DJariya

He signed on for two years.

Decker

Maybe he’ll make the parks less of a sucky experience? Disneyland has really gone down the tubes, as far as visitor experience goes, under Chapek’s watch.

TheBang

When I read the CNN headline, "Bob Iger named Disney CEO," my brain broke, and I couldn't make sense of it. Was this a necro'd article from 20 years ago?

Anyway, this is good news. Hopefully, he can fix up Disneyland before I visit for the first time in 21 years in February.

DJariya

Iger doesn’t run the parks. Josh D’Amaro is the CEO of the parks. Iger oversees the Walt Disney corporation as a whole. But he is D’Amaro’s boss.

https://disneyconnect.com/dpep/leaders/josh-damaro/

devilshalo

Chapek just laid off a shit ton of people so... he can be the scapegoat and Iger can be seen as the savior?

Artman

It's good to see them make this move. Chapek's actions should have consequences, hopefully the other Bob can right the ship. Disney is not in a great spot - both of their animation studios revenues are way down (or gone for D+), Lucasfilm is a mess, Marvel Studios is not the powerhouse it was....and how in the world is Disney+ not making money?!

Josh-da-man

Yeah, MCU Phase Four is running on fumes. I think people are finally figuring out that the individual MCU movies just aren't that good and that the real appeal of it in the first three phases was that it was definitely leading to something. Phase Four, despite the "Multiverse Saga" destination, just feels like a rudderless ship crewed by a bunch of JV and C-list superheroes.

I think they made a huge mistake killing off characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers instead of just recasting them when the actors moved on. If you're going to bring in the Fantastic Four and X-Men, I think that people are going to want to see them interacting with Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, and Tony Stark, not Sam, Riri, and Yelena.

And I still don't think they know how to make Star Wars work. I think that they're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place where the hardcore fans want to see them make things like Knights of the Old Republic and expand the mythology, and Joe Sixpack just wants to see them keep going back to the Skywalker/Empire/Rebellion/Jedi/Sith stuff that they saw in Episodes I-VI.

dex14

I can’t imagine this could happen.

tanman

I REALLY hope not. I know that rumor was making the rounds a few years ago. I guess people are speculating just because Apple is strapped with so much cash? I mean does Apple even want to buy Disney? I can't really make sense of it in my totally unbusiness savvy brain.

If that really happens then it would seem Disney's returning savior would be it's doom.

devilshalo

So Apple is buying Disney, Sony and who else?

PhantomStranger

Iger has come back for one reason - he wants a bidding war between Amazon and Apple over Disney. Disney wants to sell now because Phase 4 is not looking like a box office juggernaut anymore and their IPs are waning in popularity. They overpaid for Fox and they've run the Star Wars brand into the ground, which used to be a license to print money in merchandising.

Many of Disney's problems are issues Iger created in the first place. He let Chapek be the fall guy.

DJariya

I don't buy the Apple rumor. I highly highly doubt Apple wants to deal with amusement parks, clothing, toys and cruise ships. They're a tech company.

Remember the disastrous merger between NBC and that Wine company. That literally put that Wine company in bankruptcy.

tanman

That's what I'm wondering. Apple is a pretty smart company. Why would they want to get in to all that? Is it really just because they have so much cash that this rumor keeps coming up? The only thing I can see is if they buy Disney just for their movie studio to create more content for their crappy Apple TV service. Then I can see them spinning off the rest of the business. It would be terrible for Disney and for fans as it would just rip the company apart. Really hope that doesn't happen.

tanman

They've been in way worse situations then they're in now. They're still profitable just not enormously so. I don't buy that he's wanting to sell the company.

Deftones

There is a less than zero chance apple buys Disney. The only way this works is if they keep the entertainment part of Disney but then somehow spin off the entertainment part of the company(theme parks, cruises, etc,).

tanman

That's the only thing that worries me. Apple could do that after buying Disney if they just wanted the studio. It wouldn't be good for Disney though.

And that's exactly what the plan was when Disney fought off a hostile takeover attempt in the 80's. The investment firm had plans to chop up the company to bits.

Josh-da-man

I recently read somewhere that Apple is only interested in buying ABC and ESPN, and not the entire Disney company.