Black Widow | July 9 2021 | ScarJo secures the bag from Disney

[EmpireCity]

1 hour ago, AJG said:

 

I mean like... whats the blowback here? 

They'll kick her some cash, they'll continue business as usual, and we forget this ever happened in a month or two.

 

The blowback here is not only with Scarlett, but also with all other talent and producers and their agents.  

 

Don't forget that when a studio decides to send something to streaming, it fucks over all the talent and representation involved if they had contracts geared towards bonuses for theatrical.  

 

It's a war going on between studios and talent for how they are paid going forward.  

[Gavin Feng]

https://www.thewrap.com/inside-disney-bob-iger-bob-chapek-rift-scarjo-blunder/

 

Quote

 

Inside Disney: How the Bob Iger-Bob Chapek Rift Led to the ScarJo Blunder

 

 

 

Disney keep telling audience great stories as usual.

[Madhuvan]

Inside Disney: How the Bob Iger-Bob Chapek Rift Led to the ScarJo Blunder

by SHARON WAXMAN | August 2, 2021 @ 9:45 AM

Insiders tell TheWrap that Iger is “mortified” that Johansson ended up suing the studio

Turns out that corporate rifts have consequences.  It’s an open secret in Hollywood that Disney Executive Chairman Bob Iger and CEO Bob Chapek have been estranged for months, dating back to the very start of last year’s pandemic. Now the consequences of that estrangement are becoming clear.

My sources tell me that Iger and Chapek do not interact regularly. But that is pretty damn obvious, given the embarrassing lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson filed last week, accusing Disney of breaching her contract for box office-based profit participation on “Black Widow” after the movie was released day-and-date on Disney’s streaming service Disney+. And worse, there was that insane foot-in-mouth response to the lawsuit in which a spokesperson for a company that laid off 32,000 workers last year officially castigated Johansson for “callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.” And then revealed her $20 million based salary. (Excuse me, what???)

I talked with a half-dozen executives familiar with Disney and its culture. It seems that Iger either intentionally allowed Chapek to shoot himself in the foot with Johansson’s team by failing to step in and negotiate an alternative to a lawsuit, or that he is so disconnected from his successor that he was not in the loop to step in as he usually would. 

Either possibility says bad things about how leadership and succession is working at Disney. One Disney insider told me that Iger found the lawsuit “mortifying” and thinks that Chapek and the company “bungled it.” But Zenia Mucha, Disney’s chief communications officer, wrote in an email: “None of this is true period.” She declined to elaborate. (Mucha, who announced last month that she was leaving Disney early next year after two decades, also sent the statement last week castigating Johansson.)

“What do you expect?” asked a former Disney executive who called it an “irksome” rookie error. “Chapek and Iger are not spending time and comparing notes and working to mutual success, which is kind of what you look for in a succession plan. Talent is important. You should proactively say: ‘Let’s figure this out.’” 

As TheWrap has previously reported, Chapek — who rose to CEO after decades running the theme parks division — has always been called out for one big hole in his résumé: no talent relationships. And this is where having Iger as executive chairman seemed absolutely critical. Having chosen Chapek after rejecting other veteran executives (Jay Rasulo, Tom Staggs, Kevin Mayer), the smooth-talking Iger could groom Chapek, supposedly, in this area of weakness. 

Iger might also have warned Chapek off leaving this in the hands of his distribution chief Kareem Daniel, an engineer turned investment banker with a ton of power — and also zero experience managing talent.

“This signals that everything fell apart,” the first Disney insider said. “There are checks and balances in place to prevent things descending into lawsuits and insults… You have to blow by all the different restraint systems designed to keep everyone working together and playing nice. Scarlett’s team didn’t just go to the courthouse and sue.” 

This executive also noted with surprise the “anger” in the company’s statement about the lawsuit, which I can confirm both shocked and insulted Johansson and her team.

Another Disney watcher said it doesn’t even matter, given the fallout, whether the rift is real or not. “It’s a clear sign of dysfunction if anyone wonders if Iger was involved or not. “That in itself is proof of the rift,” this person said. 

How did it begin? Early in the pandemic, when Chapek had only been CEO for a few months, Iger gave an interview to Ben Smith at The New York Times stating that he was stepping back in to a more active role to help lead through the crisis. That was news to Chapek — he felt blindsided and undermined.

It has been a slow, ongoing drift since then, according to my sources, who have been gossiping to me about this for at least six months. But only now have the consequences of that corporate estrangement become clear. 

Let’s be honest: Iger’s tenure as CEO of The Walt Disney Company was historic, epic in every way. He drove the company to huge expansion, exciting acquisitions and drove the stock price from $24 in 2005 when he became CEO to many times that value when he left in January 2020. 

But if he blows the succession piece, his legacy will be tarnished. After all, even Michael Eisner figured out how to get that right. 

[JWR]

Also, at least Michael Eisner has goodwill at the beginning of his tenure because of how he saved Disney from the brink. Chapek was unpopular from the get go.

 

[Morieris]

Chapek ruining the parks AND relationships with major talent...how long is this man gonna be there.

 

I'm betting he's gone before 2023.

[WittyUsername]

When Iger stepped down right around the time of the pandemic, I remember jokingly thinking that he was going to let Chapek be the fall guy for whatever problems Disney would have to deal with in the face of COVID. Maybe I wasn’t so far off? 

[RRA]

12 hours ago, BK007 said:

Can't wait to see Chapek get fucked. All these useless executives add absolutely nothing of worth.

