Biggest Disney Business Stories of 2024

Life is full of ups and downs. For The Walt Disney Company, 2020-2023 were mostly the downs.

On the other hand, 2024 has been almost exclusively the ups.

Let’s talk about the biggest Disney stories of 2024, almost all of which are positive.

Iger Crushes Peltz

Ostensibly, Disney overcame an attempt by Trian Partners to gain a pair of board seats.

In reality, Disney CEO Bob Iger spent the early part of 2024 locked in mortal combat with billionaire Nelson Peltz.

In 2024, Peltz held more influence, as former Marvel owner Isaac Perlmutter gave his friend full control of his shares.

The prevailing belief at the time was that Perlmutter remained Disney’s largest shareholder, giving Peltz a sledgehammer.

This was actually a rematch of a battle from 2023. The results proved the same, though.

Iger won the battle, handing Peltz the most crushing defeat of his career.

The twists and turns leading up to the vote were borderline soap operatic in nature, with a former Disney CFO turning on Iger.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, both parties spent exorbitant amounts of money trying to sway shareholders.

Ultimately, Iger persuaded investors that Disney was on the right course. He later rewarded their faith by delivering an excellent year.

In a way, Iger-Peltz II reflected little more than ego and excess, yet it also portended that better days were coming for Disney.

James Gorman Ascends

Few Disney fans even knew James Gorman’s name heading into 2024…and why would they?

The Australian executive built his career at Morgan Stanley, where he eventually became CEO and, later, Chairman of the Board.

As Iger faced another activist battle, he identified a lingering complaint among investors.

Many were still angry about Iger’s previous failed succession plan with Bob Chapek.

What was one of the hot-button issues of Nelson-Peltz II? Oh yes, it was Disney’s next succession plan.

So, Iger did something very smart. He went out and poached Gorman from Morgan Stanley.

The banking executive had spent the body of 2023 handling his own succession plan, and Wall Street raved about his performance.

In truth, Gorman basically just bribed the losers with tens of millions of dollars to stay at Morgan Stanley and work with the winner.

Still, the plan worked, and Wall Street took notice. Then, Iger hired Gorman for Disney’s Board of Directors.

Then, in less than one year, Gorman proved so impressive that he became Chairman of the Board for Disney in January 2025.

More importantly, Gorman, not Iger, will decide the next CEO at Disney. While this story has largely remained under the radar, it’s quite possibly the most impactful one of this list.

A non-Disney person will choose Disney’s future leader.

Disney Cruise Line Expands

On July 1^st, 2022, Disney Cruise Line consisted of four vessels, just as it had since 2012.

In December 2031, presuming that all goes to plan, Disney Cruise Line will consist of 13 vessels.

You don’t have to be good at math to know that’s more than triple.

For that matter, DCL has already expanded by 50 percent in just two years by adding the Disney Wish and Disney Treasure.

Next year, Disney will add two vessels to the fleet, the Disney Adventure and the Disney Destiny.

So, that’s the first eight right there, and more are coming, not just in the United States.

The Disney Adventure will have a home port in Singapore, while The Oriental Land Company is also licensing a cruise ship.

Disney executives have noticed the math here and realized one simple truth.

Disney cruise ships quickly pay for themselves. Once they do, all future sailings provide pure profit for the company.

So, Disney Cruise Line will undergo a massive expansion from now through 2031…and I doubt it stops there!

Disney and Reliance Merge

If you can’t beat them, join them.

That’s the mantra Disney followed in accepting defeat in India.

When Disney acquired Fox’s media assets in 2019, it gained the Star/Hotstar service in India.

At the time, this deal appeared vital to Disney’s international growth plans.

 

However, the pandemic, inexperience in the local market, and unseen forces conspired against Disney.

Hotstar relied heavily on its cricket broadcast and streaming rights as a revenue generator.

Then, an Indian billionaire named Mukesh Ambani outbid Disney’s Hotstar for the streaming rights to cricket.

That’s not even the odd part. Ambani proceeded to air cricket for free on his smartphone service.

No publicly traded American corporation could throw away $3 billion like that, but Ambani could.

Realizing that Hotstar was overmatched, Disney brokered a deal with Ambani’s company, Reliance.

Now, Disney has merged its Hotstar services with Reliance. It was a definitive business loss for Disney…but also the right play.

Disney was out of its depth in India’s marketplace, which is only the home base for Reliance. So, this was a needed move.

Disney Gets Epic

From 2020-2023, Fortnite generated $19.9 billion in revenue. That’s about $5 billion per year for one video game.

Epic Games, the owner of Fortnite, also owns and operates Unreal Engine, the all-important 3D graphics rendering engine.

Disney has used Unreal Engine to create digital effects for some of its television series and movies such as The Mandalorian and The Lion King (2019).

So, while Disney has historically preferred licensing video games rather than making them, Iger recognized an opportunity.

Disney could generate tons of revenue while enticing a new generation of gamers to embrace Disney stories.

That’s how Disney came to be a part owner of Epic Games, purchasing a modest stake in the company.

In exchange, Epic has promised to create a Fortnite-adjacent video game consisting entirely of Disney characters and brands.

While we’re still in the early days of these plans, Fortnite has already added several Disney character skins for in-game purchase.

The demand has proven extremely high each time Fortnite has done this, and signs point to the Disney-Fortnite universe being wildly popular.

Either way, Disney has just virtually guaranteed itself immediate access to Unreal Engine as a part-owner. There’s tremendous value in that.

Disney+ Turns a Profit

Wall Street had one other request from Disney this year.

Investors wanted the company to cut its streaming losses.

At some point, an investment must pay dividends. Otherwise, it’s a terrible, terrible investment.

In early 2024, Disney held firmly to the position that Direct-to-Consumer, its streaming division, would turn a profit in fiscal 2024.

Skepticism abounded, as DtC had never done that…or honestly even been close.

To Disney’s credit, it improved the margins on DtC with methodical revenue increases and dramatic cuts in expenditures.

By the end of the year, the impossible had happened. A business that had lost $1.4 billion in a quarter two years prior was profitable.

Even more remarkably, Disney projects $1 billion in DtC profits in 2025. It’s a stunning, triumphant turnaround for Disney.

DirecTV Blackout Fails

DirecTV suffered through a nightmarish 2024, culminating in the company failing to merge with Dish Network as planned.

Before that debacle, DirecTV made the same mistake that Charter had the previous year.

DirecTV took its Disney channels offline during a negotiating standoff. And the end result was this. And this. Followed by this.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

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Feature Photo: Disney