The Disney Civil War nearly took out Bob Chapek. Nearly isn’t good enough and now it’s time for the embattled CEO to start cleaning house.
The last few months have not been kind to Bob Chapek. After hiring a public relations and government liaison to guide the company in Geoff Morrell, as well as setting up a plan to moderate the company away from hot potato sociopolitical issues, Chapek was blindsided by forces inside his company that wanted to derail him. Using the legislation in Florida as their weapon, those forces formed an organization known as Disney Walkout that then worked together with other entities associated with Reimagine Tomorrow and Disney’s HR department to allegedly trip up the company’s CEO and his plans. It seemingly worked. Within weeks, Chapek was forced to film an apology that has been compared to a hostage video while Geoff Morrell decided to leave the company of his own volition. The April efforts to moderate the company were so overthrown that the company spiraled into the farthest opposite direction.
But after a semi-solid earnings report in May, it appears CEO Bob Chapek is now ready to start chopping heads. And though you might have thought he would go after someone like Ton Newton first, that would not have been a good PR move on his part. It would have certainly seemed retaliatory and aimed at a minority woman. Instead, Chapek’s first person to take out is none other than one of the biggest big wigs at Disney… a man who hired several of the people we saw in the Reimagine Tomorrow videos that were so damaging out of Christopher Rufo’s reporting… and the man who is tied very strongly to the Walter Kaitz Foundation we have discussed before.
Bob Chapek took out Peter Rice, Chairman of Disney’s Entertainment and Programming. This is a HUGE firing.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
Sources say embattled Disney CEO Bob Chapek summoned Rice to his office Monday and relieved the former Fox exec of his duties. Rice’s top lieutenant, Dana Walden — who also made the move from Fox to Disney — will be taking over his responsibilities. Sources say Rice had multiple years left on his contract and will receive a rich payout.
According to sources inside Disney, Peter Rice has been one of the leading voices in pushing for a certain sociopolitical and cultural agenda within the Disney company. We knew something was up recently when Disney put in a reasonable and competent long-time Disney executive to work on government relations in a way that bypassed Peter Rice. We covered the very quiet Charissa Gilmore promotion weeks ago.
In April we also covered the connection between Peter Rice and the Walter Kaitz Foundation on which he served as a Board Member. This was a major way in which The Walt Disney Company’s financial interests were being allegedly subverted by a distinctly ideological push.
In reality, the organization has become something of a trailblazer in promoting identity groups over individuals. Not only does the organization promote diversity, equity, inclusion… but it goes so far as to advocate for “belonging”. That’s a new category you might not hear much about from other organizations and which borders on the edge of a religious or spiritual concept. For the WKF, it’s no longer just DEI, it’s DEIb. The organization advocates for an idea known as the “Renaissance of Identity”, or as I understand it, the reemergence of tribalist thinking over individual meritocracy. — Inside the Disney Civil War
I’m fairly certain that we’re literally the only news organization that covered Peter Rice, his connections with the Walter Kaitz Foundation and the Disney Civil War we alleged was happening behind the scenes against Bob Chapek. So again, if you’re reading That Park Place, you’re two months ahead of everybody else in regards to what’s really going on in entertainment news.
Cages have been rattled. https://t.co/fzvZ1p558y
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) June 9, 2022
Don’t be surprised if this isn’t the last big firing from Bob Chapek. It seems that he feels confident that his job is secure and now it’s time to start emptying out the bad actors at the company (in his opinion, not ours) who are potentially insubordinating the fiduciary goals of the company. He weathered the storm, he’s seeing Disney’s polling numbers plummet. Now, after people have gone on to talk about other things, it’s time to start taking out people who may not be very well-known to the average public, but who may have been behind much of what was going on. In the case of Disney Walkout and the intra-company protests against Bob Chapek, including allegedly having negative depictions of the CEO up at some of the entertainment studios, there’s really just one thing to say:
If you attempt a mutiny, you’d better hope you take out the captain. Otherwise, you may not be along for the ride much longer.
Was Peter Rice directly part of the efforts to damage Chapek? We don’t know. But if Chapek and the board will toss Rice over board, the people who are more easily identified as having been a part of it should maybe be gathering their belongings. Chapek’s revenge has just begun.
For all the news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. As always, drop a comment down below and let us know your thoughts!
Update 12:18 PM EST, 6/9/22:
The Board was in on it…
Disney's board backs Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Chapek amid the firing of another top executive https://t.co/tWNPDGVh1x pic.twitter.com/mMrPZyYrqk
— WDWMAGIC.COM (@wdwmagic) June 9, 2022