People have compared him to 2000s-era Eisner but at least Eisner had some sort of a positive track record before everything derailed whether it be saving Disney or making it the monster that it grew to be.

 

What I find interesting is that first Wrap article, Chapek’s alleged logic that Marvel movies’ Box office didn’t give Disney stock a bump so why not do PA with D+?
 

That sort of short sighted approach reeks of his handling with the parks. 

[Valonqar]

Chapek's other blind spot is that he's cheap af. I remember when he was announced and people who worked in the theme parks during his tenure said all he cared was cutting budgets and staff. That mindset isn't suitable to manage talent because he sees them as unnecessary cost. 

 

We all knew he was a bad news. 

[JWR]

42 minutes ago, Morieris said:

Chapek ruining the parks AND relationships with major talent...how long is this man gonna be there.

 

I'm betting he's gone before 2023.

 

If these lawsuits keep adding up and Chapek continues to be woefully inept, I'm betting he's gone by 2022.

[JWR]

16 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

Chapek's other blind spot is that he's cheap af. I remember when he was announced and people who worked in the theme parks during his tenure said all he cared was cutting budgets and staff. That mindset isn't suitable to manage talent because he sees them as unnecessary cost. 

 

Which is especially problematic when that talent is the biggest names in the industry. 

[dudalb]

5 hours ago, AJG said:

 

I mean like... whats the blowback here? 

They'll kick her some cash, they'll continue business as usual, and we forget this ever happened in a month or two.

But Disney management and the major stockholders will remember that Chapek  caused this fiasco. I don't think he will  last long. he has shown he has no sense of PR or image, and both are very important to any company in the Entertainment business. He is off to a very bad start.

DIsney probably will recover from this but Chapek won't. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by dudalb

[dudalb]

1 hour ago, JWR said:

 

Which is especially problematic when that talent is the biggest names in the industry. 

What makes it bad for Chapek is that many of the big shareholders in Disney are people like Lucas (huge shareholder from his sale o Lucasarts to Disney) who knows the realities of the business,and in the end it's probably cheaper to give a star a modest share of profits they might not be entitled to by the strict terms of the contract then to suffer the negative effects of a PR disaster.

[JWR]

7 minutes ago, dudalb said:

What makes it bad for Chapek is that many of the big shareholders in Disney are people like Lucas (huge shareholder from his sale o Lucasarts to Disney) who knows the realities of the business,and in the end it's probably cheaper to give a star a modest share of profits they might not be entitled to by the strict terms of the contract then to suffer the negative effects of a PR disaster.

 

The shareholders also recognize that Feige is their most valuable employee and that undermining him is not good in the long term.

[Yandereprime101189]

About how long do you think it will take for Chapek to blink and give in?

 

Hell, if those Disney Insiders blaming him rumors are true, how much of a fail are you when your co-workers think you screwed up on a grand scale.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Yandereprime101189

[dudalb]

19 minutes ago, Yandereprime101189 said:

About how long do you think it will take for Chapek to blink and give in?

 

 

And that might not be enough to save him.

Iger is an old hand at forcing CEO who are hurting the company to resign; ask Michael Eisner about that. 

I think Chapek equals Eisner and Feige equals Pixar.

Irony is Scarjo is now a minor player in this drama;it has all become CHapek vs Feige/Iger.

Edited August 3, 2021 by dudalb

[RRA]

I'm not sure Chapek this fresh into his regime is going to get axed, especially over this.* I mean hell lets remember what it took to remove Eisner back in the day, when it took a snowballing of several screw-ups over many years (EuroDisney, Ovitz, Disney America, Disney California Adventure, the Disney toons/movies going downhill in quality and popularity, etc.) before picking a fight with Pixar was such a WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!? move that allowed his internal/external enemies to topple him. "DisneyWar" is a good book on Eisner btw if anybody wants to go inside baseball on Disney history of that era. 

 

If he keeps doing crap like this though, he won't last. 

 

*=Of course Ike Perlmutter infamously played hardball (more like absurd ball considering his more notable cost-saving tactics like firing employees who left office lights on when exiting rooms) and even he got out-maneuvered eventually. "Yeah I won't pay RDJ his big check for Civil War that probably would net us a billion bucks box office!" was crossing the Rubicon for him. Iger must've heard that and realized he had somebody threatening to cost Disney a dollar to save a nickel and thus removed him from the creative chain of command. If Chapek was boss back then, he would've applauded Ike. 

[tonytr87]

9 hours ago, EmpireCity said:

 

The blowback here is not only with Scarlett, but also with all other talent and producers and their agents.  

 

Don't forget that when a studio decides to send something to streaming, it fucks over all the talent and representation involved if they had contracts geared towards bonuses for theatrical.  

 

It's a war going on between studios and talent for how they are paid going forward.  

 

Yup. She tried to negotiate and they ignored her. Disney has always been greedy, but they've gotten worse with Iger retired. 

[Gavin Feng]

9 hours ago, Valonqar said:

Chapek's other blind spot is that he's cheap af. I remember when he was announced and people who worked in the theme parks during his tenure said all he cared was cutting budgets and staff. That mindset isn't suitable to manage talent because he sees them as unnecessary cost. 

 

We all knew he was a bad news. 

 

that sound so familiar, right?

 

 

[Valonqar]

9 hours ago, Gavin Feng said:

 

that sound so familiar, right?

 

 

 

Indeed!

[JWR]

Will Chapek biting the bullet and settling with Scarlett Johansson do anything to effect his standing within the company?