One day after the shock announcement of Bob Iger’s return to Disney, and the resulting ouster of his successor-turned-predecessor Bob Chapek, an astonished Hollywood is grappling with what exactly the move will mean for the entertainment behemoth’s short-term and long-term future.
But while there is no shortage of questions that are being asked, two things are certain. First, investors are thrilled to have him once again reigning over the Magic Kingdom. Disney’s shares ended Monday up more than 6% on a day that the Dow Jones was slightly down. Second, Iger is moving fast — not even waiting a full 24 hours to announce sweeping changes — to dismantle Chapek’s reorganization of the company.
The speed at which Iger is hurtling is especially remarkable given that Disney’s board only made its overture for Iger to return to the embattled company on Friday. “It literally started Friday and ended Sunday,” a person with knowledge of the matter told CNN, adding that Iger “felt a sense of obligation to go back because he really does care about the company.”
Now he’s already calling big plays.
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In a Monday evening memo sent to employees of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, a key organ of the company created by Chapek that frustrated some creatives, Iger announced that Kareem Daniel, the division’s chief and a Chapek ally, would “be leaving the company.”
Iger also announced the entertainment giant will be undergoing a broader transformation with him back at the helm. “Over the coming weeks, we will begin implementing organizational and operating changes within the company,” Iger wrote to employees. “It is my intention to restructure things in a way that honors and respects creativity as the heart and soul of who we are.”
Iger added that he had asked Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pitaro, and Christine McCarthy to “work together on the design of a new structure that puts more decision-making back in the hands of our creative teams and rationalizes costs.” Iger said the goal “is to have the new structure in place in the coming months.”
Outside Iger’s reorg of Chapek’s reorg, the Disney chief could also unwind another key decision made by Chapek that is just weeks from taking effect: Disney+’s price hike. Iger launched Disney+ at a mere $6.99 a month and, as CNBC’s Alex Sherman reported, his strategy was to “slowly raise prices over time.” Chapek, however, ditched that modus operandi earlier this year when he spiked the price to a whopping $10.99 a month.
Looking further into the future, bigger questions abound: What will Disney look like when Iger’s two-year deal is up? How will Iger position and reshape the company for the digital age? Could he make a move to shed ABC and the broadcast division? Or perhaps execute a mega-deal to eat a company like Netflix? Or will Disney itself be eaten by a Big Tech giant such as Apple?
One source at a top talent agency pointed out that the biggest question Iger will have to answer is how he “tops his last run as CEO.”
“The world is a much more complicated place than it was a few years ago and it is going to be hard to live up to the reputation he built as the most formidable media CEO ever,” the source said. “And he’s going to have a short runway to pleasing Wall Street, his staff, creative partners, and the audience.”
In a move that shocked Hollywood, Bob Iger, one of the most notable CEOs in the history of the Walt Disney company, is returning to once again run the media empire.
Bob Chapek, who replaced Iger in 2020 as CEO, is stepping down immediately.
“We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney over his long career, including navigating the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic,” Susan Arnold, Chairman of the Board for Disney, said in a statement on Sunday night. “The Board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the Company through this pivotal period.”
The announcement, while surprising to the media industry, comes at a time of great evolution for Disney. The company is coming off a lackluster earnings report that showed growth for its streaming endeavors. However, that came at a great cost. Disney’s streaming business lost $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter. That report sent Disney’s stock tumbling after a year of sluggish to bad performance.
Chapek guided the company through the pandemic, one of its most tumultuous periods in its nearly 100-year history, but ultimately Disney decided that its future was in better hands with Iger.
Away from the pandemic, Chapek had a short but bumpy tenure as the head of Disney. Chapek, who served as chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products before taking over for Iger, found himself dealing with issues regarding pay with Scarlett Johansson, one of the company’s biggest stars, as well as Disney’s battles with Florida, and its own employees, regarding the state’s controversial bill restricting certain LGBTQ topics in the classroom.
Disney’s stock has also taken a hit lately. It’s currently down roughly 40% this year.
