Disney CEO Bob Iger immediately steps down from CEO position | Hacker News Reader

Disney CEO Bob Iger immediately steps down from CEO position

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As a former Disney employee and someone who's kept up with internal politics, even though his contract was up at the end of next year this feels sudden and not in line with how Disney tends to do things. Disney has quite a number of disparate businesses, from theme parks to streaming services to movies. Chapek is a business guy that has done consumer products and parks (parts of the business that aren't huge growth areas), and hasn't even been president of parks for that long. He has no experience on the creative side. Usually the future CEO is appointed to a COO/President role in order to help them learn the parts of the business they don't have experience in. It also helps vet if they'll be capable of leading all those business heads, which is how they determined not to go with Tom Staggs after he was made COO. Not doing this is pretty irregular, especially with all the shakeup that occurred with Fox. They're still working through a lot of that.

Similarly, I don't buy the story that Iger is moving into a creative leadership role. It's true there's been a vacuum there since Lasseter left, but unless there's long term tenure planned, Iger won't be very influential. Anyone who's worked at a large company knows that no one listens to the guy whose only responsibility is to have creative ideas if they have no other real responsibility and will be out in a few months. Iger put himself into a meaningless, insignificant role, and no one has satisfactorily explained why.

I don't think there's a scandal. If there was, the narrative around his departure would be different and he wouldn't be sticking out to the end of his contract. He wouldn't still be chairman of the board. I've heard a rumor the board is upset about Star Wars, but Q1 2020 was pretty solid and Mandalorian was well received. I'm actually worried he's sick, though I hope not because I admire him a lot. Regardless, I do feel like there's another shoe. I guess we'll have to wait to find out what it is.

When CEOs unexpectedly leave, don't they usually do it because they know something?

Have there been CEOs in the past that have "left", but actually been forced out due to scandal?

It seems like there's been a few attempts at that, but of the cases I know, the CEOs seem to fight back and try to keep their position.

>When CEOs unexpectedly leave, don't they usually do it because they know something

That in theater revenue is about to tank because of virus fears? Then again I have no idea how much of Disney revenue occurs at the movies.

They do better than most other studios, but that's a declining segment. Also, it represents a very, very small part of Disney's overall revenue. If everyone literally stopped going to theaters tomorrow then Disney would still be earning billions a year.

Also, you can't blame the CEO for sales being down during an epidemic. No one else would do better.

Maybe, maybe not. Because if no one goes to movies and no theme parks, then..?

Then no one subscribes to Disney+ streaming, and if no one buys Disney clothes or toys, and if no one goes on Disney Cruises, and if everybody stopped watching ESPN Sports or sports on ABC (including football). Then maybe... just maybe... Disney will start to have some issues.

Just start looking through this list it’s an insane 240Billion dollar conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_Wa...

Would be made up tenfold in streaming when everyone avoids public entertainment, with less middlemen, and tanking theatre sales would still be available as a convenient excuse if needed. It couldn't possibly be about virus fears.

Iger's been CEO for 15 years and is on an amazing winning streak for Disney over the past few years. A Coronavirus-driven revenue miss would only be a one or two-quarter blip and it would impact the whole industry equally. No way that has anything to do with this.

Iger was clearly setting up a graceful exit in 22 months after a legendary career. Sadly, I suspect that it's a serious life-threatening illness or other unexpected personal crisis. The way it's been announced though it might be something like a serious illness with a spouse or immediate family member.

yeah but shareholders aren't that immature, they know it's tangential

This is somewhat special in that Bob has been planning to retire for quite some time. His contract is up at the end of next year and every indication was that he intended to honor that. What feels weird is how Disney is executing the succession plan.

Again, I don't think it's scandal. If it were, he wouldn't stay through his contract and he wouldn't still be chairman. I don't even think it's bad performance, because the only hits to earnings predictions have been things outside their control, like the coronavirus.

Again, feels weird.

15 years as CEO. Doubled yearly revenue since takeover. Bought and/or grew some of the most valuable entertainment IPs on the planet right now. Took an 800-pound gorilla status company and turned it into a cosmic-god-like powerhouse feared by the rest of us mere-mortals.

Pretty sure he just wants to leave on a high note and enjoy himself at this point. The dude is human after all. That kind of commitment does take a toll on you.

Sure, I agree with the mindset of how Iger is probably wanting to be done. But a less alarming way about it would be announcing that Iger will be stepping down as CEO "at the end of the quarter." Not "immediately" and not being put into a consulting role for 22 months of his remaining contract.

Yeah, 22 months is close enough to the end of his contract that nobody would blink an eye if he just came out and said he's tired of work and wants to retire a year early or something.

Stepping down effective immediately seems almost like it's designed to raise suspicion.

Disney was pushing the "Bob Iger recreates Disney with Disney+" story for months recently...presumably they would have lessened his perceived role in the media if it meant having a smoother transition. From my perspective the reason for his retirement is something that has come up within the past 4 months or so.

> Similarly, I don't buy the story that Iger is moving into a creative leadership role.

He's still staying on as executive chairman which outranks the CEO. But it is nevertheless odd that he is stepping down so quickly without a transition period.

I don't think it is scandal driven or the board would have ousted him from his chairman position as well. I'm just guessing here, but it could be health related. The last time a major CEO stepped aside was Steve Jobs due to illness. Eventually, Tim Cook became the CEO while Jobs stayed on as Apple's chairman until his death.

I remember there was talk about him running for president as well. Could be that as well but it is a bit late in the game for that.

It's puzzling for sure.

He decided a couple years ago not to run. I'm worried it's health as well. Even though he's in great shape, he's pushing 70.

Mark Hurd also stepped aside quickly

A buddy of mine speculated he may be gearing up to run for the oval office. Seems outlandish but I kind of like the idea...

I don't know if it's common knowledge or not, but he decided not to a couple years ago. His family doesn't want him to.

