It was a wonderfully brisk Sunday evening. The sounds of joyful crowds floated by, along with the background noise of a zooming roller-coaster and a merry carousel trundling along. Why, I remember it like it was just three days ago.
That, of course, is because it was three days ago. I was standing on Jessie’s Critter Carousel in the Pixar Pier section of Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort, and my God, is that a mouthful. My two-year old son was about ready to ride the carousel when I opened up my phone as we waited for the safety check to complete. And it was on Mastodon that I saw the headline: Chapek’s out, Iger’s back.
Or put it this way:
(Has anyone else written about how this is like some funhouse-mirror version of when NBC kicked Conan O’Brien off The Tonight Show and replaced him with the man who hosted the show before he did? It’s weird to think of Iger as the Leno and Chapek as the Conan in this situation.)
From what I gather — from Mastodon, from a brief lurk of Twitter, and from the Hive app (where you can find me as mousterpiece) — the reaction was instantly positive in many circles. I get why. Iger has 15 years of experience in his favor, and Bob Chapek always seemed like a bad fit from the outside in, just in terms of cutting the right public figure.
I mean, this guy looks like a Marvel bad guy, and I am the umpteenth person to say so. It’s like he leaned into it.
From the most detailed official reports to date, courtesy of The New York Times, it was a particularly tone-deaf earnings call earlier this month that sealed Chapek’s fate. To quote the article:
Christine M. McCarthy, Disney’s well-regarded chief financial officer, directly told at least one board member that she lacked confidence in Mr. Chapek.
By the way, if you’re like me, you know Christine McCarthy from her fatphobic commentary regarding people who visit the Disney theme parks, and how cutting portion size will be good for people’s waistlines. …fun!
Anyhoo, this earnings call really seems to have set some folks off, such as the well-known shouter Jim Cramer:
And he’s never wrong about anything!
My glibness here is that…man, I dunno, one earnings call gets Chapek booted, huh? That was it. Just that one call. That, I’m sure, is what led to such a rapid turnover to be announced the Sunday night before a holiday weekend. Even leaving aside the speed with which this has all occurred, most folks are pleased at the outcome, right?
However. (You knew there was going to be a “however”.) I feel like the reinstatement of Bob Iger is cause for celebration within Disney’s halls temporarily, but only just. I’ve already seen a few folks pull out that old “Let people enjoy things” canard when being confronted with the notion that Bob Iger returning as CEO isn’t all smiles and sunshine. (I will politely suggest here that as annoying as “Let people enjoy things” is, it is never more so than when we are discussing who runs a company.)
In the interim, Iger coming back as CEO is good news. But I think some folks may be lifting Iger up in part because of how much they disliked Chapek and his choices. And listen, this is not going to be a spirited defense of Bob Chapek. From the outside in, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company has many jobs, and Bob Chapek appeared to be quite bad at two of the most important jobs: being an effective corporate communicator, and inspiring dedication and respect among your Cast Members.
Bob Chapek was stiff. Bob Iger is not. Bob Chapek seemed unable to conjure up excitement for the company he ran, as if he cared about what he was talking about. Bob Iger did not. When it comes to the latter point above, Chapek’s gravest mistake — and unlike a number of mistakes that occurred in the last couple years, it was very much self-inflicted as opposed to inherited — is his response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.
I am an extremely liberal person. (If you have followed me on Twitter long enough, you probably know this already.) So on a personal level, I found this bill odious, and I know many others did too. I wish more people were as liberal, and I know some folks are far more so than I am. But I get that companies like Disney can only afford to be so left-leaning. (People talk about Bob Iger’s presidential aspirations, and let us remind ourselves that he has defined himself as moderate in the past. He’s not super-left-wing.)
And yet, when I read this letter back in March via The Hollywood Reporter, I could not stop thinking about how wildly tone-deaf its message was. Consider this passage, building off Chapek’s acknowledgement that many Cast Members were dismayed at a lack of a corporate statement from Disney speaking out against the inflammatory, anti-LGBTQ+ bill in question:
Encanto, Black Panther, Pose, Reservation Dogs, Coco, Soul, Modern Family, Shang-Chi, Summer of Soul, Love, Victor. These and all of our diverse stories are our corporate statements—and they are more powerful than any tweet or lobbying effort. I firmly believe that our ability to tell such stories—and have them received with open eyes, ears, and hearts—would be diminished if our company were to become a political football in any debate.