As for Iger, he has an almost mythical status as the leader of Disney
(DIS). He spent 15 years as CEO and was instrumental in acquiring major brands like Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, the home to Star Wars. Iger also closed the $71 billion deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox and kicked off the streaming revolution at Disney
(DIS) with the creation of Disney
(DIS)+ in November 2019.
Iger stayed on at Disney as executive chairman directing the company’s creative endeavors. He officially left the company after nearly 50 years at the end of last year.
Disney said Sunday that Iger has agreed to serve as CEO for two years with “a mandate from the Board to set the strategic direction for renewed growth and to work closely with the Board in developing a successor to lead the Company at the completion of his term.”
The move is also surprising since Chapek just renewed his contract. The company’s board of directors unanimously voted to extend Chapek’s contract as CEO for another three years, the company said in June. Chapek’s new contract began in July and was set to run until 2025.
Also, it appeared that Iger was set in retirement with his legacy as one of Disney’s most notable and successful CEOs. Now, he’s back.
“I am extremely optimistic for the future of this great company and thrilled to be asked by the Board to return as its CEO,” Iger said in a statement Sunday. “Disney and its incomparable brands and franchises hold a special place in the hearts of so many people around the globe—most especially in the hearts of our employees, whose dedication to this company and its mission is an inspiration.”
Iger added that he is “deeply honored to be asked to again lead this remarkable team, with a clear mission focused on creative excellence to inspire generations through unrivaled, bold storytelling.”
(DIS) is planning to freeze hiring and cut some jobs as it strives to move the Disney
(DIS)+ streaming service to profitability against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Friday.
Chief Executive Bob Chapek sent the memo to Disney’s leaders, saying the company is instituting a targeted hiring freeze and anticipates “some small staff reductions” as it looks to manage costs.
“While certain macroeconomic factors are out of our control, meeting these goals requires all of us to continue doing our part to manage the things we can control – most notably, our costs,” Chapek wrote in the memo.
The move came after Disney missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly earnings on Tuesday as the entertainment giant racked up more losses from its push into streaming video, which it refers to as its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Shares of the company fell more than 13% on Wednesday following its results.
Disney has said the fast-growing service added 12 million subscribers in its fiscal fourth quarter but reported an operating loss of nearly $1.5 billion. The company said Disney+ would become profitable in fiscal 2024, with losses having peaked in the quarter.
The streaming service is known for original series including the “Star Wars” entries “The Mandalorian,” “Andor” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the Marvel entries “WandaVision,” “Hawkeye” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” and content hubs for Disney, Pixar, Marvel and “Star Wars” films.
Wall Street analysts voiced concern about Disney’s escalating streaming costs. MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson observed in a note this week that “the company has to prove that their pivot to DTC will be worth the investment price that is currently being paid.”
Corporate America is making deep cuts to its employee base to brace for an economic downturn. Meta said this week it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce to rein in costs.
One of Disney’s studio peers, Warner Bros Discovery, has undergone dramatic cost-cutting efforts, including layoffs, as the recently merged company restructures its content operations.
Chapek said Disney has established a task force, including Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy and General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez, to help him make “critical big picture decisions.”
The company already has begun looking at content and marketing spending, but Chapek said the cuts would not sacrifice quality. Hiring will be limited to a small subset of critical positions, and some staff reductions are anticipated as the company looks to make itself more cost-efficient, Chapek wrote.
Chapek said business travel would be limited and trips would require advance approval, or conducted virtually as much as possible.
“Our transformation is designed to ensure we thrive not just today, but well into the future,” Chapek wrote.
“I really like Dan Loeb,” a CEO of a major US company told me as we discussed Loeb’s latest activist move, the purchase of a $1 billion stake in Disney with calls to cut costs, shed assets and improve management. “But the last thing I want is Dan snooping around my company. The fox in the henhouse never plays nice.”