I know nothing about Bob Iger, but given what's happened these past few years, denial from the person and their family that they'll run for office is the first sign that they'll run for office.

Are you running for office?

I'm not! Just ask my family.

I'm saying I'm not, but I could. Therefore you know I actually won't. Which means I might.

Sounds like you've got the politico speak nailed already

If the support is there I would run remotely.

right, shaking all those hands is a coronavirus nightmare.

“Just hop on the Slack channel when you need me to approve a missile launch, no problem.”

Don't you need a spare 300m-500m to buy that office?

Uh, just call SoftBank's Vision fund!?

>denial from the person and their family that they'll run for office is the first sign that they'll run for office

I truly hate that line of logic.

Then what are people supposed to say when they're not interested in doing it after being asked? That they are interested?

"Sure sign they have no intentions of even attempting for office since they said they wanted to."

> I truly hate that line of logic.

What you're missing is that the denial indicates it's a topic of consideration.

What does saying "it is not a topic of consideration" indicate or mean -- what a normal "no" would mean to pretty much any other question?

Chainsaw diplomacy. You say something that unequivocally you would not be able to flip on later.

"Haha, but no way. I might be able to run Disney for 20 years, but I could never run a country. I'd have to be an arrogant fool to think my business experience converts to governance experience, and I'd definitely screw it up. Besides, I would make an awful politician, I..." etc etc etc.

Don't politely deny it, torpedo the idea.

I'd vote for someone with that level of self awareness :)

The Shermanesque Statement is considered the standard in the US:

If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.

James Garfield begged people not to nominate him, and they did. He then spent most of the Presidential campaign at home, and won.

And then proceeded to upset the spoils system of appointing political donors and supporters to jobs, and got shot for his trouble.

Surprisingly fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Republic-Madness-Medicine-Pre...

The opposite is also true: if your family is enthusiastic about you running, chances are that you don’t have a chance in hell.

He was also pretty adamant about not doing it in his book that came out last fall. Would be an awkwardly quick about face.

True, although Mike Bloomberg wrote a column in March 2019 explicitly announcing he would not be running for president in 2020, so.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-05/our-hi...

(Although I can't really imagine Iger would be running for president this election cycle; I think we're well past too many filing deadlines to get on enough party ballots to have even a mathematical possibility of being nominated, and I doubt he's quixotic enough to run as an independent.)

The difference between 2019 and 2020 is that Sanders didn't seem likely to win the nomination in 2019.

The prospect of a socialist president horrifies folks like Bloomberg.

That seems like a weirdly specific comment. The majority of the electorate rejects the idea of a socialist as president. That sentiment isn't specific to "folks like Bloomberg".

Do they? I've seen polls where he beats trump.

Let people vote for whoever they want. Whoever you have in mind to replace him will probably not live up to expectations.

Beside, I think he has a shot. Usually when votes goes hard right they usually go hard left next time.

> Let people vote for whoever they want.

What does this mean? Is there someone suggesting that people can't vote for whoever they want?

The democratic party, up until 2016, used a system of "superdelegates": hand-picked people who had way more sway in choosing the party nomination. Sanders won the primary vote, but superdelegates widely picked Clinton. So, no, direct democracy was not an option in 2016.

After lots of complaints, the process was completely redesigned in 2018. Now, the candidate to get the majority of delegates becomes the party nomination.

Since Bernie has been clear as an actual candidate with potential to win, some democratic members have been caught speaking about returning to the superdelegate system [0].

Some believe Bloomberg's surprise entry in the race are an attempt to "crack the vote", that is, ensure that enough people vote for Bloomberg that Sanders does not win the majority, in which case the superdelegates are the tiebreakers to pick the nomination. This theory is very loosely backed up somewhat by an overheard phone call with John Kerry advocating him to join the race, to stop Sanders. [1]

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/31/dnc-superdelegates-... [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/john-kerry-ov...

I didn't read past your first paragraph because it is patently false. Hillary won with our without the superdelegates, received more than 3 million more votes than Sanders, and the race was never close past New Hampshire.

Also, the superdelegates would not have voted for her if she had lost among the pledged delegates.

How can we know that? Because that's precisely what happened in 2008. Hillary had tons of superdelegates lined up behind her when the primaries started, but then Obama got more votes, so the superdelegates switched.

And thus the final step in the handover of the nomination process is complete, from the pre-17th Amendment wisdom that the people’s judgment is only useful when applied to their local leaders in their town and city, and are patently unqualified to evaluate things like presidential candidates.

> Do they? I've seen polls where he beats trump.

If you recall the last election, almost every poll said Clinton would beat Trump.

I wouldn't put much faith in the polls, especially this far out.

First, Bernie is a democratic socialist (or more accurately, a social democrat, but the distinction has been lost in recent years) not a socialist. His policies have overwhelming support by Democratic, Independent, and Republican voters -- for instance, Medicare for All had 70% approval nationwide and 52% approval by registered Republican voters in late 2018[1].

And the poll you're likely referring to[2] shows him with a double-digit lead. Now, I'd hope it'd be pretty obvious what kind of bias MSNBC has by running a poll that asks questions such that you get a result like:

> while also finding that the most unpopular candidate qualities in a general election are being a socialist, being older than 75 years of age and having a heart attack in the past year

Oh gee, I wonder what possible candidate they might be referring to (in an article which is titled "Sanders opens double digit national lead"). I don't know what the question in the poll was, but it should be fairly obvious how easily you could phrase the question to come up with that result.

If Bernie is so unpopular, why is he the only candidate (of any political party) in American history to win the popular vote in the first three primary states?

[1]: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-pe... [2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-news-wsj...

> If Bernie is so unpopular, why is he the only candidate (of any political party) in American history to win the popular vote in the first three primary states?

So what? Why does that statistic mean anything in a highly fragmented contest? Bernie got 26% of the vote in Iowa, about the same in New Hampshire and just shy of 50% in Nevada. So in all three states more people voted against Bernie than for him.

