CEO change may be just the beginning of Disney’s change.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “One Entertainment Watch” (ID: yiyuguancha) , author < span> Huahua, Editing poetry Yang .
Robert Iger, who has been sitting on the CEO seat of Disney for almost 15 years, finally announced his departure. Previously, his term has been extended four times, the most recent being from June last year to the end of next year. Disney seems to have been No CEO found meeting the requirements of the board.
The successor is Bob Chapek, who has a Chinese name “Bao Zhengbo” and previously headed the Disney theme park, experience and consumer goods department.
Former CEO Iger will continue to lead the board and be responsible for “hosting Disney’s creative work” until the contract expires at the end of next year. He once said, “The board and I think we should not just spend more time on succession. It is also necessary for the company to have a more reasonable transition. “
The announcement of this news is very sudden to the outside world. One is the precedent of Iger’s multiple delayed retirement. The other is that the outside world generally believes that Disney’s focus is on its newly launched streaming media business. The business leader, Kevin · Kevin Mayer is a powerful candidate for the CEO.
After the news came out, Disney’s stock price fell more than 2% in after-hours trading. After the investor conference ended, Disney reduced some losses.
Some analysts predict that Disney’s streaming business has just launched a few months ago and has launched a new CEO. Whether its business prospects and management will be adjusted further remains to be seen.
▲ Robert Iger and Bao Zhengbo
Iger’s work and experience
With Robert Iger stepping down as CEO, it’s time to review his contributions to Disney and the industry.
Iger can be said to lead Disney out of the predicament, open up a new good situation, and build its superb status in Hollywood today.
In 2005, he took over Disney in dilemma. At that time, Disney ranked second to last among the top six, and even launched the “Save Disney” campaign within the company. By 2020, the market value of Disney has soared from US $ 55 billion in 2005 to US $ 200 billion, and the total box office in 2019 will be as high as US $ 13.2 billion, which will greatly set a new industry record. It will occupy seven of the top ten box office films worldwide.
At the end of last year, “Time” named Robert Iger as the businessman of the year 2019, and wrote: “In the past 12 months, Iger completed the acquisition of Fox for $ 71 billion and opened Two Star Wars theme parks, launched the “Disney +” streaming service, took full control of Hulu, and released the highest-grossing movie “Avengers: Endgame” in movie history.
But at the industry level, at the same time as Disney’s rise to break the balance of Hollywood (one accounted for 37% of the North American box office), it relies on a series of movies, changes the way the film grabs the box office, and focuses on the family-friendly theme, which has made Hollywood in recent years. Questioning and diversified disputes.
Robert Iger took over Disney from Michael Eisner in 2005. The latter is the first external CEO of the Disney family. He has served as the president and COO of Paramount, driving the reform of Paramount.
▲ Robert Iger
Esner took office in 1984, and Disney’s situation was also at stake. After the death of founder Walt Disney, Disney’s internal struggles for control continued. In the next 20 years, only 12 films were launched, which had less influence than before. Throughout the 1980s, Disney maintained through selling DVDs of classic movies, and even suffered a hostile takeover with a market value of only 1.9 billion, and then Eisner joined.
In the early days, Eisner brought Disney to spring. In the 1990s, Disney’s animated films returned to their peak. Live-action movies also gained. The park was fully upgraded and the business expanded to television and publishing. But his dictatorship has since triggered a management crisis, Business stagnation. At that time, Disney relied heavily on the work of partner Pixar, but Eisner’s relationship with Pixar’s chairman Steve Jobs was very rigid. Disney and Pixar were on the verge of breaking up.
Disney shareholders fired Eisner’s board chairman in 2004. In 2005, when the then “second leader”, Disney President and COO Robert Iger took over as CEO, he quickly repaired the relationship with Jobs, and thereafter Completed a historic $ 7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar.
Iger often incorporates what Disney needs through large acquisitions. The primary consideration for his acquisition is whether it can enhance the Disney brand.
When he took over, Disney’s animation department was weak, and the company’s tradition was animation. He eventually convinced the board to open up his pockets. In an interview, he talked about Disney’s subsequent abandonment of Twitter, in addition to the complexity of the deal itself, but also because Twitter isn’t suitable for a “company designed to provide joy through stories.”
After that, Disney acquired Marvel and Lucasfilm for 4.2 billion and 4 billion, respectively, and put a large number of comics and film IP under its umbrella.
When Disney bought Marvel, Sony had Spider-Man, Fox had X-Men, Universal had Hulk, Paramount had Iron Man, and five Marvel movies had distribution rights. Warner Bros. does not have Marvel, but holds DC, which includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and so on. Iger fancy more than 5,000 characters in Marvel. He asked the intern to look through all Marvel comics in the office and count how many characters there were. Disney headquarters was full of Marvel comics.
Although Disney’s stock fell as the acquisition was announced, Marvel quickly proved it different. By opening up the Marvel universe, from the picture to the story, they have a unified tone. The most important thing is to rely on the simultaneous advancement of different stories. Marvel can develop several movies a year. Marvel has released 23 movies in 10 years, which continues to bombard people. Eyeballs created a box office myth. Compared with “Star Wars”, which has only been published for more than 40 years, “Transformers” has been released for 5 years.
▲ “Avengers 4” becomes the global box office champion
This success has triggered Hollywood’s followers. Now the major companies’ film lists are all series of movies, remakes, adaptations … According to statistics, Hollywood’s original movies have fallen from 50% in the 1990s to less than 20%.
At the same time, Disney ’s massive acquisition has also expanded the trend of formulating movies and lost content.