Bob Chapek: Last News

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The initial exuberance and relief following Bob Iger’s return as Disney CEO has been replaced by anxiety as speculation about a pending corporate restructuring is intensifying — and with it, rumors about the layoffs that are likely to follow.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

In about 698 days, the Walt Disney Company is supposed to have its fourth CEO in three years.

The King of the World won’t be at the L.A. premiere tonight for Avatar: The Way of Water after testing positive for Covid.

Yesterday’s DC chaos about the unplugging of Patty Jenkins’ version of Wonder Woman 3 coupled with rampant rumors of the studio’s new co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran turning the comic book label upside down sans a Henry Cavill Man of Steel 2 and possible re-casting of many current big superhero roles has left the town with a bad case of PTSD.

When Disney launches the ad-supported tier of Disney+ later this week, about one-quarter of current U.S. subscribers are expected to opt for the lower-cost version with ads, according to new research from Kantar.

When Michael Eisner was making a ceremonial exit as Disney’s CEO in 2005 he acknowledged that the intrigues of succession had become “Shakespearean.” Rival corporate factions were vying for power. Some insiders were persuaded that Eisner never would actually depart.

A media sector squeezed by streaming losses, anemic stocks, layoffs and executive turmoil unveiled its latest casualties today – 20% of AMC Networks’ U.S. staff, or about 200 people, along with the departure of CEO Christina Spade.

“There is a lot to do,” Bob Iger told Disney staffers today of the state of the company he is now running again. “Quickly,” added the newly re-minted CEO at a town hall at the company’s Burbank HQ heralding his official return.

Disney stock faded more than 1% on the second day of Bob Iger’s return engagement as CEO, reflecting investors’ divergent outlooks on the media giant’s prospects

The surprise return of Bob Iger as Disney CEO, replacing his own replacement Bob Chapek, is not without precedent in corporate America, as Jimmy Kimmel reminded viewers last night.