Why has Disney had such a terrible year?
Bob Iger, Disney CEO. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, recently said that he would no longer tolerate prioritising messaging over storytelling. Iger’s comments come after a challenging year for Disney - for the first time since 2014, the studio has failed to produce a movie that grossed over a billion dollars. Contrasting this year to 2019, when Disney had seven of these billion dollar juggernauts, may seem a bit undue, but so too is their rapid descent at the box office. For example, The Marvels, launched in late November, opened at just $47 million in the U.S. - the lowest total ever for a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie.
Iger’s comments represent a growing cry for new ideas at Disney. Sequels are recycled. Think of Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Thor last year - they were all sequels. This year, Ant-Man and Indiana Jones are the latest storylines saturated in overproduction. Despite Disney's unprecedented entertainment success in the 2010s, there are only so many times you can make a sequel before you get called out for it. Iger admitted this, saying that they had ‘made too many’ and citing that there had to be a reason ‘beyond commerce’ for a sequel - hinting at languid storytelling in many of the productions of recent years.
But sequels and flat storytelling are not the only explanations for Disney's recent slump. Their streaming platform, Disney+, has been growingly under fire for producing too much content - especially TV shows. The platform, heralded during the pandemic by company executives for providing a safety net, has pioneered the release of ‘spin-off’ material from many of its subsidiary organisations. For example, Star Wars has produced four spin-off series in just two years. Similarly, in Phase 4 of the MCU, eight TV series have been released since 2021.
According to Iger, the difficulty of overseeing numerous productions alongside pandemic restrictions prevented studio executives from having ‘enough’ input - catalysing the problem of storytelling, with the outcome being swathes of mediocre content. Iger, who was CEO from 2005-2020 and returned in 2022 to help steady the ship, could be correct by citing the shift from quality to quantity, but there are also many other factors, such as the Hollywood writers’ strike which prevented press tours and the promotion of summer blockbusters, that could have contributed to the company's recent failings.
As Disney looks to overcome its least successful period in at least two decades, attention from the outside is turning to the current leadership structure. It is old - alongside Iger, Sean Bailey has been the head of production at Disney since 2010, while Alan Bergman has been in senior leadership roles since 2001. Kevin Feige has been the head of Marvel Studios since 2007, Jim Morris has been the president of Pixar animation studios for nearly ten years, and Thomas Schumacher has been the president of Disney Theatrical Productions since 1999. The company may want fresh ideas to combat its problems, and examining the tenures of current leaders could be the best place to start. The appointment of two new board members, current J.P. Morgan chief executive James Gorman and former head of Sky Jeremy Darroch, does demonstrate a willingness for change, but it may not be enough.
As the entertainment industry evolves at an ever-faster rate, Disney - a renowned paragon of creativity - needs to keep up. Saturating old material, blitzing content output and placating content with overkill messaging are all answers provided by CEO Iger. But leadership may also be a problem that he won’t want to admit. Disney must learn to navigate the current streaming world with greater efficacy if it wishes to remain the zeitgeist of entertainment in the 2020s.