Welcome to first-past-the-post elections with more than one candidate.

Canadian here, more of our elections nationwide are won with less than 50% of the vote than with more (last federal election had 124 candidates with >50%, of 338 seats).

> Why does that statistic mean anything in a highly fragmented contest?

Why does that statistic not mean something in a highly fragmented contest? The 1972 and 1976 Democratic primaries both started with 16 candidates; the 1996 Republican primaries had 12 and the 2000 Republican primaries had 13. Being the only candidate in 11 cycles to win the popular vote in the first three primaries/caucuses isn't an automatic ticket to the White House, no, but it's not nothing.

Assuming Sanders is even a close second in South Carolina, he's going to have tremendous momentum going into Super Tuesday, and historically it's unwise to write that off.

https://xkcd.com/1122/

> ..for instance, Medicare for All had 70% approval nationwide and 52% approval by registered Republican voters in late 2018.

If you look into this closer, you realize the poll was garbage. If you ask a question in 2018 with no context in the form; "Would support or oppose 'a policy of Medicare for All'"? most respondents are going to think if you're asking if everyone should be allowed to have access to Medicare when you're 65.

When a poll asks about "a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan," only 23% of Republicans were in favor of it. [1]

When you explain that this plan would not only replace private insurance we have today, but in fact make such insurance illegal, Republican support drops by ~50%.

[1] - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jul/02/jess-mcint...

> When you explain that this plan would not only replace private insurance we have today, but in fact make such insurance illegal, Republican support drops by ~50%.

And if you phrase it as "are you in favour of a healthcare system where you are forced to pay for other people's healthcare, without any opt-out, the government decides if you get treatment, and price-fixing the cost of drugs resulting in reduced pharmaceutical profits thus threatening the economy" you would see support drop even lower. Now, you could argue that phrasing is technically accurate but it's clearly biased to get respondents to answer in a particular way.

The way you phrase questions in polls matters -- phrasing it as "making private healthcare illegal" is placing a bias in the question (if it was phrased as "giving everyone the same excellent standard of healthcare as provided by Medicare" it would also be a bias but in the opposite direction).

> most respondents are going to think if you're asking if everyone should be allowed to have access to Medicare when you're 65.

In 2018, a very large number of Americans understood what "Medicare For All" specifically referred to. Sanders had been campaigning on it for more than 3 years at that point (it was one of the major topics of debate in the 2015 Democratic primary), legislation had been drafted and so on. I don't know why someone would think "Medicare for All" would mean anything other than "Medicare for all [Americans]." The vast majority of Americans over 65 are already entitled to Medicare in the US (unless you only recently became a citizen or haven't paid Medicare taxes for the past 10 years, and don't have a disability).

Democratic socialism is not the same thing as social democracy (aka, what Scandinavians have).

Social democrats are staunch believers in liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented economy, both of which are antithetical in _any_ socialist system, even democratic socialism.

American socialists will lie to you otherwise, or perhaps they just don't know.

Moreover, Bernie has half a century of history praising communism and kissing up to Marxist-Leninists whereas this softer, friendlier, more populist Bernie is less then a decade old and won't address his endorsements. I don't believe it for a second.

Bernie is a Social Democrat, not a socialist.

Doesn't matter to me. It seems clear to me that his policies are socialist regardless of what he calls himself.

We have Medicare and Social security, which are socialist policies. If you've ever voted for any serving member of Congress, you've voted for someone who socialist policies.

Instead of fearing or causing a panic over a label, consider concretely articulating your concerns with Sanders' (or any candidates) policies.

I don't really care what you call it, but Bernie's plans amount to nationalizing as much economic activity as possible, utilizing a command economy approach to provide goods and services, shifting responsibilities from states to the federal government, removing individual responsibility in favor of an endless number of "rights" that are to be provided by a federal bureaucracy, redesigning the thrust of our public policy to guarantee outcomes vs opportunities, and more.

Almost all of this is completely antithetical to our federal system, not supported by any generally accepted interpretation of the Constitution.

Anybody on HN who requires that someone "articulate .. concerns" about these things is terribly uninformed about the historic nature of these types of initiatives. I doubt that anything I could write will affect their thinking.

As for Medicare and Social Security and all the other federal nonsense, yes those existing programs are problematic. Almost every federal program would be better off as a state or private program.

> I don't really care what you call it, but Bernie's plans amount to nationalizing as much economic activity as possible,

If Sanders' proposals amount to nationalizing as much economic activity as possible, you have a lack of appreciation for what is possible.

Sure it could be even worse, but is that supposed to be a rationale for accepting his approach? Just don't understand what point you are trying to make.

That you are being incredibly hyperbolic and alarmist when you are equivocating what are minor tweaks to what is, and what will remain a mixed public/private market economy... to full-blown-complete nationalization.

I think you are misinterpreting the scope of what Sanders is proposing.

Could you please point to any evidence of Sanders plans to replace a market economy with an entirely centrally planned economy? That's essentially been your assertion, and I'm not familiar of any sources making this claim.

Here is a discussion re: energy sector https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/02/bernie-sanders-clim...

And here is a report about his statements over the years to nationalize various industries: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationa...

There doesn't seem to be any limiting principle to way that Sanders approaches public policy.

To be fair, your argument does not quantify precisely. At all. Your argument claims Bernie wants to "nationalize as much economic activity as possible". Health care is the first thing that comes to mind. What activities, in particular, are you concerned with nationalizing? Your argument is emotional and lacking in facts. A better argument would be: "Bernie has proposed nationalizing <X> which would have consequences <Y, Z> and those are consequences leave us worse off than <other option>".

Saying he "wants to nationalize everything" with no further detail, is a logical fallacy: appeal to emotion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

> As for Medicare and Social Security and all the other federal nonsense, yes those existing programs are problematic.

