Analysis: What Bob Iger did to change the way we watch movies (hint: it was a lot) – LA Daily News
For better or for worse – and those designations will be different from different perspectives – Bob Iger changed the way big Hollywood changed its biggest businesses during his 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
Iger wasn’t the first executive to recognize the value of intellectual properties. Indeed, Disney was built on the slim shoulders of a popular cartoon mouse and the backs of fairy tale-princesses.
But Iger more than any other studio boss I can think of was the one to go pretty much all-in on proven, branded movie properties, almost to the exclusion of taking theatrical risks on original concepts.
It all worked out pretty marvelously, too, balance sheet-wise, with Disney releases dominating the top slots of annual box-office lists and the Burbank studio consequently commanding the Lion King’s portion of market share for many years in a row.
Critics will say that that’s stifled creative innovation, not only at Disney but at the other major studios which tried to emulate Iger’s success. Yet the executive’s bold moves to grow the company’s intellectual properties by paying top dollar for other, beloved entertainment enterprises is arguably the most imaginative strategy Hollywood’s implemented in the 21st Century.
By turning Pixar from a supplier to a subsidiary in 2006, Disney was not only able to prop up the digital animation pioneer but also cross-pollinate its venerable animation division with talent from the younger studio. Yes, the results have been too many “Cars” and “Toy Story” sequels, but both cartoon operations have given us features such as “Inside Out” and “Zootopia,” as complex and critically acclaimed as any live-action, adult-oriented entertainments you can name.
The acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 gave that studio’s visionary boss, Kevin Feige, all the backing he needed to turn his stable of superhero movies into an unprecedented, interlocking, two-dozen-films-and-counting cinematic universe. Complaints that this also turned American cinema into one big moving comic book are certainly justifiable (if not entirely accurate). Still, Feige and company’s impressive quality control still makes this Disney-backed venture the industry’s most interesting gambit of the last 10 years.
“Star Wars” hasn’t had the same kind of luck since Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012. But however many fans (not to mention noteworthy filmmakers) have been alienated by the resulting films’ adherence to or deviation from expected formulas, at least the Disney regime is giving the faithful all the product it can handle at a pace George Lucas never did.
Not to mention that “The Mandalorian” is by far the best new thing on the streaming service, Disney+, that Iger put tons of corporate treasure, prestige and, yes, lucrative IP rights into launching last November. The service is already deemed a subscriber success, something other studios’ upcoming VOD platforms may or may not be able to claim in the existential showdown between legacy media Netflix-like delivery systems.
Speaking of which, Iger bought one of those old school institutions, Fox Studios, for Disney last year. Oodles of more IP for movies and Disney+, yes, but it remains to be seen how the kid-friendly Burbank brand will integrate some of the darker Fox material, like the “Alien” franchise, into its entertainment multiverse. Word is out that the TV series spinoff of Fox’s innocuous gay teen movie “Love, Simon,” just got bumped from development for Disney+ to Hulu (which The Mouse also controls in the wake of the Fox deal), so as not to disturb some perceived family orientation of the bigger brand.
Expect more nervousness when it comes to provocative stuff.
At the other end of the spectrum, can we all agree that perhaps the worst creative initiative to accelerate under Iger’s tenure is Disney’s insistence on doing live- (or, in the case of last summer’s “Lion King,” “CG-live”-) action remakes of its classic cartoons? Some do well at the box-office (“Aladdin”), others don’t (“Dumbo”), but really, if anything smothers the core magic the studio was built upon, it’s these things.
At least much of that original magic will live on on Disney+, presumably by Iger’s design. You’ll have to keep subscribing to the service as ownership of physical home-video products becomes increasingly uncommon. That, too, is driven by evolutionary changes in the filmed entertainment industry that Iger was keen enough to recognize were coming, and shrewd enough to bend to his company’s advantage.
For better or for worse.
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