Of course, activist investors like Loeb aren’t in the business of playing nice. And Loeb is particularly adept at his job — just see the havoc he caused at Yahoo a few years back on the way to a big payday. With his Disney move, he again wants to force change and enhance shareholder value, which has been noticeably missing from the company recently. The stock is down more than 23% year-to-date and more than 30% in the past 52 weeks.
Cable cord cutting is eating into Disney’s linear businesses, including its still-profitable sports cable network ESPN. The Disney+ streaming service is growing, but still losing money. ESPN along with decent theme-park attendance is why the company posted strong third-quarter results. Disney is betting big on streaming but it may not be the magic bullet many industry pros hoped for, or Netflix wouldn’t be missing performance targets.
Then there are the unstated reasons Disney is in trouble, the one that industry executives, investors and rivals will tell you when they’re not being quoted by name: Woke don’t sell, particularly when it comes to a company trying to sell kid-oriented programming and theme-park experiences to Middle America.
In his letter to Disney CEO Bob Chapek, Loeb didn’t say any of this. (He also declined to comment for this column.) His letter stated explicitly he wants an outright sale of ESPN to pay down debt and allow ESPN to make up for the cord cutting and fully flourish in the sports gambling business, which doesn’t fit with Disney’s family-forward image. He’d like to totally suspend the dividend and buy from rival Comcast the remaining 33% stake of the Hulu streaming service it doesn’t own.
Being woke could hurt Disney’s sales, especially with Middle America.Getty Images
A growth albatross
But Loeb, in my opinion, also more than hinted at wokeness being a growth albatross for the “House of Mouse.” He wants more experienced board members to fill “gaps in talent and experience” that he described as “strengths in technology, advertising and consumer engagement, as well as proven track records of leading large, complex organizations and creating shareholder value.”
So I did a little digging through the company’s 2022 proxy statement — a type of annual report that investors, including presumably Loeb, pore through to understand management’s priorities, strategic direction, shareholder votes and what it looks for in its board members — the men and women whom management must report to.
You would be amazed how Disney — a company known for, among other things, Mickey Mouse and making movies that are supposed to appeal to the so-called silent majority — is openly bragging to investors about its embrace of every woke fad imaginable.
The terms “diversity” and “ESG,” the acronym for Environmental, Social and Governance, appear on nearly every page. Management diversity is a worthy goal, but real academic research on diversity and shareholder value shows no correlation.
Florida passed legislation that took away Disney’s special tax status earlier in 2022. Getty Images
The proxy says management has created various initiatives to increase the diversity (aka wokeness) of Disney’s programming. Where’s the research that those programs sell? I couldn’t find any.
Now let’s turn to the company’s board members — the people Loeb wants to oust because he thinks they’re not cutting it. In the proxy, Disney has a checklist of what it considers key attributes for board members.
Members are graded on executive management, marketing, brand enhancement and risk but also diversity and “ESG experience,” neither of which are on Loeb’s list. You will be happy to note that Chapek received strong marks on most of these, though he received only a passable grade for ESG (maybe he uses his gas-guzzling corporate jet too often) and he flunked “diversity” because, you guessed it, he’s a white dude.
That’s apparently negative in the “Woke House of Mouse.”
Now if this stuff sold, Loeb wouldn’t now be bearing down on Chapek. The stock would be higher and the latest “Buzz Lightyear” animated movie would have been a smashing success instead of a near-flop after some woke nitwit limited its appeal by editing back into the final cut of this kids’ flick a same-sex smooching scene that turned off many US parents and spurred some nations to ban the film altogether.
Chapek had a good quarter but’s he’s had a tough run since taking over as CEO from Bob Iger two-plus years ago. (A spokesman declined to comment on any of this.) He had to repair Disney after the COVID shutdowns but recall his fumble on the Florida legislation that was inaccurately dubbed “don’t say gay” because it prevented public schools from teaching sex ed to 6-year-olds. He was cowed by his woke employee base to publicly oppose the law. That led Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to pass legislation that ended decades of favorable tax treatment for Disney in a state it calls its second home.
