There were the times when it seemed like Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger might be the last Hollywood executive standing.
Yes, Iger’s been openly thinking about retirement and searching for a successor — a search that culminated in this week’s announcement that he’d be stepping down from the CEO role immediately, with Disney Parks Chairman Bob Chapek succeeding him. (Disney says Iger will remain involved as executive chairman and will continue to “direct the Company’s creative endeavors” until the end of 2021.)
But Iger’s succession planning hasn’t stopped him from solidifying Disney’s dominance of the entertainment business, a position designed to last long after his departure.
Acquisitions have been the cornerstone of that strategy, with Disney acquiring Pixar, then Marvel, then Lucasfilm and most recently a big chunk of 21st Century Fox. More than anyone, Iger seemed to understand that the Hollywood studios’ continued success would depend on their intellectual property. It’s no longer enough to just to make a successful movie or series; a successful studio needs to own IP that could fuel cinematic universes, TV shows, theme parks, toys, games and more, indefinitely.
To be clear, even before Iger, Disney was no stranger to mining IP for both box office success and its broader corporate aims. Nor was he the only Hollywood executive to pursue these strategies over the past decade. By now it’s a well-worn observation that virtually every big-budget Hollywood film is either a remake, a sequel or an adaptation of existing material.
Disney CEO Bob Iger immediately steps down from CEO position
But Iger was the one who made the biggest bets, repeatedly, and for whom those bets seemed to pay off most impressively and consistently. That’s clear when you look at the biggest box office successes of 2019 — Disney released seven of the top 10 films, with another (“Spider-Man: Far From Home”) benefiting from Marvel’s input and audience goodwill.
It’s also evident in the success already seen by Disney+, the streaming service that the company launched in November whose navigation is designed around Disney brands (Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and, of course, Disney itself), and which grew to 28.6 million subscribers as of February 3.
That success isn’t purely commercial. Without getting into the subjective and thorny realm of individual taste, it seems inarguable that in an era where bad word-of-mouth can quickly sink a movie, every installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe reliably makes money because audiences generally like them.
And when a Disney (or Marvel, or Pixar or Star Wars) film gets mediocre reviews, it’s usually not because it’s a fiasco-level stinker — at least not since the days of “John Carter” — but because it’s kind of bland and uninspired. In other words, whatever processes are in place across the Disney brands, they seem to provide the reliable quality control that’s sorely lacking at so many other studios.
While assessing Iger’s legacy, it’s also worth noting that even though Disney is far from the only studio that’s been putting more diverse faces on the big screen in the past few years, it bankrolled some of the watershed moments in that shift. And the company hasn’t blinked when this turned certain films into targets for reactionary backlash.
Now, despite Tuesday’s sudden and surprising announcement, Iger isn’t simply disappearing from Disney. As noted above, it sounds like he’ll remain quite involved over the next two years, while Chapek adjusts to the new role.
Nonetheless, Iger’s extended farewell feels very much like an ending, particularly coming so soon after Disney made its big push into streaming.
Indeed, it’s possible to recast Iger’s tenure (he became CEO in 2005) as less of a direct path to world domination and more of a last stand against the onslaught of streaming. Take a recent New York Times profile tied to the publication of Iger’s memoir, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” in which longtime media executive Barry Diller said the Disney CEO “put as many cards in his hand as he could gather” because “he’s absolutely determined not to turn the world over to Netflix and Amazon.”
Again, the early results are impressive, and even more striking when you consider the ways Disney+ has resisted Netflix’s example. The service already includes several original titles, but most are documentary and reality series; thus far, the Star Wars spin-off “The Mandalorian” is its only high-profile, scripted show, while the first Marvel series won’t premiere until August.
Contrast that with the pace that Netflix has achieved, where it’s nearly impossible to keep track of what’s coming out in any given week, or even with Apple TV+, which launched two weeks before Disney’s offering and has continued to release new shows every month. If Disney+ continues to grow at its current rate, and if it retains most of its current subscribers, that will come from the strength of the existing content library and brands, rather than the steady release of buzzy hits.
That’s very much an if, however. And either way, it seems unlikely that Disney will set the agenda here as it has on the big screen. Sure, Netflix may not be able to keep up this level of spending forever, but for now, its strategy of absolute abundance seems to be working. And yes, every movie and TV show that was ever even remotely successful may eventually be rebooted for streaming, but there simply isn’t enough water in that well for other companies to rely entirely on that strategy while satisfying the enormous thirst for original content.
Meanwhile, the IP/franchise strategy has begun to falter in theaters, with titles like “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “Men In Black: International,” “Terminator: Dark Fate” and “Charlie’s Angels” all bombing in the past year, prompting analysts to wring their hands about potential “franchise fatigue.”
Even at Disney, it remains to be seen whether Marvel and Star Wars can keep their box office momentum going after wrapping up their two mega storylines. (Star Wars, in particular, seems to be losing steam, and Iger acknowledged that the studio “might’ve put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast.”) That doesn’t mean Disney movies won’t dominate in 2020 or 2021. But it’s possible that the Iger era will soon be over in more ways than one.
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