4 ms·

Weird article. It kind of feels like a puff piece to rehabilitate Bob Iger's image. He's now being touted as the savior of Disney, not the person who nearly kil

Weird article. It kind of feels like a puff piece to rehabilitate Bob Iger's image. He's now being touted as the savior of Disney, not the person who nearly killed Disney then walked away (or maybe was forced to walk away). In reality, Iger overextended Disney and really shot it in the foot. He made it into this extremely brittle company that was probably banking on the Disney parks and Marvel movies to pull it through. They spent way too much money to buy Fox, which is what is probably putting them in a very weak financial position now. Regardless of what you think of the Star Wars sequels, they are not the big draw they once were and the brand is not doing well. If they are lucky the Mandalorian can help to build the brand up if they don't force the focus to be on baby yoda. The parks even focused on the new trilogy rather than the original trilogy which is what most people like the best. Even the parks have shown signs of problems before the virus, they kept cranking the prices up, and it felt like they had cranked them too high and might be suffering attendance problems. There were lots of deals going on right before the virus lock downs, which is not the norm. It kind of feels like what's really happening is that Disney realized that even though Iger put them in this position, Chapek doesn't have the skill to lead them out when the lock down ends. So the board would rather go with the devil they know, then go with an unknown in Chapek.

Traster 7y ago
I'm sorry but I can't take a critique of a CEO seriously when you're talking about whether some series should focus on Baby Yoda, that is so far away from the level of importance to analyze Bob Iger's career. If you look at any of the key performance indicators for Disney they've performmed phenomenally under Iger. If you look at what Disney does though - theme parks, Sports coverage, News, And Movies. Let's run through that list: Theme Parks - completely closed due to Coronavirus, unlikely to open for months. Sports Coverage (ESPN and the like) same story. News Coverage - under considerable stress because advertising has fallen through the floor. Movies - Cinemas are closed and production on everything has stopped. Disney is a Carnival Cruises level of exposure to Coronavirus. And you can try and claim Disney was failing before this, but their financials disagree- their revenue from Parks, Experiences and Products was up 6% in their latest financial report (and operating income up 11%). I would really encourage you to look at Iger's based on the performance of the company rather than your gut feeling about Disney's content.
michaelbrave 6y ago
You are right. I just wanted to add that the star wars brand isn't doing well because of a decrease in quality and an alienation of previous fans. This has been mishandled nearly ever step. 1. In the cartoons (Rebels) there was such a push for kid friendly that the storytelling suffered 2. In the new trilogy and the solo movie there was such a push for nostalgia that they felt like high budget fan fics. 3. The games division going exclusive with EA, one of the most hated games publishers who pushed so hard for micro transactions that the brand was tarnished such that even when the game was mostly fixed it still suffers from it's already established reputation (Battlefront 2). They have also cancelled most story driven games as those are harder to monetize, it's amazing that fallen order was actually released and did well enough that it shocked EA's board. They still have some competent people (like Jon Favreau) which is how we got things like the Mandelorian, but those are more flukes than norms due to mismanagement. I expect on further digging we would find similar mismanagement with their other brands as well. I imagine some pockets of passionate and talented people creating great things despite their management rather than because of it.

Traster 7y ago

I'm sorry but I can't take a critique of a CEO seriously when you're talking about whether some series should focus on Baby Yoda, that is so far away from the level of importance to analyze Bob Iger's career. If you look at any of the key performance indicators for Disney they've performmed phenomenally under Iger. If you look at what Disney does though - theme parks, Sports coverage, News, And Movies. Let's run through that list: Theme Parks - completely closed due to Coronavirus, unlikely to open for months. Sports Coverage (ESPN and the like) same story. News Coverage - under considerable stress because advertising has fallen through the floor. Movies - Cinemas are closed and production on everything has stopped. Disney is a Carnival Cruises level of exposure to Coronavirus. And you can try and claim Disney was failing before this, but their financials disagree- their revenue from Parks, Experiences and Products was up 6% in their latest financial report (and operating income up 11%). I would really encourage you to look at Iger's based on the performance of the company rather than your gut feeling about Disney's content.

michaelbrave 6y ago

You are right. I just wanted to add that the star wars brand isn't doing well because of a decrease in quality and an alienation of previous fans. This has been mishandled nearly ever step. 1. In the cartoons (Rebels) there was such a push for kid friendly that the storytelling suffered 2. In the new trilogy and the solo movie there was such a push for nostalgia that they felt like high budget fan fics. 3. The games division going exclusive with EA, one of the most hated games publishers who pushed so hard for micro transactions that the brand was tarnished such that even when the game was mostly fixed it still suffers from it's already established reputation (Battlefront 2). They have also cancelled most story driven games as those are harder to monetize, it's amazing that fallen order was actually released and did well enough that it shocked EA's board. They still have some competent people (like Jon Favreau) which is how we got things like the Mandelorian, but those are more flukes than norms due to mismanagement. I expect on further digging we would find similar mismanagement with their other brands as well. I imagine some pockets of passionate and talented people creating great things despite their management rather than because of it.