that Iger, mere weeks after Chapek became CEO, had “smoothly reasserted control” and “effectively returned to running the company.” Iger was said to have made his intentions clear to Chapek on a flight in March. In an email to the Times, Iger explained: “A crisis of this magnitude, and its impact on Disney, would necessarily result in my actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!”

One Iger associate says the Times article was “a seminal moment” in a souring relationship between Iger and Chapek. Says another: “[Iger] forgot that as soon as he steps down as CEO, the gravity shifts to the new CEO. He miscalculated that because of his belief in his own mastery. [And] he thought Chapek would have a sense of fealty or duty. Instead, Chapek really resented the Ben Smith article. And he’s really not a collaborative person. He put his people in positions of power and marginalized Iger’s deputies.” In May, IAC chairman Barry Diller told a CNBC interviewer that Iger was “being pushed to the sidelines by his successor — not very nicely, by the way.”
Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235025504/
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