It’s been a massive day for entertainment news. I already had one thing planned for an article today, but then Disney released a “memo” from CEO, Bob Chapek, and that threw all my plans right out the door. I’ve been hearing all about changes coming to Disney, some of which I’ve been able to write about, but the “memo” caught me off guard. I keep putting the word “memo” in parenthesis because this really isn’t some sort of directive to the average employee at The Walt Disney Company. Rather, this is an announcement for public consumption, and specifically for investors. Let me break it down…
Disney is in a rough spot right now, but you’re probably not supposed to know that. Unless you follow very specific information channels, it’s almost given that you have no idea that Disney has released box office flop after box office flop in 2021. That was bad enough, but it was manageable. Then Spider-Man No Way Home came out, just crossed 1.5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office, and blew up Disney’s narrative for why they can’t produce a film that makes money. So now they don’t just have financial losers for films, but they also have the issue of investors wanting to know why they can’t make a Spider-Man. Frankly, that’s a great question.
Disney also has an issue with their streaming services. They are solidly behind Netflix with all of their projections being missed as of late. In North America, they’ve plateaued at 40 million households, far below what they need to take the top spot in streaming platforms. Worse, their worldwide numbers are buoyed by all-but-fake stats out of India. How many users does Disney have out of India paying a grand total of about 65 cents per month? That’s something you should look up if you think Disney’s streaming subscribers are impressive.
.@hiphoptamizha’s #Anbarivu recorded a massive viewership on Disney+ Hotstar #1 in India today. Sunday curfew resulted in a huge hike in viewership. pic.twitter.com/P2zVHXNukt
— LetsCinema (@letscinema) January 9, 2022
I exclusively broke that Disney’s hotel and park reservations were down for Disney World going into the spring. That’s all but confirmed now that Disney is offering Florida residents the chance to come to Disney World on weekdays for fifty dollars a day. That’s more than at 50% reduction in cost. They call it Magic Weekday Tickets so they don’t have to say 50% Off Sale. If they were maxing out their limited capacity numbers in the spring, do you think they’d be offering half-off tickets?
The “memo” from Bob Chapek also comes as Disney World is announcing significant price increases for food and beverages across the parts and resorts. Is it any surprise that Disney would like to suck up some of the press’ bandwidth by releasing a once-in-a-century “memo” on the same day they hike soda bottles to five dollars a pop? Checking around the various Disney World fan sites, I’ve never seen the fanatics this annoyed with Disney policies. Clearly, Disney would like to avoid that topic as much as possible.
All of that said, there are some tangible things in this release from Bob Chapek, and some of it is positive for those who would like to see Disney return to making good movies. It’s definitely a positive if you’re an investor. Let’s go through some of the language and break it down together:
First, storytelling excellence. What makes Disney so unique is that the stories we tell mean something to people. They inspire, give hope, bring us together, illuminate the world around us, and create memories. That is Disney magic, and we must continue to set the creative bar higher and higher. To that end—and in addition to all my other creative meetings—I am establishing a new standing monthly meeting with our senior creative leaders to discuss the opportunities we face as a storytelling enterprise. This will encourage collaboration, sharing of best practices, and stimulate cross-studio ideation.
We get a tangible, short-term change here. Disney is going to start having their studios meet together with Mr. Chapek once a month. When they say “senior creative leaders”, that’s the top level entertainment executives and studio heads, plus a few extra guests. Not having known they were going to do this, it’s still clear to me why they would want to do it. Right now, Disney can’t get a movie to make a profit. Some of their Disney+ stuff is succeeding, but most of it is not. So in that situation, especially when you have certain leaders that you can’t fire, you need to get everyone on the same page and away from what will make you fail. In essence, they need to get some of their Marvel experts and their Disney Animation Studios story groups working with Lucasfilm and Pixar (which has went way off the rails) people to refocus everything.
So far so good…
Second, innovation. Since Steamboat Willie, we have been the world’s foremost innovative storytellers. That must continue as technology evolves, giving our creative teams new canvases like the metaverse on which to paint. We should be especially innovative as we seek to bring stories to life in new ways—particularly if they enhance what many call our “franchise ecosystem,” which is one of the things that sets us apart.
Alright, so it sounds vague and far off, but trust me when I say it isn’t. This is the second time that Bob Chapek has focused in on a Disney metaverse, and he’s doing it for a reason. This isn’t a throw away term for him or for the company. What I’ve been hearing from some of my sources is that Disney executives would like to leverage Disney+ so that it isn’t just a streaming platform for shows and movies, but have it also be an umbrella that holds interactive entertainment. Specifically, they may want to have that interactive entertainment run off of cloud computing and be specific to tablets, phones, augmented reality, and virtual reality. I don’t think we’re talking about AAA console video games here.
The other thing here is the “franchise ecosystem.” I’m almost certain I know why this is being included in the innovation segment of these pillars, and that’s based on having seen the term before in other contexts. What I think they’re aiming to do (and this is what I was planning to write about today… I guess tomorrow or Wednesday now), is they would like to begin having their franchises eternalized. That’s not “internalized”, but “eternalized”. What I mean, and you’ll see this soon, is that Disney wants to be able to have live action characters and actors be available forever. They want to bring back Star Wars characters regularly, even when the actors who played them have passed away, or when the actors are far too old. They don’t want to replace those characters in the traditional way, but rather they want to have body doubles who are then overlayed with CGI makeup. They learned their lesson with Solo: A Star Wars Story. They learned their lesson with The Mandalorian Season 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6RmKx2bCE
And third, relentless focus on our audience. We are a big company with many constituents and stakeholders, all of whom have a place in our decision-making. But at the end of the day, our most important guide—our North Star—is the consumer. Right now, their behavior tells us and our industry that the way they want to experience entertainment is changing—and changing fast thanks to technology and the pandemic. We must evolve with our audience, not work against them. And so we will put them at the center of every decision we make.
