Bob Iger recently confessed he needs a successor who can handle a 'real crisis' in a 'mature way.' Having survived the catering shortages at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, I alone understand the harrowing, life-or-death stakes of managing a corporate entertainment monopoly.
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that settles into the bones of those of us who have spent our lives in the trenches of the entertainment industry. You see it in the eyes of the trades reporters. You see it in the posture of the reps. And, most acutely, you see it in the impeccably tailored silhouette of former Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger. When Iger recently admitted that his first attempt at a successor, Bob Chapek, failed because the man could not handle a real crisis in a reasonable, sane, and steady way, a collective shudder went through the Hollywood establishment. We knew exactly what he meant. We have all been to the edge of the abyss, looked down, and seen a Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Five release tracking below seventy million dollars for its opening weekend.
Make no mistake, the discourse surrounding the Disney succession has been entirely too focused on trivial matters like corporate governance, monopolistic consolidation, and the systematic dismantling of the working class in Anaheim. These are distractions for the uninitiated. The true burden of the Disney chief executive is carrying the psychological weight of a global empire where a single miscast animated sidekick can shave three billion dollars off the market capitalization before lunch. It is a job that requires the icy, sociopathic detachment of a Cold War submarine commander, and for too long, we expected Bob Iger to simply hand those launch keys to a man who looked like he sweated through his suit when a streamer raised its subscription fee by a dollar.
I was having a chopped salad at the Polo Lounge last week with a publicist who has navigated some of the most harrowing red carpet cancellations of our time, and she put it to me plainly. The Bob Chapek era was a failure not because of any measurable business metric, but because he fundamentally lacked the aristocratic grace required to tell Wall Street that the company would be firing seven thousand people. When Iger executed mass layoffs, he did it with the mournful stoicism of a monarch sending his beloved cavalry into a necessary slaughter. Chapek did it like a regional manager closing a haunted house. In the crucible of a real Hollywood crisis—such as a prominent director tweeting something untoward in 2011, or a theme park guest noticing the churros have shrunk—you cannot have a leader who visibly panics.
This brings us to the ascension of Josh D'Amaro, the former head of the Disney parks division, whom Iger has now blessed as the steady hand the company requires. To the layman, managing a collection of amusement parks might seem like a job primarily concerned with maintaining the hydraulic fluid levels in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. But those of us who understand the industry know that the Disney parks are the most brutal geopolitical training ground on earth. D'Amaro has spent years staring down the barrel of middle-class families who have mortgaged their homes to stand in the August humidity for a chance to buy a ninety-dollar plastic lightsaber. He has looked into the eyes of a mob demanding more FastPass allocations and he has not blinked.
Iger knows that if D'Amaro can maintain a flawlessly bright, blindingly white smile while explaining to a family of four that their admission price has just surged due to peak seasonal demand, he can certainly handle the velvet-gloved warfare of a Hollywood board meeting. A source close to the production of D'Amaro's executive rollout tells me that the man’s heart rate literally does not elevate when he is presented with catastrophic news. When informed that the Galactic Starcruiser hotel was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars and would need to be permanently shuttered after less than two years, D'Amaro reportedly just took a sip of sparkling water, nodded, and seamlessly pivoted to discussing the synergistic opportunities of a Moana meet-and-greet.
This is the maturity Iger was searching for. It is a maturity I deeply recognize from my own harrowing experiences on the festival circuit. I recall a moment at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 when my private car was delayed by thirty minutes due to a labor protest blocking the Croisette. The sheer existential dread of knowing I might miss the first act of an arthouse premiere starring Tilda Swinton was paralyzing. I could have screamed at the driver. I could have posted a frantic thread on social media. Instead, I channeled my inner Iger. I breathed deeply. I adjusted my sunglasses. I accepted that some tragedies are simply the cost of doing business in a complex, interconnected global ecosystem. I survived my crisis, just as Disney must survive theirs.
The general public believes a corporate crisis is a structural collapse or a federal indictment, but they have never had to look an activist investor in the eye and explain why the anthropomorphic dog movie didn't sell enough plush toys in Shanghai.
It is easy for outsiders to mock the idea that managing the intellectual property rights of a cartoon mouse requires a wartime footing. It is easy for the public to roll their eyes when billionaires speak of their corporate reshuffles with the gravity of a peace treaty negotiation. But until you have sat in a screening room and watched an audience entirely fail to applaud at the end of a two-hundred-million-dollar sequel, you cannot understand the darkness that a Disney CEO must hold at bay.
Bob Iger gave the best years of his life to ensuring that we never had to think about how the sausage was made, only that the sausage was ethically sourced, brilliantly marketed, and available to stream in 4K resolution on demand. He tried to leave, and the universe punished him by proving that no one else had the sheer emotional density to carry the sky on their shoulders. He came back because he had to. He came back because a lesser man might have looked at a disastrous quarterly earnings report and simply apologized, rather than aggressively announcing three new animated sequels to distract the shareholders.
Now, as Iger finally prepares to step into the sunset for what we can only assume is the last time, he is leaving nothing to chance. He has found a successor who understands that the only way out of a burning building is to calmly walk through the flames while assuring the press that the fire is actually an immersive new storytelling experience. We should all be so lucky to have such steady leadership the next time we face the terrifying prospect of a slightly diminished profit margin.