It was an easy win for DeSantis, and a humiliation for Chapek, who should just start making non-provocative kids’ flicks again or the Dan Loebs of the world will keep coming.
and is calling on the media company to buy the rest of Hulu, explore spinning off ESPN and refresh its board.
Mr. Loeb on Monday said his firm, which liquidated a large Disney stake earlier this year, has repurchased a “significant stake” in the company and sent a letter to Disney Chief Executive
Bob Chapek
urging the company to engage with Third Point on a number of issues.
Mr. Loeb praised growth in Disney’s streaming subscriber base, but also wanted Disney to more aggressively cut costs and consider a number of steps to shake up its portfolio.
The investor’s calls come at an inflection point for Disney and the streaming industry at large, which enjoyed torrential growth during Covid-19 but now face headwinds that include financial losses, domestic subscriber saturation and the introduction of new ad-supported tiers.
Mr. Loeb also now represents a fresh challenge for Mr. Chapek, who assumed the CEO job in February 2020, one month before Covid-19 shut down his company’s theme parks and the nation’s movie theaters. Earlier this year, Mr. Chapek found himself under fire from his own employees and Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis
over his response to the state’s bill known by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.
Mr. Chapek was renewed to a three-year contract this summer, and recent subscriber growth in Disney’s flagship service, Disney+, has shown the company is advancing on the streaming industry’s dominant player,
Netflix Inc.
A spinoff of ESPN—itself a source of paying subscribers through its ESPN+ offering—would radically alter Disney’s presence in the streaming ecosystem.
“We welcome the views of all our investors,” Disney said in response to Third Point’s letter. The company said its board has been continuously refreshed, “with an average tenure of four years.”
Third Point is pushing Disney to “make every attempt” to buy up
Comcast Corp.’s
CMCSA 1.26%
remaining minority stake in the streaming giant Hulu before its contractual deadline in early 2024. Under a 2019 agreement, Comcast can require Disney to purchase its NBCUniversal subsidiary’s one-third stake in Hulu by that deadline for at least $9 billion, assuming the streaming service has an equity value greater than $27.5 billion.
“We believe that it would even be prudent for Disney to pay a modest premium to accelerate the integration but are cognizant that the seller may have an unreasonable price expectation at this time,” Mr. Loeb’s letter says.
Disney and Comcast have been in a dispute over the value of Hulu, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. When Disney took majority control of Hulu in 2019, the service was valued at a minimum of $27.5 billion. Comcast believes the value of Hulu is now closer to $70 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.
The two companies have already started to unwind some aspects of their partnership. Comcast’s NBCUniversal earlier this year exercised an option to exit its content-sharing agreement with Disney, the Journal reported. Content from NBCUniversal that previously would have gone to Hulu after airing on NBC and NBC-owned cable channels will now go directly to Peacock, NBCU’s streaming service.
Mr. Loeb’s letter also states that there is a “strong case to be made” that Disney should spin off its ESPN business to shareholders to alleviate leverage at the parent company, despite ESPN’s centrality to the company’s streaming offerings and the significant free cash flow it generates.
Mr. Loeb suggests that synergies between Disney and ESPN could be replicated through contractual arrangements. A spinoff would drive better long-term value for Disney shareholders and result in a business “no longer haunted by the specter of cord-cutting,” the letter says.
Cord-cutting has driven Disney to make drastic changes to its business model in the past. In the summer of 2015, former Disney CEO
Robert Iger
acknowledged that the company was seeing “some subscriber losses” to ESPN. One year later, ESPN lost two million subscribers, dropping to its lowest count since 2005.
That steady decline became an albatross on Disney’s stock price, which fell as investors feared a future in which ESPN—once a top moneymaker—fell in relevance and revenue.
ESPN’s troubles—and Wall Street’s response to them—were one reason Mr. Iger would decide to launch his own streaming service. Disney+ premiered in the fall of 2019, and its rocketing growth in its first 18 months caused Disney shares to rise even as Covid-19 wrecked other parts of the business.
