Bob Iger has stepped down as Disney CEO, with Bob Chapek serving as his replacement. Iger has acted as the Mouse House’s CEO since 2005, when he took over the position from Michael Eisner. In the fifteen years since then, he’s overseen some massive acquisitions, beginning with Disney buying Pixar Animation for $7.4 billion in 2006. Under Iger’s watch, Disney went on to purchase Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, followed by its $4 billion deal for Lucasfilm (and, with it, Star Wars and Indiana Jones) in 2012 and, of course, their $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox’s movie and TV assets in March 2019.
Iger announced his intention to step down as CEO when his contract expires in 2021 back in April 2019, shortly after Disney’s Fox deal officially closed. He’s since overseen the launch of the company’s Disney+ streaming service in November, a couple months after he resigned from Apple’s board of directors (to avoid creating a conflict of interest, what with Apple+ launching the same month as Disney+). Now, in an unexpected development, Iger has decided to depart as CEO a little earlier than anticipated.
CNN is reporting Iger is stepping down as Disney CEO effective immediately, but will remain onboard as executive chairman through to the end of 2021. Chapek, who’s served as Disney Parks’ Chairman since 2018 and was the head of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts for three years before that, has replaced him, making Chapek the seventh CEO in the company’s history. In an official statement, Iger explained “With the successful launch of Disney’s direct-to-consumer businesses and the integration of Twenty-First Century Fox well underway, I believe this is the optimal time to transition to a new CEO”.
Thanks to the purchases Iger oversaw, Disney has secured a chokehold on the box office over the last decade, with the MCU, Star Wars, and Disney and Pixar animated features dominating in terms of ticket sales. Over that same time, the company has tapped into a lucrative formula that involves remaking their animated hits in live-action and/or CGI, with the re-imaginings of Aladdin and The Lion King grossing well over $1 billion worldwide in 2019 alone. At the same time, people have grown increasingly - and validly - worried about Disney securing a monopoly on the studio film industry with its purchases since Iger was put in charge. Those concerns have only been magnified since the company’s acquisition of Fox (a deal that’s given rise to extensive layoffs, several canceled movies, and acclaimed mid-budget labels like Fox 2000 shutting down altogether).
It will be interesting to see how Disney fares over these next few years, as Chapek settles into his new role at the company. While the Mouse reports Disney+ has been a success in the U.S. (having secured 26.5 million paying subscribers so far), the streamer has been criticized for a lack of must-watch original titles outside of The Mandalorian. Disney will attempt to address this issue by beefing up its Disney+ exclusive library in 2020, but that doesn’t guarantee the streamer will continue to see substantial growth stateside along the way (ahead of its rollout in markets like the U.K. this spring). Similarly, with the Star Wars movies on hiatus until 2022 and the MCU introducing untested comic book superheroes like The Eternals and Shang-Chi while launching its first Disney+ TV series in Phase 4, Chapek will face some new challenges as CEO right out of the gate.
Source: CNN
