The pandemic hasn’t been an easy time for anyone, including many Hollywood realities like the Disney who, in addition to the problems caused by the new Coronavirus, also had to deal with a managerial handover between the former CEO Bob Iger and the one who replaced him, Bob Chapek. A regency, that of Bob Chapek, which has given rise to various criticisms and missteps, from the disproportionate increase in admission tickets to the Disney Parks to the almost breaking up with various stars following the incident with Scarlett Johansson (HERE’S ALL THE DETAILS) passing through the management of theatrical and streaming distribution windows. All without even mentioning the drastic drop in the average quality of the offer.
Precisely for this reason, towards the end of November, Bob Chapek resigned with immediate effect from the leadership of the Disney and the multinational is back under the leadership of Bob Iger (HERE ARE ALL THE DETAILS).
In a recent talk at the Morgan Stanley conference, Bob Iger outlined the strategies that the Disney will adopt in the various operating divisions, from theme parks, to the expenses incurred for the production of film and television content, to the management of important franchises Marvel And Star Wars.
The reduction of budgets and the realization of projects that will be sold to others
Bob Iger explains:
I’m very happy to see that the support I’m getting from the company’s content creators is meaningful and real, and it also comes in the form of reducing spending on what’s being produced, whether it’s a series or a film. Costs have increased excessively and – in my opinion – are no longer sustainable. They all agreed on the issue. It’s about understanding how much volume we need while reducing what we do. It’s about understanding how much we spend on what we do and how much we do.
The CEO also mentions the possibility, which he defines himself “forbidden” until some time ago, to create content that will then be sold to others:
While we plan to reduce the content we make for our platforms, there are likely opportunities to license something to third parties. For a certain period of time it was something forbidden, which we could not actually do because we had to favor our streaming platforms. But if we get to a point where we need less content for these platforms, even though we have the capability to produce that content, why not use it to grow revenue? And that’s what we’ll probably do.
Marvel and Star Wars: Disney will focus more on quality than quantity
With new movies from Star Wars Still “missing in action” after the weak closure of the New Trilogy and with several missteps in the field of Marvel Cinematic Universejust think of the critical debacles of films such as Eternals and Ant-Man 3 something that seemed unthinkable until Avengners: Endgame, there is a need for Disney to reshape the approach to these important franchises, of which Bob Iger he is well aware.
To begin with, explain that intellectual property such as those mentioned above will remain the exclusive prerogative of Disney platforms and will not fit into that discourse of “collaboration with third parties” which we wrote a few lines above.
Disney is very strong, it is certainly the strongest brand in family entertainment. And when the live action of The Little Mermaid is released in May, we will remind everyone of the power of the brand.
As for brands Marvel And Star Warsthe executive makes it clear that the company is carefully pondering the next steps, the approach to be adopted in the times to come.
What we have in mind with Marvel doesn’t necessarily have to do with the volume of what we want to tell, but rather with how many times we have to go back to drawing from the well of certain characters. Take the sequels: they tend to work well for us. But, for example, is there always a need for a third or fourth chapter? Or maybe you need to turn your attention to other characters? We have to evaluate which characters and stories to dig up. If you look at Marvel’s trajectory over the past five years, you’ll see a lot of new things. We will go back to the Avengers franchise, which will be, for example, a completely different team.
Then, turning his attention to Star Warsadds:
With Star Wars we have made three chapters, which we define as belonging to the Saga as sequels to the first six by George Lucas. They did well at the box office, in fact I would say terribly well. Then there were the two standalones, Rogue One and Solo. Rogue One did quite well, while Solo was a disappointment for us. But it was an opportunity to understand that we had chosen too aggressive a cadence. That’s why we decided to stay a while. We’re still developing Star Wars movies. But we want to make sure that when we make one, it’s the right one. This is the reason for our attention and caution.
Bb Iger explains that the reasoning that Disney intends to make will certainly be based on exploiting the weight of certain brands, but that, from now on, the focus will also be more on the quality of the offer rather than on the volume of the same.
HBO tried it well, in those halcyon days when it was high-quality programming that made the difference, not volume. Platforms require so much volume of stuff that you have to wonder if that’s the right decision to make, if it’s correct to abound with the offer, or if it makes more sense to be more cautious more – I used the word “judgmental” from time to time – but I would also say picky about what you do.
The prices and offers of the Disney Parks
The “new” The CEO admitted that the annoyance felt by fans in the face of the increase in the admission price to the parks implemented by the previous management was perfectly justified:
I’ve always believed that the Disney brand should need to be accessible. In our profit-driven zeal to increase profits, we may have been a little too aggressive on pricing. I think there’s a way that we can continue to grow our business while also being smart about pricing, so we maintain the business value of affordability.
At Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World in Orlando, the company has slashed some rates and reintroduced features that had been removed, such as free parking for hotel guests, easing reservation requirements for annual pass holders, and etc.
Moves that:
They have been extremely well received by consumers who we will continue to not only listen to but use as guides for our course adjustments.
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SOURCE: Deadline, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter