Disney Biggest Moments of 2023
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Disney celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023 — but the Mouse House had a rough-and-tumble year.
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CEO Bob Iger, after stepping back into the C-suite (for a tenure that will last at least through the end of 2026), swung the axe in a round of mass layoffs among other cost-cutting and strategic moves as he looked to right the Good Ship Mickey. Iger said he’s been “fixing a lot of problems that the company has had and dealing with a lot of challenges,” some of which he blamed on “decisions that were made by my predecessor,” ousted ex-CEO Bob Chapek.
Also in 2023, Disney movies suffered a dismal year at the box office, with the company’s slate failing to deliver any billion-dollar-plus blockbusters. Meanwhile, Iger raised the question (unanswered, for now) about whether Disney’s stable of linear TV networks are “core” to the business given ongoing declines in ratings and the surge of streaming. Sports powerhouse ESPN is on track to launch a full direct-to-consumer offering in 2025, while the company has been exploring options to bring in strategic equity partners for ESPN. Iger also rolled out a massive plan to invest in Disney’s theme parks and cruise lines, telling investors the company would boost capital spending in the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products segment to nearly double over the next 10 years with approximately $60 billion total.
And Disney and Iger also were embroiled in fights with the company’s detractors, including striking writers and actors (Iger said the unions had “unrealistic” demands), Ron DeSantis, Elon Musk and activist investor Nelson Peltz — who rekindled his bid to shake up the Disney board.
Here are the most dramatic Disney moments of 2023.
Disney Lays Off More Than 8,000 Employees
Iger’s cost-cutting plan at Disney included the elimination of more than 8,000 jobs this year (originally pegged at 7,000), with cutbacks concentrated in its media divisions. For the fiscal 2023 year ended Sept. 30, Disney recorded severance-related charges of $357 million. At the company’s town hall in November, Iger told employees, “I knew that there were myriad challenges that I would face coming back. I won’t say that it was easy, but I’ve never second-guessed the decision to come back. And being back still feels great.”
A Brutal Year at the Box Office
For the first time since 2014, Disney had a year without a billion-dollar movie at the global box office (excluding 2020 and 2021, when theaters were largely shuttered due to COVID). The disappointments included “The Marvels,” the lowest-grossing release ever in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, garnering just $84 million domestically to date and $204.6 million worldwide. Epitomizing Disney’s cinema woes: James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” — released by its 20th Century Studios subsidiary at the end of 2022 — grossed $283 million domestically in 2023. That was more than most of Disney’s would-be blockbusters, including “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($214 million), “Indiana Jones 5” ($174 million), “Elemental” ($154 million), “Haunted Mansion” ($67 million) and “Wish” ($54 million to date).
A bright spot: Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” pulled in $845.6 million worldwide, a strong showing even if it didn’t break a billion. And this summer’s “The Little Mermaid” scored $569 million globally; however, previous Disney live-action adaptations like “The Lion King” or “Beauty and the Beast” easily topped the billion-dollar threshold.
Iger Angers Striking Workers by Saying Their Expectations Were ‘Not Realistic’
Amid the WGA strike and on the eve of the SAG-AFTRA walkout, Bob Iger gave workers on the picket lines a new reason to fight by saying the unions were not being “realistic” in their demands, which he called “very disturbing.”
“We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business,” Iger said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” from the elite executive Sun Valley Conference in Idaho. “We wanted to do the same thing with the writers and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors. There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”
Another Board Fight
After stepping back from his fight with Disney and Iger earlier this year, activist investor Nelson Peltz clambered back — and it’s gotten personal.
Peltz’s Trian Fund Management announced it was launching a proxy-ballot battle to get two seats on the board at Disney’s shareholder meeting next spring, saying it would nominate Peltz himself and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo as independent director candidates.
“Disney is one of the most iconic companies in the world with unrivaled scale, unparalleled customer loyalty, irreplaceable intellectual property (IP) and an enviable commercial flywheel. However, Disney has woefully underperformed its peers and its potential,” Trian said in a statement.
In its Nov. 30 response to Trian, Disney noted that 78% of the shares claimed to be beneficially owned by Trian are owned by former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter. The company also alleged Perlmutter has a personal grudge against Iger, saying he “was terminated from his employment by Disney earlier this year and has voiced his longstanding personal agenda against Disney’s CEO, Robert A. Iger, which may be different than that of all other shareholders.”
Peltz asserts that Disney stock has underperformed its media-industry peers and the broader market over the last decade — and even before that, shares languished since Iger was first appointed CEO in 2005. Trian claims “Disney shareholders were once over $200 billion wealthier than they are now,” referencing the cumulative market value lost between Disney’s all-time high closing stock price on March 8, 2021, and Oct. 6, 2023.
Moving to Own 100% of Hulu
Disney is in the middle of closing a deal with Comcast to acquire full ownership of Hulu. The company this month paid $8.61 billion to Comcast, which holds a 33% stake in Hulu but the final price tag could be much higher — that will be based on an assessment of Hulu’s market value as of Sept. 30 by each side’s bankers.
Even before that happens, Disney has started to integrate Disney+ and Hulu, aiming to strengthen the bundle and cut churn and customer-acquisition costs. Beginning Dec. 6, most Hulu content became available on Disney+ in the U.S. in a “one-app experience” for subscribers of both services. The initial “beta” of Hulu on Disney+ will be followed by the launch of a more integrated version in March 2024, which will coincide with Hulu adding all seasons of ABC’s hit drama “Grey’s Anatomy” (sharing streaming rights to the show with Netflix).