A lot of people don't plan for retirement. Do you think giving people in old age no money to survive is better than having a Social Security program?

Bernie has advocated during his political career for nationalization of health care, energy sector, banks, utilities, drug companies and "major industries". There doesn't seem to be any limiting principle for Sanders re: the proper role for the national government so I see no reason to believe that he thinks any differently about these things now than in the past. He even brags about his consistency of beliefs over time. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationa...

Regarding Social Security and Medicare, the fact that those programs as constructed are not financially sound is well known and health insurance as well as public retirement plans don't have to be national programs. There is no reason that states couldn't fund those programs if they so choose. The advantage of having those programs at the state level is that it introduces competition. People can vote with their feet and move to states that provide a better mix of taxes/services.

And what are your arguments as to the consequences of nationalizing health care, energy sectors, etc.? Your argument hasn't identified a problem with the nationalizing.

Really? I'm sorry but HN is just not the place to educate someone on all the negative consequences of nationalization of industries and the negative effects of command economies. It isn't like this is an obscure concept or point of view for which I can add any useful thoughts to what is already well known.

Every other first-world country on Earth has nationalized health care, so I don't find it unreasonable for me to question if your argument is sound when presented with no accompanying facts.

Asking for facts and being replied to with the effect "Really?" is far from effective persuasion. Emotional appeals won't work. Facts and data will.

Mostly, the Fox deal killed it— ironically during his investigation to run. That’s the story I’ve heard him tell at least. Maybe that was Murdochs way of keeping him out?

Another ~billionaire in the race...exactly what the democrats need at the moment.

If he is at least 75 years old he fits in perfectly.

A billionaire with a tolerable reputation seems like he wouldn't have a lot of overlap with other candidates, at least.

That in itself would make him stand out amongst the others. Kinda hope he does, be refreshing.

Doesn’t Styer already fill that role?

If he actually were to run, it would be as a third party candidate. Way too late for Democratic primaries.

Bit late for that now.

Why would the board be upset about star wars?

The movies have generally underperformed and hasn't hit internationally like they hoped. They've had to revise a lot of their long term plans of Star Wars. It hasn't been great.

Regardless, I don't think they're that upset. Star Wars hasn't been a home run, but it's been a solid double and net positive to Disney.

The mismanagement of the franchise turned off so many people. This caused Solo to tank.

This cause lots of major talent such as Lawrence Kasdan, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to leave the franchise.

Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time.

What about Solo in particular? I thought Kasdan saved it from the comedy pair.

I think Solo was good, but it was a collateral damage from the fanbase.

They should have given Solo a year from The Last Jedi, especially after there were such vocal complaints about it.

Instead they stuck to their May release date. A lot of people feel that hurt Solo’s box office a lot.

^ agree. If anything is ruining Star Wars, it's Disney's non-stop focus of milking the franchise like a bottomless cash cow. They're rushing storylines, inventing characters just to sell merchandise (porg plushies!) and creating fans fatigue with movies coming out nonstop like clockwork every year.

I don't disagree exactly, but:

One: SW has always had a hefty focus on merchandising, and porgs are at least better than Ewoks. (Also, I kind of love the porgs, and may in fact own a porg plushie. And have a porg desktop wallpaper. And some porg vinyl figures on my desk.)

Two: I think a release cycle of a movie every year could have been sustained with better movies. I, for one, would be thrilled if another Rogue One type movie was coming out this year. And the MCU (which I have to assume was their model here) has been doing okay with 2-3 movies per year. The fans didn't get fatigued by the quantity of movies but the quality IMO.

I think their execution was absolutely terrible and the result was quite bad, but the strategy was fine.

You can't have quality and quantity. Been a trope forever for a reason.

Your plushies show your bias/that you are the new target market.

The thing that the MCU does—that Star Wars has not yet figured out how to do—is have multiple parallel stories that only occasionally intersect. Marvel can release a Guardians, Spider-Man, and Thor movie in the same year because those movies basically have nothing to do with each other.

In contrast, every Star Wars movie is squeezed into a single linear storyline. Lucasfilm has created alt storylines but so far they are all in TV shows, not movies.

Yes, agreed. And I think some of the most compelling storylines have come from the TV shows (and computer games). I'm more interested in Bastila and Revan than the Skywalkers, at any rate. :)

I thought they got booted after the shitty rushed final season of GoT.

Absolutely. They wanted out of GoT so bad (to work on Atar Wars I assume) they overshot themselves right out of future jobs.

Nothing else explains just how poorly GoT was once the books ran out.

> Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time.

They kind of forgot that they were busy.

Financially it's been fine, but the last movie was disliked by critics, the audience reviews were mixed at best, and the fanbase has been at each other throats.

Hollywood tends to pay a lot of attention to CinemaScore (very roughly: exit polls of people seeing it on the opening night), and The Rise of Skywalker got the lowest CinemaScore (B+) of any live-action Star Wars movie - lower than Solo and the prequels. "They audience liked it ALMOST as much as the one with Jar-Jar!" is not what Disney wanted to hear, especially since that sort of thing will have huge flow on effects to the ongoing revenue stream (toys, theme park rides, merchandising). For example, I believe the newest Star Wars ride has sharply underperformed, and Disney leadership will probably believe (correctly) that the poor reception the latest movies got was a driving factor.

And the box office take, while still very substantial, was underwhelming for what was meant to be the crowning glory of a 40 year franchise, and compares poorly to other end movies for big franchises.

The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies.

It's not that bad, and I'm sure it's fixable, and the Mandalorian is doing great, but MAN is it less than what they were hoping for.

(And persistent rumours have it that Iger intervened directly into the creative process of The Rise of Skywalker late in the cycle. If true, that makes the disappointing TRoS results reflect on him...but I obviously have no idea if that's true.)

