FX and Shōgun propelled Disney to a total of 60 Emmy wins, but it’s not all smooth sailing at the house of mouse. The tense negotiations around the succession of leadership between Bob Iger and Bob Chapek were aired front and center in the New York Times. Kim Masters and Matt Belloni relay the tale, which shows both parties in a bad light.
Was a peaceful transition ever in the cards? A confusing division of oversight quickly led to the termination of Bob Chapek as chief executive of Disney. In 2022, Bob Iger — who previously led the company for 15 years — was reintroduced as the successor until 2026. Iger comes across as petty and undermining in the piece. Meanwhile, Chapek is seen as a faulty heir from the start. “Nobody looks good in this story. I mean not even Willow Bay, Bob Iger's wife, looks good in this story,” says Belloni.
Misreading the room? Though Iger may have courted an inevitable power struggle by naming himself chief creative officer, Chapek’s decision-making was questionable on more than one occasion. His introduction of DMED, the distribution unit, took away the power of creatives. Then, his silence on Florida’s anti-LGBTQ bills drove a further wedge between him and Disney’s creatives. Chapek also shouldered the bulk of the blame around the contract debacle over Scarlett Johansson’s 2021 Black Widow standalone film. “His reorganization that split the money responsibilities from the creative execs, I think that alone was such a bad move,” says Masters.
How did we get here? Prior to the announcement of Chapek as executive, the board agreed to have him report to both them and Iger. This caused not only internal confusion, but called into question who was really in charge. The mixed loyalty between both Bobs was doomed from the start, “We talk about how Iger fumbled succession. He didn't fumble it. The board fumbled it. They allowed this charade to go on,” says Belloni.