Here is the finale that offers a mea culpa to investors. This is as close to a confession as you’re going to get. The phrase “not work against them” is a recognition that Disney has been at odds with its consumers. A lot of the other language in this “pillar” is couched in terms that protect ideologues working for the company who would bristle at the idea of moderating their narratives… but the effect is the same. Disney is going to start listening to their consumers again. You’d think that would be obvious to any company, but it’s so shocking to Disney employees that it has to be included in a ground-breaking once-in-a-century “memo”. The changing behavior stuff is just to hide what really needs to happen; consumers have always wanted good stories with good characters that tell meaningful, universal lessons. That’s the whole gig. But the “evolve with our audience” part is going to be the “wake up” that Disney needs get back to what works. They just can’t say it that way because it would hurt feelings. Investors, however, can cause much more of a stink than can a Hollywood writer with a bruised ego.
It just so happens I have known about this coming shift for a while now…
And guess what? In the next few years, you’re going to see all of what I’m talking about. Actually, it won’t even take nearly that long. You’ll see evidence of that coming much sooner.
There are still big problems for Disney ahead. The parks are unsustainably expensive and have lost their magic. The cruise lines are petri dishes that may struggle in whatever new reality it is we’re living in. And Disney+ still has a ways to go before they can right this ship and get subscribers excited. There are brutal stockholder meetings ahead. But if Chapek can maneuver this company back to pleasing fans, he’s got a shot of making it past the two-year mark. If he lets it continue down the partisan rabbit hole it’s been on…
… well, let’s just say he doesn’t want to be back on this list:
https://www.investors.com/news/dow-jones-stocks-five-worst-disney-boeing-stock/#:~:text=Disney%20stock%20tumbled%2014.5%25%20in%202021%2C%20making%20it,subscriber%20growth%20hurt%20the%20media%20and%20entertainment%20giant.
That’s a one-way ticket to a quick exit.
Let me know in the comments below what you think of all of this. Am I on track, or am I way off in left field? What changes would you like to see at The Walt Disney Company?
Thank you for another great article, WDWPro. STUNNING actually….what is NOT in Chapek’s Three Pillars; given the authoritative and aggressive pattern of the left’s infiltration in to public companies and their marketing departments over the past few years, eh? I wish him the best with this endeavor. It will be tough to pull off.
Now, you said “They learned their lesson with Solo: A Star Wars Story.” And I know you are mentioning it because of the re-casting of Han Solo. But I’ll argue effectively with any other Star Wars fan, that “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was by far the best, and most reflective of the original trilogy of the Disney-era Star Wars movies. It had the “fun” of Star Wars, the adventure, had world building & also deep-ties to Star Wars mythology…the old 70s/80s novels, etc. Ron Howard directed/rescued it and to me…he’s not been an agendist with his movies. So I give it a better ranking than the rest, even Rogue One (way too somber a movie. Cool in other ways)
The “lesson” I think they’ve taken away from Solo is that they shouldn’t recast a role when they can simply deepfake/CGI a role.
Problem is that deepfake/CGI a role takes far more effort and money than just recasting a role! Solo failed because for 3 main reasons:
1) paid for the sins of The Last Jedi
2) The whole Star Wars underworld simply isn’t compelling enough by itself
3) Han Solo is in many ways an overrated character and he stood out mainly because of Harrison Ford’s superb acting. He is not an interesting character by himself.
It would have failed even if Han Solo was deepfaked into the movie.
I have little kids, and I want my Grandkids to love Disney as much as I did. I will be Chapek’s biggest cheerleader on this endeavor.
“when you have certain leaders that you can’t fire”, for PR and political reasons, or due to ironclad contact reasons?
The latter is understandable, the prior indicates lack of courage, IMO.
” What I mean, and you’ll see this soon, is that Disney wants to be able to have live action characters and actors be available forever. They want to bring back Star Wars characters regularly, even when the actors who played them have passed away, or when the actors are far too old. They don’t want to replace those characters in the traditional way, but rather they want to have body doubles who are then overlayed with CGI makeup. They learned their lesson with Solo: A Star Wars Story. They learned their lesson with The Mandalorian Season 2.”
People running Disney are a bunch of idiots, aren’t they? It is extremely hard for me to understand why Luke’s return would be worse received if it was Sebastian Stan acting instead of deep fake Hamill. Maybe when Indy 5 flops would these idiots realize what stupidity these deep fake technology is.
If Disney recast Luke, I wonder if that would generate more excitement.
A Luke recast means more content with him written by people who hate Star Wars. A deep fake Luke means a small glimpse at a childhood hero.
The problem at Disney is the people. Someone 20ish years ago started hiring based on their politics.
At least on the entertainment side, it boggles my mind that that the studio bigwigs dont get that, if you dont antagonize your fans and actually give them what they want, rather than tell them how horrible they are, you actually make money. I guess Spider-man was their “Come to Jesus” moment. Give fans what they want. Give us an Heir to the Empire trilogy. Instead of Andor or The Acolyte, give us a Vader 6 hour series where he does nothing but tear things up like the Rogue One ending. Nothing but money right there.