Hollywood has been rampant with rumors about the future of ESPN since those first indications of subscriber losses, with rivals speculating that a spinoff or sale was in its future. Today, the sports network is one of three core components of Disney’s streaming bundle, along with Disney+ and Hulu.
Disney+ has 152.1 million subscribers as of the most recent quarter, ESPN+ has 22.8 million and Hulu has 46.2 million.
Mr. Loeb’s letter also urges the company to rethink the makeup of its board and consider a list of potential new members that Third Point has compiled. It also advocates for a wide-ranging cost-cutting program and the continuation of Disney’s pandemic-era suspension of cash dividend payments.
Mr. Loeb has been a thorn in the side of studio chiefs before. In 2013, he bought a stake in
Sony Group Corp.
and publicly criticized the company’s movie arm, Sony Pictures Entertainment. He called on the company to make cuts to the division and introduce “discipline and accountability.”
Soon after Mr. Loeb’s disclosure of a 7% stake, Sony Pictures’ then-CEO pledged to find at least $350 million in annual savings. Mr. Loeb sold his stake about a year later, but has called on Sony to make changes to its entertainment division in the years since.
Last week, Disney reported better-than-expected earnings and added 14.4 million new subscribers to its Disney+ streaming service, many of which came to the service amid its expansion internationally.
The company’s new customer additions brought its total at all of its streaming services, including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, to 221.1 million subscribers, which puts Disney’s streaming total narrowly ahead of rival Netflix Inc., which last month reported it had 220.67 million subscribers.
Disney’s share price is up more than 12% in the past week, but remains down about 20% since the start of the year, amid a broad pullback in technology and media stocks.
Last week, Disney also announced price increases to its streaming services, including for its planned ad-supported tier of Disney+, a move that industry executives and analysts said is intended to help drive profitability at its streamers.
Disney, whose direct-to-consumer segment has lost more than $7 billion since Disney+ launched in late 2019, predicts that Disney+ will achieve profitability by September 2024.
“We have plenty of room on price value,” Mr. Chapek said last week.
Third Point previously held 4.1 million shares of Disney and successfully pushed the company to suspend its $3 billion annual dividend and plow the funds instead into the streaming business.
But by the first quarter of this year, the hedge fund had completely exited its position. Mr. Loeb had become worried that it would take years for Disney’s streaming business to reap the profits needed to boost the company’s share price, a person familiar with his thinking told The Wall Street Journal in May.
Since 1967, the Florida land housing Disney’s theme parks has been governed by the company, allowing it to manage Walt Disney World with little red tape. WSJ’s Robbie Whelan explains the special tax district that a Florida bill would eliminate. Photo: AP
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com and Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
reported a better-than-expected 26% jump in revenue Wednesday, driven by record results at its theme parks division and the addition of more new subscribers than projected to its flagship streaming video platform Disney+.
Disney’s results highlight the complex dynamics of the competitive streaming landscape. The company lowered its forecast for future Disney+ growth, raised the prices on its streaming offerings, outlined plans for a new ad-supported tier of Disney+ and said nearly all of the streaming service’s growth is coming from overseas.
The company’s earnings this quarter reflect the difficulties it and rivals, such as
Netflix Inc.,
face in attracting new customers domestically, where streaming options abound and many households use one or more services. Plus, in an increasingly difficult economic environment, some households are rethinking spending on in-home entertainment, industry analysts have said.
Chief Executive
Bob Chapek
said he didn’t think the price changes would result in any meaningful loss of streaming customers. “We believe that we’ve got plenty of price value room left to go,” Mr. Chapek said.
On the company’s call with analysts, Chief Financial Officer
Christine McCarthy
ratcheted down its forecast for Disney+, saying it now expects a total range of 215 million to 245 million subscribers by September 2024, in part because it lost the right to air popular Indian cricket competitions.
A few months ago, Mr. Chapek said the company’s previous target of 230 million to 260 million, set by the company in December 2020, was “very achievable.”
