Bob will figure it out
The state of the Hollywood in 2023…
Hollywood is in a tailspin.
Media companies want consolidation. Box offices are disappointing. Talent agencies are selling. Production companies are overvalued. Historical strikes are ongoing. Wall Street analysts doubt its success. And the media is having a field day with it. It’s not all bad (Taylor is killing it out here), but it’s far from good.
Disney in recent months seems to be the center of it all. Yes, Bob Iger is under fire. The headlines everywhere are against him and it's tough to find many favorable things about the recently-returned Disney CEO. CNBC wrote of the Disney succession mess. Bloomberg claims that he’s maybe “lost the magic.” Puck explains the pressure he’s under, while also choosing a particular thumbnail with a distorted and blurry background to really show his stress walk in a tilted frame.
The tl;dr of this is bulleted here for those who just want the fast facts:
- Disney stock has crashed to an all-time low since Iger joined in 2005.
- Disney+ loses millions every quarter and isn’t even close to profitable.
- Linear TV is dying and Iger wants to cut out the fluff by potentially selling ABC, ESPN, and/or FX.
- Iger personally angered members of SAG/AFTRA and WGA on strike saying their ask was unrealistic during his Sun Valley interview.
- Legacy franchises like Marvel have been hurting at the box office.
- There will be a noticeable gap in entertainment content in 2024 with the union strikes.
- A massive reorganization to wash away Chaepek-era lieutenants puts Disney’s leadership in limbo. (Iger also lost many from his original team when he formally stepped down in 2021.)
- Even Disney World slipped in attendance this year…
My issue with this is that we’re quick to blame Iger instead of focusing on the issue at hand: bad content and too much of it. Let’s take Marvel for example. Variety just put out this article that dives into the state of the studio, which details its box office bombs, VFX overload, reshoots, and even mentioned that executives at their retreat contemplated bringing back the OG Avengers team because A-listers are what may solve their money problems. I understand that star power means a lot, but when does it mean so much for Marvel? After all, all their big actors are big (or got bigger) inherently because of Marvel. I think they can do it again.
The problem here is that it’s bad content. It’s boring scripts that only tarnish the brand as we start to associate that iconic intro with “Well, this might suck.” The endless array of TV shows caused that negative cultural sentiment, not to mention that the audience feels like they have to work hard to keep up to understand the MCU fully. The era of “no week without superhero content” is the death of Marvel Studios. The very strategy that Disney envisioned for Marvel to boost their stock price I’m convinced only made it dip even more.
A-list stars work for some areas, but they don’t for others (Harrison Ford couldn't even draw an audience for Indiana Jones). Actors can’t magically wash away a bad story (unless you’re Jason Statham in The Meg 2).
All of this is to say that I think Iger gets that. He’s a friend of the creators in Hollywood and a champion for directors, actors, and producers. He has the charisma and business knowledge needed to get through this. Some strategic moves may happen in the coming years (A sale of ESPN to Apple? Maybe the Hulu buyout will pay off? A rise in Disney+ prices?). He’ll find a way to shave off the old networks and get more bang for his buck with content.
I think the reason why Iger is partly having trouble is that he needs to deal with these very serious business problems first in order to solve the creative problems needed to make good stories. Of course, he is not a writer for movies nor a Kevin Fiege, but nonetheless, he’s feeling the pain of an overly beefed-up organization with various networks tacked on to it, all producing too much content that nobody is watching. If the media and people give the guy some time to actually work through these issues and then tackle the creative rut, I think they’ll be surprised at how well he can turn his company around (as he has already from the Eisner era).
At the end of the day, no one knows where entertainment is going either. Legacy companies are down bad, while tech companies like Apple and Amazon have endless money to compete because entertainment is just marketing for their core business products. And don’t forget mobile content, where TikTok is still king at grabbing eyeballs and directly competes with TV (for the Gen Zers). Consumer behavior is unpredictable. Advertising struggles to hit the mark. And I can’t even talk to anyone about a show because we all watch different things. It’s a rocky road and no clear “golden” or “platinum” age on the horizon. But, once Iger and Disney reach a steady state, the industry will follow his lead.
Ari Emanuel at Bloomberg’s first Screentime conference hosted by my favorite writer Lucas Shaw, said it perfectly:
YouTube [and] Google will be fine. Microsoft will be fine. Netflix will be fine. Comcast [with] 4 billion in cash flow, pretty good… Bob’s going through it right now. He’s a very good executive. He’ll figure it out.
I can agree with you on that, Ari.
