Bob Chapek: Last News

Disney has eliminated a small business unit focused on exploring the metaverse, part of its initial efforts to reduce its workforce by about 7,000 employees.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor As part of a companywide cost-cutting effort, Disney has axed its cross-divisional Next Generation Storytelling & Consumer Experiences group, which encompassed the Mouse House’s metaverse ambitions. The elimination of Disney’s Next Generation Storytelling & Consumer Experiences group, led by company veteran Mike White, affects about 50 employees, Variety confirmed. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. A Disney rep declined to comment. The shutdown of Disney’s metaverse group came Monday with the first wave of the company’s move to slash 7,000 jobs under interim CEO Bob Iger, which is part of its attempt to reduce $5.5 billion in costs. Following this week’s layoffs, there will be a larger second round of cuts next month, Iger told employees in a memo Monday. A final round of layoffs will hit “before the beginning of summer,” according to Iger.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has confirmed the first of three rounds of layoffs is starting this week as the company looks to reduce its workforce by about 7,000 employees.

Returned Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that fans had a right to be irked as theme park ticket prices crept higher under the previous regime, and said it wasn’t the best way to manage the brand.

Disney CEO Bob Iger called succession top priority as he moves to turn the company around and, with the board, name a new chief executive before the end of his two-year contract.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Bob Iger, just over three months back as CEO of Disney, discussed major organizational changes he’s made at the company — and his optimism about making streaming, particularly Disney+, a profitable piece of the empire. “I’m generally bullish on streaming as a great consumer proposition, as a really robust platform to deliver high-quality content,” Iger said, speaking Thursday at the 2023 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco. But “we have to better rationalize our costs” and “obviously we have to attract more subs.” In addition, he said, “In our zeal to grow global subs, I think we were off in terms of our pricing strategy, and we’re starting to learn more about it.” Iger also said Disney overall had a “disconnect” between what it was spending on content and how it was monetizing that — and that the company needs to become “more judicious” about content investment.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ new book — a possible prelude to a 2024 presidential run — includes a chapter highlighting his efforts last year to pass a parental rights bill, dubbed the “don’t say gay” law by detractors, amid opposition from The Walt Disney Co.

Tatiana Siegel On Nov. 20, Disney shocked Hollywood when it announced that Bob Iger would return as CEO after less than a year away. Two days later, Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” landed a coveted China release. Then, the sci-fi film received a rare release extension in China that allowed it to run through Feb. 14, enabling it to gross more than $240 million in the country.  Though Disney insiders say China’s embrace of “Avatar” was unrelated to Iger’s return, its success and a string of good fortune for the company has raised eyebrows at rival studios. That’s because after seeing its Marvel releases denied entry to China for nearly four years, Disney recently announced that “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” were being waved into the country. (“Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 was the last Disney Marvel movie to secure a release in the Middle Kingdom, earning $632 million there.) And if things seem cozier between Disney and China, there’s no missing that a recent “Simpsons” episode that took a shot at the country’s human rights record never appeared on Disney+ in Hong Kong. The episode’s infraction involved a bit where a virtual tour guide tells Marge: “Behold the wonders of China. Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones.” That joke was enough for the episode to receive the boot. The “Simpsons” move represents a stark difference from Disney’s recent approach elsewhere in Asia, where it chose to forego the release of titles including “Thor” and “Lightyear” rather than cave to pressure from censors over those films’ LGBTQ characters.

Disney Entertainment, the new division run by Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, will oversee the company’s main streaming services including Disney+ as details of the company strategic restructuring emerge.

Activist investor Nelson Peltz said this morning that he’s ending his proxy fight againt Disney after CEO Bob Iger announced sweeping restructuring and cost cutting plans yesterday alongside the company’s latest quarterly earnings.

During the same earnings conference call where Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the company will lay off 7,000 workers in a cost-cutting move, he also announced the hit Avatar franchise is coming to Disneyland.Iger, 71, who returned as CEO in November 2022 to replace embattled Bob Chapek, revealed the new project will be dubbed the Avatar Experience (via Deadline). While he didn't reveal any specifics, adding that more details will be, 'coming soon,' the move comes as Avatar: The Way of Water is closing in on $2.2 billion at the worldwide box office.The original Avatar was released by 20th Century Fox back in 2009, becoming the biggest film at the domestic ($749.9 million) and worldwide ($2.743 billion) box office.The film, its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water and the other forthcoming sequels are now under the Disney banner after the studio purchased 20th Century Fox (now branded 20th Century Studios), which was finalized in 2019.

As Disney reported better-than-expected financials for the fiscal first quarter, CEO Bob Iger said the company is “embarking on a significant transformation” that will reshape the company he rejoined last November.

The Walt Disney Company will be laying off thousands of employees as a part of a new round of cost cutting measures, CEO Bob Iger revealed today.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company has asked its board to reinstate the dividend by the end of the calendar year. The payouts, beloved by investors, especially Disney’s legion of retail shareholders, was stopped abruptly during Covid to conserve cash.

Disney is moving back closer to how things used to be run on the content side with the creation of a new Disney Entertainment unit that will encompass TV and film.

Disney is reorganizing its sprawling businesses under three core segments — Entertainment, ESPN and Parks, Experiences & Products — as CEO Bob Iger moves to restructure the company.

The initial exuberance and relief following Bob Iger’s return as Disney CEO has been replaced by anxiety as speculation about a pending corporate restructuring is intensifying — and with it, rumors about the layoffs that are likely to follow.

Former Disney chief executive Bob Chapek earned $24 million in fiscal 2022, down sharply from $32 million the year before, the company revealed in its proxy Tuesday.

Disney came out swinging Tuesday against Trian Partners and owner Nelson Peltz, the activist investor who’s pushing a proxy fight to take a seat on Disney’s board. “The current board is the right board for Disney shareholders,” the company said in a filing today with the SEC. “Nelson Peltz does not understand Disney’s business and lacks the skills and experience to assist the board in delivering shareholder value in a rapidly shifting media ecosystem.”

Investor Nelson Peltz’s broadside against the the Walt Disney Co., and the prospect of rare proxy fight at the media giant, stunned media circles this week — and a flurry of SEC filings over the past few days suggest plenty more fireworks to come.

Don’t say Disney isn’t a practitioner of theatrical windows: Their $821M-plus grossing Marvel Studios hit Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will finally land on Disney on Feb. 1, 82 days after its U.S. theatrical release. The movie opened on Nov. 11 to a stateside gross of $181.3M, $331.6M WW.