Dozens of Shows Pulled Off Disney+ and Hulu
For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Disney took a total of $2.58 billion in content-impairment charges, including for dozens of titles it removed from streaming services to reduce costs. This spring, the media company pulled more than 50 titles from Disney+ and Hulu, including series “Willow,” “The Mysterious Benedict Society” and “Dollface,” and movies such as the Oscar-nominated “The One and Only Ivan.” That came after Iger told investors the company would raise the price on the ad-free Disney+ tier this year “to better reflect the value of our content offerings.” As of Oct. 12, the price of Disney+ Premium (with no ads) increased 27%, rising from $10.99 to $13.99/month for U.S. customers while the ad-supported version remained at $7.99/month.
Disney-DeSantis Feud Grinds On
The beef between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who as of this writing is still trying to win the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, continued to wend its way through the courts through the year. Disney angered DeSantis in 2022 when it opposed the state’s Parental Rights in Education bill, known to critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” which regulates classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity and gives parents the right to sue school districts over alleged violations.
Disney on April 26 sued DeSantis in federal court, arguing that the governor illegally seized control over the Orlando-area Reedy Creek Improvement District, which encompasses Disney World. Disney has accused DeSantis and his allies of violating its First Amendment rights with “a targeted campaign of government retaliation.” The case remains pending.
“It seems like he’s decided to retaliate against us,” Iger said about DeSantis during the company’s annual shareholders meeting in April. He also referred to DeSantis’ power struggle with Disney as an attempt “to punish a company for its exercise of a constitutional right.”
DeSantis, in his glitch-plagued announcement on X (formerly Twitter) launching his 2024 presidential campaign, alleged Disney wanted to “inject gender ideology” into the state’s schools. Some Republicans who are supporting Disney in its fight with DeSantis “are showing themselves to be corporatists,” the governor said. DeSantis also claimed “nobody made Disney more money than me” because Florida allowed theme parks to reopen during COVID while California kept them shut down for much longer.
ESPN Gets Separated and Linear Networks Stay in Limbo
What’s the future of ESPN and Disney’s other legacy TV network businesses?
Iger earlier this year separated ESPN, headed by chairman Jimmy Pitaro, breaking out as a separate unit from Disney’s linear TV networks group. That wasn’t to signal that ESPN is for sale, according to Iger — but he later said in a July CNBC interview that the company was looking for a strategic partner to invest in ESPN and distribute its content. (Disney currently owns 80% of ESPN and Hearst owns the other 20%.) Iger subsequently recruited former high-ranking Disney execs Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer, co-heads of media roll-up play Candle Media, to help analyze and develop strategic options for ESPN.
Meanwhile, Iger said in the same CNBC interview that ABC, Disney Channel and the ABC station group “may not be core” to Disney’s business — indicating a sale or spinoff might be in the offing. But at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last month, Iger said Disney’s TV nets were “not for sale.” What did he mean with his earlier remarks then? At DealBook, Iger tried to explain: “Sometimes, when I am looking for a reaction to my own thought process, I like to test that process in public, particularly in ways that I might be able to get a reaction from the investment community. So my thought was at the time that I would essentially be public with that thought process.”
A Massive Pay-Discrimination Lawsuit
Disney is facing a class-action lawsuit that alleges that the company paid 9,000 women employees less than their male counterparts — the largest ever certified under California’s Equal Pay Act, which makes it illegal for workers to be paid less for substantially similar work based on their gender. “Disney has been gaslighting these women for four years,” said Lori Andrus, the plaintiffs’ attorney. A Disney rep, commenting on a judge’s Dec. 8 ruling allowing the suit to proceed, said, “We are disappointed with the court’s ruling as to the Equal Pay Act claims and are considering our options.”
Elon Musk Rages at ‘Bob Eiger’ After Disney Pulls Ads From X
In a dubious achievement, Bob Iger earned the enmity of the world’s richest individual: Elon Musk. The billionaire was furious at Disney and its CEO after the company pulled its ad spending from Musk’s X (the social media platform formerly called Twitter).
The acrimony stemmed from Musk’s post on X on Nov. 15, “You have said the actual truth,” replying to someone who evoked the white-nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory that Jewish communities “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
At the New York Times’ DealBook conference last month, Iger was asked about Musk’s comment. “I have a lot of respect for Elon and what he has accomplished,” Iger said. However, given “the position [Musk] took, in quite a public manner,” Disney concluded that its association with Musk and X/Twitter was “not necessarily a positive one for us.”
Later in the day at the same conference, Musk had a message to Iger and others who had halted ad spending on X: “Go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear?” Musk said. He called out Iger and said, “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel — don’t advertise.”
Musk wasn’t done fuming. Posting on X earlier this month, Musk cited a report that New Mexico’s attorney general sued Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that the company’s platforms enabled the distribution of child sexual abuse material and failed to identify alleged predator networks. (A Meta spokesperson said that it uses “sophisticated technology” and employs child-safety experts to share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, “including state attorneys general, to help root out predators.”) Musk accused Disney of a double standard in not pulling advertising from Meta.
“Bob Eiger [sic] thinks it’s cool to advertise next to child exploitation material. Real stand up guy,” Musk wrote in a post on X, misspelling Iger’s name. The tech mogul said in a follow-up post about Iger, “He should be fired immediately. Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company.” Disney has declined to comment on Musk’s remarks.
Meanwhile, Tesla has reportedly removed the Disney+ streaming app from its electric vehicles, in an apparent retaliatory move by Musk.
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