In the three-month period ended July 2, Disney+ gained 14.4 million new subscribers, bringing its global total to 152.1 million subscribers. Analysts were expecting 10 million additions, according to
FactSet.
Wednesday’s report brings Disney’s total subscriber base to 221.1 million customers across all of its streaming offerings, including ESPN+ and Hulu, surpassing Netflix, its chief streaming rival, in total customers. Netflix last month reported it had 220.67 million subscribers.
Disney shares rose about 7% in after-hours trading to $120.11.
Overall for the third quarter, the world’s largest entertainment company reported profits of $1.41 billion, or 77 cents a share, up from $918 million, or 50 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue increased to $21.5 billion, above the average analyst estimate of $20.99 billion on FactSet.
Since 1967, the Florida land housing Disney’s theme parks has been governed by the company, allowing it to manage Walt Disney World with little red tape. WSJ’s Robbie Whelan explains the special tax district that a Florida bill would eliminate. Photo: AP
Sales at the parks, experiences and products division—which includes Disneyland, Walt Disney World and four resorts in Europe and Asia and has historically been Disney’s most profitable segment—reached $7.4 billion for the quarter, a record, and was up 70% from a year earlier. The division posted profits of $2.2 billion for the quarter, up from $356 million a year ago.
“Demand has not abated” at the parks, Ms. McCarthy said. Since reopening in 2021 after pandemic-related closures, Disney’s theme parks haven’t been running at full capacity, but a new online reservations system and ride-reservation apps have helped the company better respond to demand and generate more revenue per visitor.
Over the past year, CEO Bob Chapek and other top Disney executives have signaled an increased focus on international markets for growing its streaming business.
Photo:
Laurent Viteur/Getty Images
Ms. McCarthy said that if economic conditions worsen, Disney could tweak the reservation system to allow more visitors in on certain days, but as of now, demand is outstripping available spots.
Disney’s direct-to-consumer segment, which includes video streaming, lost $1.1 billion in the third quarter, widening from a loss of $293 million a year earlier. Since Disney+ launched in late 2019, the segment has lost more than $7 billion. On Wednesday, Ms. McCarthy said Disney’s estimate for overall spending on content for fiscal 2022 had fallen slightly, from $32 billion to $30 billion.
Disney gave a launch date of Dec. 8 and outlined pricing information for its previously announced ad-supported tier of Disney+ in the U.S., a new product designed to expand the reach of the company’s streaming business.
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The price of the ad-free stand-alone Disney+ service will rise from its current level of $7.99 a month in the U.S. to $10.99 a month, or $109.99 a year. The new, basic Disney+ service with ads will cost $7.99 a month.
The premium Disney streaming bundle, which includes ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu, as well as a version of sports-focused ESPN+ with ads, will remain at its current price of $19.99 a month in the U.S., while a bundle that includes all three services, but with ads on Hulu, will rise in price by $1 a month, to $14.99.
Mr. Chapek defended the price increases, saying that when it was launched, Disney+ was among the most competitively-priced streaming offerings and that the company has added more and higher-quality content to the service.
“I think it’s easy to say that we’re the best value in streaming,” Mr. Chapek said Wednesday.
Over the past year, Mr. Chapek and other top Disney executives have signaled an increased focus on international markets for growing its streaming business. Disney is spending heavily to produce hundreds of local-language television shows in countries such as India, and over the summer, Disney+ launched in 53 new countries and territories, mainly concentrated in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Pricing for a Disney+ subscription in many of these new markets runs below the $7.99 a month that American customers pay. Still, Disney+’s average monthly revenue per paid subscriber—a key metric in streaming businesses—stood at $6.27 in North America, compared with $6.29 internationally, excluding Asia’s more inexpensive Disney+ Hotstar service.
Disney+ Hotstar, the service used by Disney’s 58.4 million subscribers in India, produces just $1.20 a month per user. Some analysts and former Disney executives predict that losing cricket streaming rights will result in millions of canceled accounts over the next year.
The flagging growth of North American Disney+ subscriptions is likely the result of a glut of content being released by in movie theaters and on a proliferation of streaming services, as well as fatigue the Star Wars and Marvel superhero movie franchises, said Francisco Olivera, a Disney shareholder who manages a small family fund based in Puerto Rico that has about 15% of its holdings in Disney stock.
The addition of an ad-supported tier, higher prices and possible further integration of the Hulu service in the future, could help reduce subscriber churn and make it easier to achieve profitability, he said.
“It’s a healthier market right now with the parks recovering, so they’re really flexing their muscles on pricing,” Mr. Olivera said.
—Sarah Krouse contributed to this article.
Write to Robbie Whelan at Robbie.Whelan@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications Disney+ launched in 53 new countries and territories over the summer. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it launched in 54. (Corrected on Aug. 10)
RICHMOND, Texas (KTRK) — It’s a small world after all.
So small that Walt Disney World’s conflict with Florida has a Houston-area leader making a big pitch: bring the Magic Kingdom to Texas.
In the midst of a Florida bill to revoke a special self-governing status from the sprawling 39-square-mile Disney World complex, Fort Bend County Judge KP George fired off a series of tweets Thursday to entice the world-famous attraction to relocate to the 885-square-mile county.
“From Timone & Pumba to Tinker Bell, Disney Characters are as diverse as Fort Bend County families. I welcome @Disney to visit Fort Bend County as your next destination while you face attacks from the modern-day political extremists like (Florida governor) @RonDeSantisFL,” George tweeted, along with a copy of a letter addressed to Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
From Timone & Pumba to Tinker Bell, Disney characters are as diverse as Fort Bend County families. I welcome @Disney to visit Fort Bend County as your next destination while you face attacks from the modern day political extremists like @RonDeSantisFL. pic.twitter.com/UMtvN4Cudj
— County Judge KP George (@JudgeKPGeorge) April 21, 2022
Florida just passed a bill to eliminate Disney World’s special taxing district, saying it provides an unfair competitive advantage over other tourist attractions. But critics say it’s due to Disney’s comments against the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
If this pitch from George sounds familiar, it’s because he’s made similar pitches to equally sized, equally valuable companies that have either expressed a departure from their current locations or are embroiled in controversy.
In 2020, for example, George pitched Fort Bend County to Elon Musk when the Tesla Motors CEO threatened to pull the company’s factory and headquarters out of California.
“We are a business-friendly county, and you know we are a business-friendly region,” said George. “Come on over.”
SEE ALSO: Fort Bend County judge wants Elon Musk to bring his offices to Houston-area
In follow-up tweets Thursday, George also mentioned the existing presence of other major companies in Fort Bend, including Amazon, Texas Instruments, and Gallery Furniture.
Simultaneous with his appeal to Disney, the county leader also pitched social media platform Twitter to think Fort Bend for its business needs, citing similar attacks against it from Florida.
More importantly, you know politics, putting it aside,” George said. “We are always looking for businesses to come to our county.
Disney is the parent company of ABC13.
For more on this story, follow Roxie Bustamante on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The Black Widow lawsuit continues to rev up (sorry, not sorry).Image: Marvel Studios
The covid-19 pandemic has gone a long way in forcing Hollywood to change the way it looks at movie releases, for good or ill—and how adapting to that change doesn’t always work out amicably. As Disney continues to try and settle its ongoing legal battle with Marvel’s Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson behind closed doors, however, CEO Bob Chapek has spoken about how the case shows how the studio, and industry at large, needs to adapt to the times.
Deadline reports that Chapek publicly addressed the situation with Johansson—who is suing Disney for an alleged breach of her contract regarding the simultaneous release of Black Widow earlier this year at theaters and as part of Disney+’s “Premier Access” service—during Goldman Sachs’ 30th annual Communacopia Conference. But while Chapek wouldn’t directly name Johansson or even her lawsuit (one that, after disparaging it as a move trying to take advantage of a poor studio worth $122.18 billion during a global pandemic, the studio is now looking to settle privately), the CEO did acknowledge that the last few years have changed the way studios should be approaching deals with talent.
“We’re in a moment of time where films were envisioned under one understanding about what the world would be, because frankly it hadn’t changed much,” Chapek said. “Remember, those films were made three or four years ago; those deals were cut three or four years ago. Then they get launched in the middle of a global pandemic where that pandemic itself is accelerating a second dynamic, which is this changing consumer behavior. So we’re sort of putting a square peg in a round hole right now where we’ve got a deal conceived under a certain set of conditions, that actually results in a movie that is being released in a completely different set of conditions.”
Chapek’s right in that it goes beyond the impact the pandemic has had on Hollywood and the theater industry to show the pace at which moviemaking has changed—it’s not just hybrid releases that have come along, but the platforms those releases are happening on in the first place as well. Four years ago services like Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+ were still all big ideas in the works, let alone services that would suddenly become the major debut platforms for tentpole blockbusters for the studios behind them. The move toward studio-owned streaming and the desire for audiences to stay at home to limit the spread of a deadly virus created a one-two punch that not even a force like the House of Mouse could’ve predicted and prepared for when deals for movies like Black Widow were first being drawn up.
But that’s only an excuse in that no one, Disney or otherwise, could’ve seen the state of 2020-2021 coming. It doesn’t excuse the way Disney went about first trying to address Johansson’s grievances, nor does it address what the studio’s going to be doing going forward in this new normal. But Chapek at least paid lip service to what should probably be a basic concept for Disney at this point: it should be doing right by the people who work for it. “Ultimately, we’ll think about that as we do our future talent deals and plan for that and make sure that’s incorporated. But right now we have this sort of middle position, where we’re trying to do right by the talent, I think the talent is trying to do right by us, and we’re just figuring out our way to bridge the gap,” Chapek concluded. “Ultimately we believe our talent is our most important asset, and we’ll continue to believe that, and as we always have, we’ll compensate them fairly per the terms of the contract that they agreed to us with.”
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I’d say maybe don’t say that your aggrieved movie stars have a “callous disregard” for the times in which we live is a good starting point for believing those stars are your most important asset, but then again, I’m not worth $122.18 billion, so what do I know.
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Marvel has had an uncharacteristically tricky summer. After leaving the world with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, it was safe to assume that their place at the top of the blockbuster entertainment heap was secure. But roughly a month after the release of their first big-screen release since Spider-Man nearly two years ago, the multi-verse is spiraling out of control. First, Scarlett Johansson sued the powerhouse for simultaneously releasing her first solo outing Black Widow in theaters and on Disney+. Then, weeks later, Disney CEO Bob Chapek referred to the upcoming Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings as an “interesting experiment.” Although Chapek was talking about giving Shang-Chi a 45-day exclusive theatrical release, many, including the film’s star Simu Liu, interpreted his comments as a derogatory remark about the film’s predominantly Asian cast.
Since the news of the lawsuit and Chapek’s comments broke, we’ve heard very little from Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, the ringleader of the MCU. However, at the premiere of Shang-Chi, Feige attempted to put out the fires.
“He is not a shy man,” Feige said about Liu’s tweet. “I think in that particular tweet you can see, and I think everyone does, a misunderstanding. It was not the intention. The proof is in the movie and we swing for the fences as we always do. With the amount of creative energy we put in and the budget, there’s no expense spared to bring this origin story to the screen.”
Over the weekend, Liu tweeted in response to Chapek, “We are not an experiment. We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. We are the celebration of culture and joy that will persevere after an embattled year. We are the surprise. I’m fired the f**k up to make history on September 3rd; JOIN US.”
At this point, Feige is doing damage control, understandably trying to keep attention off of this controversy and on the film he’s releasing. Anyway, Feige’s two-stepping around controversy continued as he said he’s “all for amicable solutions” when it came to the ScarJo suit. Giving a milquetoast soundbite is Feige’s superpower.
