The Disney Thread | Iger will be with us until 2026

[Macleod]

On 9/11/2021 at 6:09 AM, EmpireCity said:

The irony of Disney for decades being the place where they had a strategy that involved a "vault" and they would horde their movies and hide them away only to release them every 5-10 years and make a huge deal of it is now the company that can't wait to charge you $7 and give you everything as free as soon as possible is funny to me.  

True.  But it's not "everything."  It's double-tragic-irony, because they're currently keeping most of the 20th Century Fox studio catalogue in their vault...at least for the U.S. market!  

[Macleod]

On 9/10/2021 at 9:01 PM, charlie Jatinder said:

Why is Dr Strange 2 releasing in March end, just 41 days away from Thor 4. I thought it may be Good Friday, but no. Better release would have been Mid Feb.

Don't worry, there'll be three Disney+/Marvel shows debuting in between to satiate the public's cape-needs.  

[Cap]

2 hours ago, AJG said:

I feel as if these lawsuits happen every 4 or 5 years.

My first reaction was “if they win and Kirby gets screwed again, I will scream.” 🤣

The real issue with the lawsuit is that there is a solid precedent for a ruling against the families. The comic book industry was always a work for hire, with the companies owning the copyrights. And I don’t really see anything in the past couple years that would give me faith the courts would rule against the corporations.

 

Like most of these cases, they settle. And hopefully they can. I also would like to see something happen where writers of particular storylines are paid when their story lines are adapted from the comics. But I think it would be too much to ask if the Ditko family pulled that during their negotiations.

 

I also feel like the Only party that could potentially get screwed here is Sony. Disney is not going to let the family if they win, take the properties anywhere else. They’re just going to renegotiate and have to fork over a couple billion dollars. Yep they could throw enough money around to completely cut Sony out of the picture. 

[Walt Disney]

4 hours ago, AJG said:

I feel as if these lawsuits happen every 4 or 5 years.

They do, despite the law being crystal clear. There is no ambiguity here. Marvel owns the characters and stories, and Disney owns Marvel. 

[AJG]

6 minutes ago, Walt Disney said:

They do, despite the law being crystal clear. There is no ambiguity here. Marvel owns the characters and stories, and Disney owns Marvel. 

DC got out of a lawsuit with the Superman creators a couple years back. Whole thing seems endless.

[Jamiem]

I was wrong about Shang-Chi coming in October, it got pushed to Disney+ Day but was right about them releasing it free and same day as digital (they also did this with Free Guy in many international markets)

 

As I said in the streaming wars thread it seems like Warner, Paramount and Disney are willing to forgo Home Entertainment (although it will still be an option and still make money or them particularly Disc sales I imagine) in order to bolster their streaming services which is were most of the future revenue for their Studios will come from.

 

Also source for the Shang-Chi release: https://www.cnet.com/news/shang-chi-home-release-dates-confirmed-for-november/

[AJG]

Here's something new. Disney are now promoting their movies, including Fox, under the one unified Disney Studios brand. This isn't like the old days where nobody knew Touchstone and ESPN was them. They want people to know what they own.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by AJG

[Barnack]

7 hours ago, AJG said:

Here's something new.

The link does not work on my browser (could be vpn), an other one:

 

https://whatsondisneyplus.com/disney-reducing-star-branding/

 

From:

 

To:

 

I can see them keeping strong brand (espn-pixar-Searchlight-marvel-Lucas Art in video game return, etc...) but in many market something like Star had I imagine exactly 0 value and would create confusion

[Jamiem]

Not shocking to me, but might be to others, it turns out Iger and Feige don't hate Chapek. 

 

Quote

In the end, Chapek was the only real internal candidate. Given his lack of creative background, it may have seemed likely to Iger that the board would want him to stick around. Then came the challenges of the pandemic. Several sources believe Iger was sure his plan to run the creative side of things until the end of 2021 — and maybe beyond — would work out of necessity. “I think he thought Chapek was so not liked and so not a creative executive that he would for sure be needed for the foreseeable future,” says a former Disney insider. “He could be executive chairman for who knows how long, and Chapek could be a glorified COO.”

Iger disputes this. “I wanted him to be CEO, not COO, because I wanted him to have the authority to take off my plate the kind of things I couldn’t do if I were going to be concentrating on the creative side,” he says, adding that he has felt energized by his freedom to focus on scripts and rough cuts and talks with creators. “The roles that I initially designed and announced are the roles that we’ve been performing.”

As the company mostly shut down in the early months of the transition, Chapek dealt with the pandemic response while Iger looked for material to put on the streamer. He moved up Beyoncé’s Black Is King to July. In May 2020, he appeared on Good Morning America with Lin-Manuel Miranda to announce that the movie version of Hamilton would drop on the service early.

