Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
What is the essence
of Disney. Disney is make-believe, wishing, hoping, dreaming, firework shows. I would have to say it's once upon a time. Once upon a time means we're going to tell you something that is so fantastic and wonderful, you're going to need your imagination to believe it. Once upon a time, Disney was a motion picture studio in a sea of Hollywood studios doing something nobody else was doing.
Disney's business is memory making. Disney's business is tradition. Following Walt Disney's vision, the company made beloved, family-friendly animated films and built magical theme parks where those movies came alive. You know, Disneyland was the first virtual reality. But here's the thing about kingdoms. They don't last forever. When I first joined Disney, I took over as CFO. And it was a broken company.
And I'd never really seen a broken company before. To survive, Disney had to grow, to expand into new lands like television. It was a great time, and I think it provided a lot of rocket fuel for some of the acquisitions that happened. Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, 20th Century Fox...
Over the past 20 years, Disney CEO Bob Iger acquired them all. And that family-friendly movie studio became a nearly $200 billion company, a behemoth of franchises and intellectual property and interlocking lines of business.
But now, Disney's facing a whole new level of competition. Major studios in Hollywood have basically been role-playing as tech companies. Disney was dragged into the streaming wars. They did not want to get into this arms race with Netflix. Can Disney find the right leadership to fight its next battles? I think
The board feels like the only person that can run this company is Bob Iger. And the reason that the only person who can run this company is Bob Iger is that Bob Iger sort of engineered this company.
And has all that tremendous growth eroded what made Disney, Disney? The Disney animation films now often feel to me like they're grasping for something that has passed. And I don't know if the world cares that this is a Disney movie anymore. When everything is Disney, nothing is. That's how it feels now because all the lines are blurred. I'm Joe Adalian. I'm hosting Land of the Giants: The Disney Dilemma from Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
This season, we're going to explore how Disney has stumbled on the path to growth and what it must do next to keep its Cinderella story going. Follow Land of the Giants wherever you listen and get our first episode on Wednesday, July 10th.