In November of last year, Disney announced that CEO Bob Chapek would be stepping down, with former CEO Bob Iger filling the role immediately. Though social media was filled with theories about why Chapek would be leaving, many fans were excited about Iger’s return. As the world passed the third-year threshold of the COVID-19 pandemic in November, protests recently erupted in China due to lockdown procedures, and the effects of the pandemic continue to impact people the world over — and Disney, too, for that matter.
Update August 30, 2023: With recent developments and updates from Iger's second run as Disney CEO, this article has been updated with additional information by Jack Deegan.
Most notably, Disney took a massive hit in 2020, losing $2.6 billion, as NBC reports. While the losses during the pandemic cannot solely be blamed on Chapek, they do question how a company celebrating its 100th anniversary could be in so much financial trouble. Iger's return has been less smooth than many expected, as the CEO has become a lot less favorable, making some poor comments and incredibly tasteless business decisions. The question remains: Why did Iger leave Disney in the first place?
New Game Plan
In 1999, at the turn of the century, the hysteria around Y2K was that all technology would crash. Obviously, that didn’t come to pass, but what did pass is intriguing. Netcials details Disney’s stock between 1999 and 2022. In 1999, Disney’s stock was valued at $21 and jumped to almost $29 by the end of 2000. While the jump is impressive, the stock dipped as low as $15 between 2000 and 2005. While the stock is only one measure of a company’s value, with a dip that big, something obviously major happened. Disney’s Renaissance era was over and their animated films were in sharp decline, with only Pixar truly keeping the studio afloat. The live-action front was even worse as the studio was struggling to make brands that could compete with summer blockbuster offerings that Universal, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Paramount had.
Between 1999 and 2005, the studio's biggest hits made an average of $200 million, with Finding Nemo making $300 million. They did strike gold with Pirates of the Caribbean, which gave them a major wide-appeal action franchise to compete with the other studios, yet their other efforts did not go over well. Disney even dipped their toes into a book-to-film franchise with The Chronicles of Narnia, but the sequels flubbed, critically and commercially. Franchises like National Treasure weren’t as widely received as other adventure-mystery franchises, and the studio was struggling to compete with the biggest studio franchises like Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman, Harry Potter, The Bourne series, The Fast & The Furious, and more. Disney was facing a similar problem they had in the late 70's and early 80's, as they needed to reinvent them to stay relevant.
Iger’s Accomplishments as CEO
The quick rejuvenation came with the new CEO Bob Iger, who started in 2005 as detailed by. His plan was to rebuild the company through what it was known for storytelling and animation. But with studios like Dreamworks, Universal, and Pixar moving into 3D animation and CGI, Iger's best move was to try to acquire a technological advancement to push Disney forward. Within one year, Iger acquired the biggest animation studio that was breaking barriers in animation and storytelling: Pixar. Pixar had released all their films with Disney prior, but the studio's contract was about to expire following Cars, and their relationship with Disney was seriously hurt by Michael Eisner. Bob Iger stepped in to repair the damage and made Pixar officially part of the Disney family.
With the success of Disney and Pixar, Iger could move on to something more super. Disney’s acquisition of Marvel in 2009 was initially not received well by comic book fans. Yet, Marvel, specifically the MCU, is undoubtedly one of the largest franchises since Star Wars, which was Iger’s third acquisition in 2012. His final acquisition was 20th Century Fox in 2019, one year before he left. Iger redefined Disney, bringing in some of the biggest brands and franchises under one roof. Now franchises like The Avengers, Star Wars, Toy Story, Avatar, The Simpsons, and more could co-exist in the same library as Winnie the Pooh, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Muppets.
Bob Chapek’s Short Reign
With the massive success of Iger, whoever filled in his shoes would certainly have to carry on the legacy. Basically, Iger is on the same level as The Little Mermaid regarding saving the infamous company. Of course, his exit came at an unfortunate time. Marvel had just wrapped up their third phase with headliners Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans leaving the franchise based on their contracts. Star Wars was under heavy backlash from misogynistic and racist fans. (Pixar was doing well with The Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory being some of the top-grossing films in the history of the company.) But with the many exits, Disney’s future was uncertain.
Bob Chapek, former head of the Disney parks, took over and quickly became a problem. While Chapek landed the gig in February 2020, just one month before the COVID-19 pandemic would greatly alter the company's future, he showed to not be well equipped for the job in the following years.
According to Inside the Magic, Chapek’s politics, mass layoffs, hiring freezes, and an array of lawsuits ultimately were his undoing. Namely, he broke his contract agreements with Marvel and its respective franchise lead, Scarlett Johansson, in one of the most publicized lawsuits in years. The Direct explains that Chapek’s support of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill was what sealed his fate as other top executives requested that he not support the bill. Iger was brought back in, with the clear message being that Iger needed to repair the damage that Chapek had done to the company.
What’s Next for Disney?
With the stain Chapek has left on the company, Iger’s return is a weary triumph for fans. Considering his jaw-dropping accomplishments between 2005 and 2020, audiences anticipate a return to a somewhat progressive studio. As it stands, there are several problem areas that, hopefully, Iger can repair.
The first is streaming, as Disney+ subscriptions have slumped heavily over the past year. Yet there, Iger has made some controversial decisions. Disney+ and Hulu subscription prices are about to see their second bump in prices in 2023 alone. Yet the increase in the service also comes as they are removing programming from Hulu and Disney+ from the service, asking people to pay more for less. They have removed series like Dollface and Runaways off Hulu, the new Disney+ film Crater was only on the service for seven weeks before it was pulled off, and they just recently canceled the release of the planned Spiderwick Chronicles series even though it was already filmed.
The other is focusing on the major brands. Marvel Studios was once the crown jewel of Disney, as their films ranked in massive box office and were beloved the world over. Yet Disney+ meant the studio needed to make even more stories, which stretched the studio out thin. There was a decline in quality, and now the studio is scaling back its efforts in hopes of helping the brand.
The Second Iger Era
Since his return late last year, Iger's legacy has been forever changed by the actor's and writer's strike. The first few months, things at Disney were looking up. Iger started with a plan to reorganize the company and shake up the corporate structure. His focus shifted to cost-effectiveness and allocating funding where needed after losing nearly $1.5 billion in the previous quarter. While he returned with intentions to turn the company around and help them thrive again, things quickly went awry.
In May of 2023, the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) officially went on strike for fair working conditions. This completely shook the industry and brought many projects in development to a halt. On top of that, just a few months later, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) joined their strike in solidarity for their conditions to improve as well. This would bring the entire industry to a standstill as projects were no longer allowed to move forward in filming or writing. With the rise of AI and residuals on streaming near zero, the strike would mark a monumental change for the industry and a massive win for the people doing these projects.
Unfortunately for them, the major studios haven't been willing to negotiate with them, and that includes Bob Iger. When the actor's strike began, Iger was interviewed by Variety over his thoughts on it. While his full quote can be found here, Iger commented on the writer's and actor's requests for fair working conditions. He said "There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic." Another report claims that Iger is "personally offended" that they aren't taking the unfair deal.
To say that Iger has mishandled the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike would be an understatement. There was a time when Iger had the reputation of one of the better CEOs out there, but the strikes have shown a different side of him that is more focused on cutting costs. There's hope that a fair deal will be met and that Disney can become the juggernaut it once was, but as of late, Iger hasn't been the most favorable person out there.
Disney 100th Anniversary Is a Turning Point
2023 marked the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Studios. It was supposed to be a big celebration year for the studio, yet it has been one of the rockiest. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was a disappointment at the box office, as was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The Little Mermaid is a hit, yet it did perform well below many other Disney live-action remakes at the worldwide box office so it occupies an interesting grey area. Haunted Mansion was a box office bomb, and shows like Secret Invasion and The Mandalorian Season 3 were seen as major disappointments.
The studio has had a few wins. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is one of the summer's biggest movies. Elemental slowly became one of the surprise hits of the summer and found an audience over the following weeks, even though many wrote it off in its opening weekend as a flop. The studio is looking to close out the year with The Marvels and Wish, hopefully giving some a much-needed win. Yet it is clear that Disney is now no longer the unstoppable force it once was when Iger originally left, and now he is in an odd place as CEO. The 100th Anniversary of the company is now a time of reflection, and Iger must decide what the studio's legacy will be moving forward.