That being said....I don't think Star Wars was bad enough to trigger this. CEOs typically can do much worse for much longer, and as others have noted, the choice of replacement (and the speed of the replacement) is mystifying. I would guess ill health, or maybe some sex scandal rather than poor performance being a factor.

> The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies.

Sounds like they shouldn't care what the fans think. I mean, existing comic book readers aren't the target audience for the Marvel movies anymore. If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.

> If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.

That's exactly what they were trying to do, yes. Not just sell a bunch of tickets to people that will watch whatever popcorn flick is showing, but to create and expand a new, young, dedicated fanbase. The problem is, it doesn't seem to have worked. :)

(Some of the most rabid Star Wars fan I know are in their early 20s, were nuts about Star Wars, loved TFA, loved Rogue one, but have been steadily growing cooler as the Disney trilogy advanced. And every time Disney changed course to make one group happy, another got even more outraged, until eventually everyone was upset. I know people who saw TFA in theatres several times, TLJ twice, and then ended up not buying a ticket for TRoS. Anecdotal, of course, but the box office and CinemaScore support it, and the way Disney had cancelled or postponed a ton of projects suggests it's widespread.)

I'm not even sure that the movies underperforming is that significant. The are making boatloads with merchandise, and with every new movie they've introduced at least one new cute character that everyone seems to gobble up (BB8, the mini-peguin-like thing, now baby-yoda). They've also opened up Galaxy's Edge at one of their parks which brings in a lot of visitors.

Yes, they had to relax their movie timeline a little bit, but they're operating Star Wars close to their monetizable limit.

> They've also opened up Galaxy's Edge at one of their parks which brings in a lot of visitors.

Yes, but it's bringing in a lot less than they expected. See, eg:

https://cosmicbook.news/disney-star-wars-galaxys-edge-low-at...

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/star-wars-land-crowd-predi...

https://deadline.com/2019/09/key-disney-parks-executive-exit...

Nor are merchandise sales doing very well either:

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/star-wars-merchandise-sa...

https://fortune.com/2018/01/18/with-star-wars-toys-the-force...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hasbro-ceo-says-error-made-21...

> Yes, they had to relax their movie timeline a little bit, but they're operating Star Wars close to their monetizable limit.

Maybe. The fact remains that Disney had projected better performance. Whether that means Star Wars is less valuable than they thought, or whether they're doing a worse job of realising that value than they'd hoped is a fascinating question though. :)

To be honest I was underwhelmed by the last trilogy, and I'm no longer eager to see other Star Wars movies because of that.

To be honest, it was way better than the prequels...

That's not saying much ;-)

The best part of the prequels was making out with my wife in the empty theater.

I thought it was the memes, seriously quotable movies though.

As someone born in the 90s I actually enjoyed the prequel movies, being a kid and all. They are terribly campy but it has been the source of many in-jokes.

The prequels were problematic for many reasons but at least they flowed from one person's vision. The 6-9 trilogy suffered from too many people's ideas of what it was intended to be. There was no unifying vision.

> The 6-9 trilogy

7-9, presumably.

At least I had fun watching the prequels.

The first movie I remember ever seeing was the first star wars movie at a drive-in when I was 5 years old. I love the Star Wars movies. But, I haven't even bothered to see the one that came out this past December. I'm not even sure of it's name. I was severely underwhelmed by the previous ones in the most recent trilogy. They weren't as bad as the prequels, but bad enough that I honestly don't care whether I see the most recent one or not.

I would actually say that the latest one is better than The Force Awakens, and MUCH better than Last Jedi. Then again, I'm in my early 20s so I can't really compare it to the original movies.

My exact sentiments. When Disney Plus came out, I actually attempted to watch the entire star wars lineup from start to finish, the prequels (episodes 4-6) were unwatchable, couldn't even get through those, but watching (more like sitting through) the last 2 reminded me of exactly why I wouldn't be seeing the latest one ...

The Prequels were episodes 1-3. The Original Trilogy was episodes 4-6.

I might be a minority, but I always considered plot of original Star Wars extremely underwhelming and the only interesting parts of all movies when I was a kid were space flight/another planets and sci-fi action scenes like X-wing vs Tie fighter battles, speeder bike chase, taking down star destroyer, the destruction of a planet by Death Star and lightsaber fights. The rest was just a boring filler. I frankly see no point in Star Wars these days as computer games are way more elaborate (e.g. Mass Effect, Elite, Prey, Borderlands Pre-sequel etc.), both in story and technical arrangement.

I also remember some original Star Wars actors despised the movies, doing them only for money, and then were surprised by the popularity and disgusted by the fact those movies represented their "life's work" they were best known for.

I agree with you. Original ones were super novel in technical/fantasy aspects and I get whey they became topics of such obsession by many during releases, but as stories and cinematic quality go, they are on the level of cartoons for 5 year olds with some heavy inconsistencies which are hard to ignore for adults. Some parts like ewoks I literally have to suffer through. No wonder many actors weren't proud of their participation.

Proof - older gens consider them eternal classics, most of the young these days couldn't care less. Give them some true classics like Spartacus or Orson Welles and they are more intrigued.

All that bashing said, I love them all, even the crappiest prequels, but then again I love tons of sci-fi and fantasy.

> Give them some true classics like Spartacus or Orson Welles and they are more intrigued.

I don't think your proof works as well as you expect. Counterpoint: pick a random person, tell them to watch Citizen Kane, and tell them that it's "the greatest film ever made". I think they will have... opinions about that title. On a quick search, "A new hope" has higher audience ratings that "Citizen Kane" in IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.

The original trilogy is not perfect, but it definitely is a true classic under any definition of the term.

That’s too bad. I was really looking forward to go watch another spin-off or trilogy about the gardener who knew the dentist of Han Solo.

One can only hope that people finally get enough of the merciless milking of franchises.

  I'm actually worried he's sick, though I hope not because I admire him a lot.

