Disney Headlines for December 11th, 2022
Go home, Deadline. You’re drunk. I’ll explain why in the latest set of Disney Headlines.
Has Disney Learned Nothing?
Okay, I’ll start by saying that I don’t believe this rumor for a second. Still, the purpose of this column is to highlight what others are saying.
So, I must acknowledge a recent Deadline article that named the likeliest person to succeed Bob Iger as CEO of The Walt Disney Company.
Photo: PRNewsFoto/The Walt Disney Co.
I wrote about the potential candidates at the end of November, and this person garnered no mention because, well, they shouldn’t be a candidate.
Deadline cites sources saying that current CFO Christine McCarthy is the leader in the clubhouse to follow Iger when he (presumably) retires in two years.
Photo: Smith College
I didn’t quite do a spit-take at this proclamation, but it was definitely something akin to that.
As the article notes, McCarthy played an essential role in Chapek’s ouster as CEO.
Source: Disney
The writer describes her as a “king killer” and “the public face of the Disney coup d’état.”
According to this story, McCarthy “threatened to resign if Chapek was not cut loose immediately.”
Photo: HOLLY BROBST, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
The bloodthirsty nature of her maneuvering impressed some Wall Street analysts who apparently didn’t think McCarthy had such treachery in her.
A pertinent quote is: “In the 35 years I’ve been doing this, I never saw a CFO go around a CEO.”
Photo: History.com
As MickeyBlog noted at the time, McCarthy apparently recognized that Chapek planned to use her as the fall person here.
To avoid that fate, she proactively eliminated her boss instead. I won’t lie and say that I’m not impressed by that. It’s an excellent demonstration of survival instincts.
Photo: CNBC
Still, Disney cannot possibly consider McCarthy as CEO, can it? Remember this fiasco?
Disney’s CFO Thinks You’re Fat
I’ll start by editorializing a bit. I suspect McCarthy knows that she looks every bit as guilty in Disney’s recent missteps as Chapek.
Photo: Getty
For this reason, the CFO is deftly getting ahead of the negative PR by building a buzz around her own candidacy.
That idea works in theory. As I mentioned in the post-Iger evaluation, Disney has never had a female CEO.
Photo: Getty
The company currently has a female Chairperson of the Board, Susan Arnold, which is a vastly more powerful role.
Still, the world’s 51 percent female. It’s not a great look for Disney to hire men exclusively for this role. It should be about the best person for the job.
Photo: Dictionary.com
Ostensibly, that means we should have had a 50/50 coin flip for every hire. Those odds dictate a woman should have served by now.
McCarthy is using this knowledge and her current momentum to present herself as a viable candidate. But she’s not.
Photo:The Walt Disney Company website; David Livingston/Getty Images
That link to the salad article drives this point home. What was the predominant problem with the Chapek Era? He repeatedly suffered PR blunders.
Whenever I’ve watched McCarthy speak, my driving thought has been, “Disney needs to keep this person away from microphones and recording devices.”
Photo: Walt Disney Co, Bottom R)(Laurent Viteur/Getty Images, Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Vox Media and Walt Disney Co
McCarthy makes Chapek look like Iger. And let me be clear on this point. The next CEO of Disney needs to raise the bar from Chapek, not throw under it.
Someone who calls Disney fans fat to justify reduced portions, a form of budget cuts, is NOT a step up from Chapek. At best, it’s a lateral move.
Disney CFO Christine McCarthy on Inflation Impacts
Don’t Freak Out Yet!
Deadline’s headline is thankfully a bit misleading, though. The article states, “the CFO’s name appears in the top five list.” That’s nowhere near the same as the frontrunner.
In addition, the story indicates that Hollywood mogul Dana Walden is under consideration. Her candidacy makes night and day more sense than McCarthy’s.
Photo: The Walt Disney Company
Let’s remember that the real reason Disney fired Chapek is that its financials had fallen behind projections. Whose responsibility is that?
You guessed it! The F in CFO stands for financial! So, McCarthy’s as much at fault here as Chapek, possibly even more so.
Photo: skillastics.com
In truth, this leak feels conspicuous and pointed. When Disney promoted Chapek, Wall Street gained a money-focused CEO.
Iger has always walked the balance between creative and money driven. At heart, he’s a creative, though.
Photo: Getty
Hollywood wants Disney to hire a creative, which means that Walden stands out as the logical in-house successor to Iger.
Wall Street would vastly prefer someone like McCarthy, warts and all. That’s the latest proof that Wall Street never learns, nor can it distinguish the forest from the trees.
Photo:NYpost.com
The other issue at play here is that some insiders believe Iger will settle on a successor early in his tenure.
So, this story is a plant to demonstrate McCarthy wants the job. Of course, Iger likely realizes he’s only four years older than her.
Photo: Washington Post illustration; Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP; iStock
In short, there are a multitude of reasons McCarthy won’t become CEO of Disney. But thanks for the laugh, Deadline!
Bend It Like Princess Beckham
In 2002, a friend of mine in England sent me a critic’s screening copy of a movie he had loved. It wouldn’t be released in the United States until March 2003.
Photo: FOX SEARCHLIGHT
Like the high-quality film journalist I was back then, I promptly forgot we had a copy.
Thankfully, we still caught Bend It Like Beckham in theaters on opening weekend. And I felt like an idiot for waiting so long.
Photo: Bend it Like Beckham
With the benefit of hindsight, the charming female empowerment soccer story feels like an early precursor to Ms. Marvel on Disney+.
In addition, the film launched the careers of three different actresses while restoring the lost hope of a former teen actor.
(Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage)
A director named Gurinder Chadha won my vote for Best Director of 2003 for both the film and her discoveries of Archie Punjabi, Parminder Nagra, and (especially) Keira Knightley.
Along the way, Chadha reminded people that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was pretty great, too.
To this day, Bend It Like Beckham stands among the best indie projects of the 2000s.
Photo: streetsoftoronto.com
So, you should be thrilled to learn that Chadha is creating a Disney Princess movie for an Indian character!
Chadha spoke with various trades about her struggles in making something new and original. I found her comments insightful:
(Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s a very hard thing to do because there are certain rules you have to follow, and you also don’t want to repeat yourself.
I don’t want to make Mulan again, for example, I want to do my own thing.
(Photo by Pal Hansen/Contour by Getty Images)
But, at the same time, there are very strong Disney Princesses out there so to do something different but still within the genre, it’s an interesting balance to explore as a creator.”
Given how much Chadha has meant to female empowerment during the 2000s, we should all be VERY excited about this project!
