Bob Chapek: Last News

Rita Ferro, Disney’s ad sales and partnerships chief, urged media buyers at the company’s New York upfront Tuesday to “lean into all aspects of diversity” with their marketing commitments.

J. Kim Murphy Bob Chapek, the former Disney CEO who was abruptly ousted from the company last November, is among a group of executives facing a lawsuit claiming violations of securities law for allegedly providing misleading statements and omissions about Disney+ and its subscriber growth. The case, filed by Local 272 Labor Management Pension Fund on May 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, also names former Disney executive Kareem Daniel and current CFO Christine McCarthy, as well as the Walt Disney Co. itself, as defendants. The document states that the case seeks a lead plaintiff and judicial determination for a class action suit representing Disney shareholders from Dec. 10, 2020 to Nov. 8, 2022.

To paraphrase Neil Young, Bob Chapek is gone from Disney but not forgotten.

Disney’s seemingly successful efforts to outfox Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ power grab to control the area around Disney World are “not even worth the paper they were printed on,” according to a countersuit filed Monday by the GOP presidential aspirant’s replacement board.

EXCLUSIVE: As Disney cuts 4K staffers across the conglomerate in a goal to reach $5.5 billion in savings, Deadline has learned that on the feature side, those being laid off were largely comprised of mid-level and coordinator staffers.

Disney is initiating the second and largest round of its planned layoffs Monday and expects to reach 4,000 of its projected 7,000 staff cuts by Thursday.

Kristina Schake, who joined Disney a little more than a year ago as EVP and Chief Communications Officer, is getting a pay raise and a contract extension.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis insisted again today that he and the state legislature can and will overturn any Disney development deal and retake control of the acreage that’s home to Walt Disney World and was administered by the company in what’s called the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Disney has a new streaming boss.

Bob Iger is back, debonaire, relaxed, articulate and talking up Disney IP via video in front of Walt Disney Word, where the company appears to have outmaneuvered Ron DeSantis for control. He also fianlly spoke his mind on the simmering feud, telling the company’s virtual annual shareholder meeting today that the governor’s apparent “retaliation” against Disney for exercising a right to free speech “is not only anti-business, but anti-Florida,” given the jobs, taxes, resources and revenue Disney provides the state.

Governor Ron DeSantis promised more to come on the state’s increasingly convoluted fight with Disney to wrest back the company’s control of a swath of central Florida that is home to Walt Disney World.

Disney has let go SVP and Chief Compliance Officer Alicia Schwarz, Deadline has learned, amid a major retrenchment at the company.

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.