That was my first thought also. Similar to what happened to Accenture's Pierre Nanterme, who had to step down because of his cancer (and sadly succumbed to it in 2019). But he was transparent about the reason, I don't know what was the rationale for Iger.

The board doesn't care about Star Wars or any movie title, the board job isn't to care about revenue that a film brings in that's the executive leadership job.

What are you going on about? The board represents the shareholders, and cares about the stock price, which is influenced by the P&L of various projects.

So it is very reasonable for the board to care. I've seen Board Members spend dozens of hours on a $20k sale for a company.

Susan E. Arnold (executive of The Carlyle Group), Mary T. Barra (GM CEO), Safra A. Catz (CEO of Oracle), Francis A. deSouza (CEO of Illumina), Michael Froman (Vice Chairman and President, Strategic Growth at Mastercard), Maria Elena Lagomasino (CEO of WE Family Offices), Mark G. Parker (CEO of Nike), Derica W. Rice (Executive Vice President of CVS Health).

Almost half of the board is a CEO of another company, you think they care about P&L of Disney? The board is mandated with 3 committees which are the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee and the Governance and Nominating Committee. None of the committees deal with P&L or stock price. The executive team deals with the day to day operations of the company, the CFO should be the one asking about P&L and not the board. The Disney board met 7 times in 2019. I doubt they spoke about the Star Wars or any film during that meeting.

Of course the board would be concerned if they feel the company is failing to execute on one of its core properties. They're not chatting about films for fun, they acquired Lucasfilm for $4B and it's not unreasonable for them to be concerned that money's not been used as well as it could have been.

I think you are confusing the documented policies with how the world actually works.

I think you don't understand corporate governance, because you seem naive of what the board is actually responsible for.

Perhaps I am. But I have observed that some people will tend to do more than that for which they are responsible.

I'm talking about public companies that are listed on the exchange, private companies don't have a federal mandate to follow when it comes to governance.

Franchise management isn't just about any particular film at Disney. Star Wars represents films, TV, vehicles for SVOD subscriptions, merchandise, parks, and hotels. Franchise roadmaps are regularly put in front of the board.

That said, I agree. Ousting the CEO is a move the board does to restore shareholder confidence, and there isn't any indication confidence is low...especially when Iger is so close to retirement already.

Darn. My first thought was he has decided to run for president.

Great comment, Thank you

"Iger won't be very influential". You don't know Bob. His voice will pull strings behind the scene. He may even work his way back. Very few have his understanding of all of the parts. He will be leaned on heavily. Plus he is someone with political favours to spend.

He'll be in the room where it happens, sure. Point is that if anyone has creative differences with him, they'll feel no desire to align with him. It won't be like he'll be held accountable if he's wrong, and he'll be long gone by the time any current projects see daylight.

Disney (even Iger himself) has done this to quite a few people over the years. At Disney we called it putting someone in the "aloha suite"

Umm, WAT?

The answer to this is simple. Paz de la Huerta named Iger (and Eisner) in her lawsuit against Weinstein. The allegations in short were that that their behavior allowed Miramax to cover up what happened to her.

Weinstein was just convicted of Rape. That's separate from the civil cases, but with a criminal conviction on even one, the civil cases become that much easier to win.

In my mind either he's stepping down because it will help in damage control/settlement amount negotiations, or it was part of a settlement itself.

Possible, but I don't think he'd remain as chairman and finish out his contract if that were the case. When Lasseter was in that position, as beloved as he was at the time, they didn't hesitate to cut all ties. I think it's something else. Then again, I could be wrong.

Lasseter wasn't the CEO.

No, but if anything, he was the leader of Disney Animation, probably the most important thing to get right for Iger (since Eisner had bungled it so much). They needed him, but didn’t hesitate to cut him as far as they could until projects completed and he was let loose.

From Lasserter's Wikipedia entry:

> The films he has made have grossed more than $19 billion (USD), making him one of the most successful filmmakers of all time.

I read "ride of a lifetime" by Bob Iger last month. It was a pretty nice book, similar to ShoeDog by Phil Knight. I learnt a lot about leadership, about Bob himself and started to like him (even though I had no idea about him before the book).

A few things that stuck with me: 1. Have three priorities or less. Otherwise people can't relate. Jim Collins also said: "If you have more than three priorities, you don't have any". 2. He did everything to show that he cared about what his people were doing. He would take part in many aspects of the star wars movie (and be there). This sent a message, a good one. 3. Earning trust is important. He did Pixar acquisition well. That earned the trust of Marvel CEO.

I recommend checking that book out.

I'm halfway into that audio book (which is self-narrated) and so far it's been great. Point #2 is definitely a theme. He seemed to truly care about what impact his actions would have on his employees and consumers.

I just finished his book last night (it's a really good read), and this feels weird to me. It was clear he was going to leave soon, but why now?

He talked so much about succession plans and outward appearances (like, that was most of the book, honestly...), and this feels so weird that out of nowhere Bob Chapek became CEO. He doesn't seem (at the surface) to represent what Iger does, and there was no clear succession plan or public narrative put forward. (Like, really, the whole book was about 50 years of succession plans and presenting things in a way that wouldn't cause issues externally... and this was the opposite of that.)

I also remember thinking how poor Eisner's legacy came off in his book, and was sure he'd optimize for a great legacy. He is ending his tenure on a relatively high note for the company, but something about the exact timing feels really off to me. Especially right after such a huge press tour for himself.

I don't think it's a scandal; he wouldn't stick around. The only thing I can think of is a political run (maybe not for president? Seems too late for that, and he seems to smart to run for something he can't win), or possibly family issues (sickness, etc).

He also has been on every TV show and podcast he could be recently.

Like it's as if he calendared retiring and he is executing on post retirement plans (book and publicity) without stepping down.

If he's checked out and not working...and the next guy is identified and in waiting....it's reasonable the board would boot him early.

