Displaying items by tag: Lonelyhearts BD review

Well, the big news this week is so big that we’re going to address it right off the top: In a sudden and unexpected move, Disney’s board of directors has ousted CEO Bob Chapek and re-hired Bob Iger. The news came out of the blue on Sunday night and seems to have taken everyone by surprise. Bob Iger of course was the company’s previous CEO, who took over for Michael Eisner—the man who’d served in that role for over two decades at that point—back in 2005. It was under Iger’s watch that Disney acquired Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and the film division of 20th Century Fox. He also laid the groundwork for the launch of Disney+ in 2019.

Chapek was no stranger to Disney, having joined the company in 1993 as the director of marketing for Buena Vista Home Entertainment. In this capacity he helped steer Disney through the “Golden Age” of DVD and eventually the launch of Blu-ray, which is how I came to know him. He was so successful in that capacity that he was promoted to president of Home Entertainment in 2006, and eventually took over at Disney Consumer Products (in 2011) and Parks and Resorts (in 2015), which seemed to make him a natural fit to become CEO of Disney himself when Iger eventually stepped down.

But apparently, Iger and Chapek did not often see eye to eye. Iger, who could (and probably should) have worked more aggressively to groom a clear successor to lead the company in his own image, failed to do so, resulting in Chapek’s elevation to CEO in 2020. But Chapek’s reign was troubled from the very start, stricken first by the COVID-19 pandemic and next by a series of public “self-owns” and media missteps. [Read on here...]

Published in My Two Cents