Now, putting it lightly, this is bullshit. I cannot believe — still — that this language was written, vetted, reviewed, and approved. It was all of those things, and I have little doubt that Disney’s communications team probably was not thrilled about its outcome. But for all the times when you wonder if a CEO means what they say…well, this is not one of those times. I have equally little doubt that Bob Chapek genuinely believes the message of that quote, which is truly distressing beyond any earnings-call comments.
The argument, I gather, is that by green-lighting, bankrolling, and releasing films and TV shows like those mentioned above, Disney is endorsing their messages to enough of an extent that you can extrapolate a set of beliefs from them. I guess that’s what the argument is. But it’s bullshit, because a) some of those shows and films speak only to those who already believe in its messages as opposed to someone who may be on the other side of issues of race, gender, and sexuality; and b) lobbying efforts alone have a hell of a lot more of an effect on public society than any film or TV show.
In short, the argument was that Disney should not get political, a privileged and foolish comment if ever there was one. Life is political. Art is political. And whether you like it or not, Disney makes art. Not all art is great art, but it’s still art. Black Panther is art and so is Modern Family and so is Love, Victor. These are culturally political objects. Their creation is political, because their creators are, because life is political.
“Josh, isn’t this the part of the newsletter where you’re supposed to be diving into the ‘however’ part of Iger being the CEO again?”
It is. Here’s the thing I keep coming back to as I sift through the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and how much of Bob Chapek’s remarks in response to the bill seem like they were the only true nail in his coffin. I keep coming back to a question. It is, in fact, a question you may be asking or that you may have asked:
“Hey, who the hell thought Bob Chapek oughta be the CEO of the Walt Disney Company?”
This guy:
Well, lookee here, it’s Bob Iger! Yes, really, he chose Bob Chapek, and only after what felt like years of Iger deciding who would succeed him. (Why did it feel like it took years for Iger to make this decision? Because it was multiple years. As in, five years.) Bob Iger kept talking about leaving, and kept struggling to decide who should succeed him, and then he chose a guy who has navigated the last two years quite poorly. Choosing who takes over for you when you leave is an important decision, and one Iger failed to make correctly.
That aside, I said as much to Steven Zeitchik of The Washington Post when he reached out to me Monday: the short-term news is good, but the long-term news is a big question mark. (I have been asked to comment on this story in a few different outlets, and it is immensely weird to me that I’ve turned into a real “Robert Thompson from Syracuse University” when it comes to Disney. If you understand that reference, then good for you.)
Will Bob Iger fix the issues that plague the Disney theme parks, where prices continue to skyrocket with the value not lining up? (I’ll write separately about my theme-park experience in a couple days.) Will he get Lucasfilm to figure itself out on a theatrical level? Will he help Marvel hit the same heights of Avengers: Endgame? Can he solve the fact that there’s only one more sure-thing animated remake coming?
I dunno, man. It’s good that Chapek is gone. But the new guy has his work cut out for him.
Thank you for this Josh. I was really waiting for your perspective on the shakeup and you overdelivered. Great piece
"... one earnings call gets Chapek booted, huh? That was it. Just that one call."
It's never one thing that leads to a move like this. News came out last night that he was trying to paper over Disney+ losses by shifting some of the costly originals that were underperforming over to Disney Channel. That's likely why Kareem Daniel got the axe as well, even if he may have just being doing as Chapek wanted.
THAT was likely the catalyst. But it's that, the earnings call, the poor public reception, the way he handled moving Imagineering to Florida, and arguably the worst offense ... damage to the brand. What's he's been doing in Parks is both highly public and creating long-term problems while trying to secure short-term gains. If it had worked, he MAY have stayed on. But it didn't, and the earnings report he took no responsibility for proved it.