Heck in his own book while Bob was waiting to be CEO he approached Goldman to do the Pixar deal. Which is super....well.....forward looking / potentially undermining to the current CEO. Maybe history repeats.

This is pretty shocking to me. I literally just got my shareholder information in the mail.

When I bought Disney stock it was a 20th century management style company. Now it's one of my best Blue Chips. Bob Iger's leadership has helped make Disney into the media behemoth we now pretty much can't escape whenever we turn on the tv or check the news.

I only hope that there are no scandals that are the cause of his move from CEO to Executive Chairman.

Weird, techcrunch.com is serving an expired SSL certificate.

    $ openssl s_client -showcerts -servername techcrunch.com -connect techcrunch.com:443
    CONNECTED(00000003)
    depth=2 C = US, O = DigiCert Inc, OU = www.digicert.com, CN = DigiCert Global Root CA
    verify return:1
    depth=1 C = US, O = DigiCert Inc, CN = DigiCert SHA2 Secure Server CA
    verify return:1
    depth=0 C = US, ST = Virginia, L = Sterling, O = Oath Inc., OU = SecOps, CN = techcrunch.com
    verify error:num=10:certificate has expired
    notAfter=Feb 26 12:00:00 2020 GMT

Ooops, yea seeing the same thing..

Same here : https://crt.sh/?id=2500908236

12h long certificate

"Speculation is still high for the exact reason behind Iger’s departure, with many hoping for something benign (ish) like a presidential run versus a personal issue."

This country seems desperate for the hope of better leadership.

Wish they'd stop looking to CEOs then.

Unless leadership skills have any overlap in the private and public space.

Representing shareholders and representing an entire population are two different things.

They don't.

CEO's don't have to build consensus. They can, and do, purge their ranks of dissidents. Iger, in particular, has been aggressive about this over time.

You cannot simply "fire" the people who disagree with you when you are President. We have seen what happens when you try to do that.

Of course the President can fire the people who disagree with him. In fact he should do that if the people are preventing the implementation of the President's lawful policies. The Constitution is pretty darn clear on this point:

Article 2. Section 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Of course it is also possible for a President to make poor decisions, but the trend towards criminalizing policy differences is not a healthy one. Elections are the solution to poor executive decisions, which is NOT the same thing as unlawful actions.

> In fact he should do that if the people are preventing the implementation of the President's lawful policies.

I believe the unwritten assumption was that the president was firing people who disagreed with him when he made unlawful policies.

> CEO's don't have to build consensus

Yes they do. Becoming CEO of a company like Disney is just as political as becoming President.

> They can, and do, purge their ranks of dissidents.

So do Presidents. Every 4 (or 8) years a new President is elected and they replace the entire cabinet. This is probably more disruptive than a new CEO coming in and replacing a handful of disliked executives.

> Every 4 (or 8) years a new President is elected and they replace the entire cabinet.

I'm talking about the voters. You can't fire the chunk of voters that didn't vote for you.

I guarantee a lot of blue states would like to fire the red states who consume their tax money disproportionately.

However, we don't allow that because we are the United States of America and not the United States of People Who Agree With You.

I believe there have been Presidents who decided to ignore the wishes of a bunch of voters who they don't agree with.

CEOs can't fire their shareholders, though.

I don't think being a Fortune 50 CEO is necessarily the best preparation for president, but there is definitely a lot of overlapping skills. This is very different than the businessman as politician fetish the country often has; running a small/family business doesn't require the same skillset.

> with many hoping for something benign (ish) like a presidential run

The political junkie in me is wanting that to be true. Imagine a debate with Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Bob Iger, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren all on one stage.

An absolute clown show. Straight Aldous Huxley's most horrific fever dream.

It would be the exact same as what's going on right now + Bob Iger.

Probably just taking advantage of the massive market downswing yesterday/today. They know the Disney stock price is going to tank in the short term along with the rest of the market, might as well rip off the band-aid of Iger leaving while people are already selling.

Is it possible that he believes that the markets will take a hit in the near future with the virus scares these last two days?

If I were CEO of a behemoth giant like Disney and held the credit for its rising in several industries, I'd bounce ship before it all went down to avoid any blame?

Maybe I'm naive, but this thought crossed my mind.

Bought shares today due to the general market drop. Bought more after hours after this announcement. My gut tells me it’s due to some personal reason. Perhaps health. Time will tell. Company is good and has a lot of great brands and assets.

I see, but is it possible that he suspects a large sell off of excess fat or even a large downturn after the presidential elections, and this recent downturn just reminded him of this idea?

Interesting possibility but I don’t think so. Obviously I can’t say what he’s thinking, but I doubt he’d believe it would help his legacy to abandon his role in the middle of market difficulties after the worst 3-day stretch in recent memory.

COVID-2019 is going to hit everybody more or less to the same degree. The only people who are going to be significantly damaged by it are those who bet everything on doing good in 2020 (which is still more likely to be seen as bad luck than poor skill), or those who manage to absolutely screw the handling up.

Disney will likely gain from it: what better time to be selling digital subscription services than when everyone is locked up in their houses and schools are closing?

On the other hand, if you can't go to work, you can't earn money. If you cant earn money you probably will be spending the money you have on living essentials rather than Disney.

Given that a lot of people who would be interested in Disney's subscription service probably already have it, I don't think there's likely to be a major increase in subscriptions due to coronavirus-induced shutdowns.

People cancelling their trips to Disney parks and cruises will likely hurt them a lot. If people start cancelling spring break en masse, or this lasts long enough to affect the summer season, the lost ticket sales will be painful.

Disney parks in China where they’ve invested billions are prolly already feeling the heat.

China has 3000+ infected healthcare workers. Can all but guarantee their healthcare system will collapse in the coming weeks. The US's healthcare system won't collapse. Can guarantee that Iran is going to have a much higher death rate than the US. It's going to be insanely different for everyone, depending on how reliant they are on different regions. The task is essentially to nurse pnemonia patients through the infection, providing constant oxygen and other assistance.. Each country will have different capacities to do that. Tons of other factors and the same principle applies.

