Disney CEO Bob Iger Rumored To Be Considering Another Contract Extension
Disney CEO Bob Iger is reportedly making plans to extend his contract for an unspecified amount of time. During his first tenure as head of the company, Iger oversaw the acquisition of multiple companies at Disney, including Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and Twenty-First Century Fox (now split up into Twentieth Century Studios, Twentieth Century Television, and Searchlight Pictures). He handed off the reins to Bob Chapek in 2021, but the Disney Board of Directors brought him back in November 2022 after being discontent with Chapek’s performance.
The rumor comes from Fox Business Network reporter Charles Gasparino, who has indicated that despite Bob Iger previously revealing plans to fully retire at the end of 2024 (when his current two-year contract expires), he will likely stick around at the “House of Mouse” for a longer period of time:
SCOOP: People close to @Disney tell @FoxBusiness @RobertIger is likely to seek a contract extension beyond his current one (expiring in Dec 2024) as the company giant faces hurdles in finding a successor. More on that and our interview w $BLK CEO Larry Fink at 345pm w @LizClaman
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) July 6, 2023
The Walt Disney Company is an institution that Bob Iger has been very protective of (so much so that he unretired to replace his unpopular successor/predecessor, Bob Chapek), so rumors that he may remain in power for a while longer has been met with little surprise from business analysts. Any successor to Iger is facing massive challenges just as Iger himself is, given that Disney Plus has drawbacks, several theatrical releases have been underperforming, and the company is in the midst of hard efforts to economize its spending. As such, a search for the future holder of the keys to the Magic Kingdom will likely take a while, and certainly longer than another year and a half or so. Disney is one of the most influential entertainment companies on the planet, so the task of running such a company is understandably intimidating.
In previous news, Bob Iger has indicated that future content that the studio will develop will lean even harder into existing brands instead of general entertainment content, though some general entertainment will continue to be produced. Indeed, recent content purges from Disney Plus and Hulu have been aimed at shows that were not considered successful, almost all of which were not tied to Disney’s core IPs; notably, none of the canned content were related to Star Wars and none of the Marvel Cinematic Universe shows produced for Disney Plus were axed. Should Iger stick to the current plan, we will likely see an increase in Star Wars content going forward across streaming, theatrical, and other venues.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