Several Disney veterans believe Iger did not anticipate how aggressively Chapek would move to take charge. In The New York Times in April 2020, media columnist Ben Smith reported that Iger, mere weeks after Chapek became CEO, had “smoothly reasserted control” and “effectively returned to running the company.” Iger was said to have made his intentions clear to Chapek on a flight in March. In an email to the Times, Iger explained: “A crisis of this magnitude, and its impact on Disney, would necessarily result in my actively helping Bob [Chapek] and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!”

 

One Iger associate says the Times article was “a seminal moment” in a souring relationship between Iger and Chapek. Says another: “[Iger] forgot that as soon as he steps down as CEO, the gravity shifts to the new CEO. He miscalculated that because of his belief in his own mastery. [And] he thought Chapek would have a sense of fealty or duty. Instead, Chapek really resented the Ben Smith article. And he’s really not a collaborative person. He put his people in positions of power and marginalized Iger’s deputies.”

 

Iger says the Times column was “really unfair.” Naturally he would have a role helping the company through the pandemic, he says, but that shouldn’t have been interpreted as, “I’m back, I’m leading the company.”

 

In May, IAC chairman Barry Diller told a CNBC interviewer that Iger was “being pushed to the sidelines by his successor — not very nicely, by the way.” Iger says Diller is a friend but adds he was “shocked” when he heard those comments and doesn’t know how Diller would have gotten such an impression. It’s possible the constraints of the pandemic inflamed the perception of strained relations with Chapek. “It’s not like the two of us can walk into a room and show body language that’s positive,” he says.

Quote

Marvel boss Kevin Feige won’t address the Johansson litigation, but, while he is not known for discussing Disney internal politics, he says the still-new CEO is being underestimated. “I think he is a creative guy, a nice guy, a real guy,” Feige says, adding that Chapek offers “just enough of an opinion to give good feedback” on early cuts of movies and shows.

 

As head of theme parks, Chapek was a proponent of replacing the Tower of Terror attraction with the Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout! ride, which opened in 2017. Feige says he remembers an entire plane trip to Hong Kong listening to songs Chapek had recorded for the attraction and thinking, “This guy goes deep when it comes to contemporary artists.” And after the record-breaking 2019 opening of Avengers: Endgame, Chapek celebrated the Marvel team by installing a Dole Whip machine — a theme park favorite — in their offices. “I thought that was pretty cool,” Feige says. “I thought that was great.”

source if you want to read the whole thing it is a whole lot of rumours/negative press we have already heard expect for the Iger & Feige quotes I believe: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bob-iger-disney-exit-bob-chapek-succession-1235025504/

[dudalb]

And another headache for Marvel Studios PR

Quote

Letitia Wright Reportedly Continued to Share Anti-Vax Views on ‘Black Panther 2’ Set (msn.com)

SOme people just don't know when to shut up, frankly.

[dudalb]

On 9/24/2021 at 2:35 PM, AJG said:

DC got out of a lawsuit with the Superman creators a couple years back. Whole thing seems endless.

Actually the descendents /heirs of the SUperman creators...the original creators are long gone.

DC ended up paying a few million to the heirs....figured it would be cheaper then the PR damage being seen as trying to stiff the descendents would be.

[Eric Duncan]

 

[Jamiem]

I've known about this most of the year, didn't realise it wasn't offical. Lot's of high ranking execs are leaving at the same time as Iger. 

 

Anyway he did a great job the last decade or so at Disney and was great at WB before that as well, will be missed for sure. 

[BeastByTheBay]

I think Horn is staying retired this time after Disney brought him out of it the first time.

[TalismanRing]

37 minutes ago, BeastByTheBay said:

I think Horn is staying retired this time after Disney brought him out of it the first time.

 

He didn't retire from WB - he was (moronically) kicked out.   But he's put off his retirement from Disney a couple of times. 

 

An extraordinarily brilliant career and by most all accounts a true mensch. End of an era.

[Sir Tiki]

Horn is also oddly enough the first Disney Studios head since the creation of the label in 1983 to retire of his own accord - Berger, Cook, and Ross were all forced out, while Katzenberg, Hoberman, Schneider, and Roth left to start their own production companies. All but the latter three had openly tumultuous relationships with whoever the CEO at the time was as well.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Sir Tiki

[dudalb]

On 10/11/2021 at 3:36 PM, TalismanRing said:

 

He didn't retire from WB - he was (moronically) kicked out.   But he's put off his retirement from Disney a couple of times. 

 

An extraordinarily brilliant career and by most all accounts a true mensch. End of an era.

I think it is real for Horn this time. He is a wealthy man,and does not  need the headaches, and want to enjoy his retirement.

He will be missed.

[AJG]

Yikes????

 

[charlie Jatinder]

They also removed 2 MCU movies from 2023 and preponed Nov Marvel film a week. I guess if Flash moves, BP will prepone a week too.

[Val357]

Does anyone know if the Marvel release date shift is going to impact the Disney+ shows at all?