Bob Iger has long voiced his desire to retire, it's been postponed several times. He wrote about it at length in his most recent book. Just pulled the trigger.

Plus everyone is ignoring that he's not leaving the company for a while. If it was anything bad, like some people are wrongly suggesting, he wouldn't be switching roles.

He also states he will focus now as Disney Chairman more on the creative side "because that becomes our biggest priority in 2021".

Surely you can see why "I have decided to retire right now, effective immediately, today, not even finishing out the week, going home this afternoon and never comin' back see y'all on the golf course" is going to raise a few eyebrows. It's... not the way this sort of thing is usually handled.

Yes, that would raise eyebrows, except that's not the case here at all.

Those weren't his literal words, but I trust you get my point: in most cases, this sort of transition is handled with something like "Joe Foobar will step down as FoobarCo's CEO at the end of next month, transitioning to [insert obviously ceremonial position]." This is an immediate transition to a position which isn't obviously ceremonial at all.

I'm not suggesting anything tragic like a fatal illness, a #MeToo event, or a presidential run, but only suggesting that this is an unusually-handled event. Look at his predecessor Michael Eisner, who was forced to resign after losing a boardroom battle -- Iger was announced as the next CEO in March 2005, but Eisner didn't actually leave until the end of September 2005, over six months later.

It's hard to tell from outside of any place. I felt once that I was a victim of attempted "constructive discharge", but I was not (and never have been) immediately marched out after giving my two week notice. Conversely, I had a boss that I never heard anything bad about or a scandal, who was escorted out with his stuff mailed to him after like a decade of service. Nobody admitted to knowing why, except for the usual generic reasons for a layoff.

Er, he's staying on as executive chairman through 2021, so even though he's stepping down as CEO it's not anywhere close to “going home this afternoon and never comin' back see y'all on the golf course”.

Yeah, I dont get what the surprise is, anyone who follows Disney ought to have been aware that this was coming.

I've followed news related to the company pretty closely, and there were not any rumors, or even speculation, that Iger would step down from the CEO role before the end of his contract in December 2021--especially not over a year and a half early.

I also read his book that came out last fall, and he explicitly said that his retirement is on the horizon, implying he was expecting to be in the role for awhile.

It was announced in April, so I'm not sure exactly why people are saying it's sudden. Am I missing something?

(Stupid headline, but it's what Wikipedia had cited for it prior to this month.)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abigail-disney-tells-house-comm...

The "walking away" in that statement had nothing to do with leaving the company, it was about his take-home.

The revision history of the article that cites that post is really interesting, I guess someone in the know let on more than they were supposed to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Iger&oldid=92...

Multiple CEOs stepped down today (02/25): Disney, MasterCard, Salesforce, Uber eats.

Could it be that their compensation is tied to the stock price and sticking around for a few more months could cost them millions as the coronavirus collapses the world economy?

COVID-19 is not going to collapse anything, although it may disrupt the economy.

The CFR is currently estimated at 2-3% of KNOWN cases with an enormous number of unreported cases due to often mild symptoms. While it has and will spread very wide, the vast majority of people will not even experience significant complications.

We ARE experiencing a pandemic with significant impact on global economy but it's not a collapse scenario.

Not sure it's totally accurate to include Salesforce in this type of metric, as that announcement seemed quite different (Marc Benioff is still CEO).

However, it is quite interesting that so many timed all at the same (and it seems Bob Iger is the only one most people know/care about).

For anyone who wishes to see the Bobs discuss this change, they had ~10 minute interview on CNBC at 5:30 EST earlier.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/02/25/disneys-bob-iger-i-wan...

Is this unexpected? All the headlines make it sound like there's some sort of scandal.

In the article it states he was only 14 months into a 36 month contract extension, so it was unexpected based on the timing of his contract.

Yes, this is unexpected. Companies of this size like to announce big news well in advance. A change in leadership that is effective immediately seems to imply that something sudden happened. That could include Iger being presented with a better opportunity (maybe a pending VP nomination), a sudden change in life priorities (maybe health scare for him or a family member), or an attempt to get out in front of a scandal.

It’s a little goofy.

It's an extremely goofy move.

Really unexpected for a company as well run as Disney. A few things:

  -Disney+ - Seems to be doing incredibly well.
  -China market - Both parks and movies will be extremely hard hit near turn, also with Mulan coming out soon will prb be really bad numbers(surprised they did not move release date).
  -Domestic parks and European parks may take a hit as fares increases(US only?) and virus worries keep people away. 
  -2020 films are not the heavy hitters that 2019 was, expect less revenue here and still less due to virus issues.

So despite disney+ doing well a few dark clouds on the horizon, I'm really hoping its not something health related.

He was ready to retire anyway and I think he's getting out of dodge while the going is good. He successfully launched their streaming service, and if I were him, I'd also want to get as far away as possible from the hospitality industry given how the spread of covid-19 is going.

Something doesn’t add up here. Why would Disney promote the head of parks in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak? Really odd timing.

Parks will temporarily close. He'll have time/space to take on other extra responsibility. Just boring reallocation of human resources?

Very recently they released a new MasterClass with Bob Iger. It's very unlikely he would engage in that if his plan was to step down soon. Also, if any publicly-traded company CEO steps down so suddenly, there's always some hidden reason behind that...

Board of Directors appoints budget conscious CEO, top line drops 2.53%.

Who's running the board?

NASDAQ dropped 2.77%, seems like Disney beat the curve!

I wonder if he’s scared about coronavirus?

He ruined Star Wars

After some issues that he has faced this month, he finally gives up his title/position that must be tough for him.

Don't forget another "accomplishment" - the Mickey Mouse curve.

Hey new emperor of mouse, how about put starwars charactet into marvel universe, we can make all these even worse.

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