Could Netflix’s Co-CEO Become Disney’s CEO?

At some point within the next year, fans hope to know who will replace Bob Iger as CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

Frankly, we’d all expected to learn the identity of Iger’s successor by now.

Then, Disney hired a new Chairman of the Board, James Gorman, who reset our expectations.

Upon his promotion, Gorman promptly kicked the can down the road by stating he’d name Disney’s next CEO in 2026.

Well, we’re more than a third of the way into 2025, and rumors are flying, so much so that one candidate just spoke up.

Ted Sarandos has denied interest in Disney, albeit in a way that leaves some wiggle room.

So, let’s discuss what he just said and read the tea leaves about what it all means.

About Ted Sarandos

You may not know Ted Sarandos’s name, but you most assuredly know his work and his company.

A person after my own heart, Sarandos started his professional career selling videocassettes.

During the glory days of the VCR, the executive worked for Video City/West Coast Video, one of the leading manufacturers.

Basically, Sarandos got his start in the film industry in the very business Netflix would later disrupt.

Not coincidentally, when Netflix founder Reed Hastings offered Sarandos a job, the executive happily jumped.

Perhaps nobody understood the potential benefits of Netflix more than Sarandos, although you should understand what those were.

At the time, Netflix was a DVD-by-mail distributor. Its era of streaming dominance wouldn’t arrive until several years later.

Sarandos joined Netflix in 2000, while the streaming media business you know so well didn’t start until 2007.

By this point, Sarandos had already proven himself invaluable to Hastings, with the two individuals working closely.

While Sarandos wouldn’t officially become Co-CEO of Netflix until 2020, he’d been perceived that way for many years.

Sarandos was the one who boldly invented Netflix’s strategy of creating licensed streaming content, starting with Lilyhammer.

That’s a show my wife adores, but Netflix’s second show, House of Cards, is the one you’re more likely to know.

The success of this program cemented Netflix’s commitment to making its own shows, and the rest is Hollywood history.

When you think of the disruption of streaming in media consumption, Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos are the ones ultimately responsible.

Sarandos As CEO?

Last week, Reed Hastings announced that he was stepping down as Netflix’s Executive Chairman.

While Netflix’s founder will remain with the company as the Chairman of the Board, the announcement hinted at something.

Hastings is no longer as intimately involved with the daily business of Netflix.

Instead, he leaves that to the company’s Co-CEOs, Sarandos and Greg Peters.

The oddity of that structure confuses many on Wall Street and in Hollywood, as it’s unusual.

Typically, a high-profile CEO is something of a megalomaniac, someone unwilling to share credit.

You can decide for yourself whether Bob Iger fits the bill there, but it’s prototypical in the corporate world.

By all rights, Sarandos has more than earned the right to be the CEO at Netflix, a company he elevated to the top.

When Hastings stepped down as Co-CEO, the expectation was that Sarandos would take over entirely.

Obviously, that didn’t happen, with Peters earning a promotion instead. This move triggered an industry-wide whisper campaign.

Analysts wondered how happy Sarandos would be working with such an arrangement.

Speculation ensued that Sarandos was attainable if the right job came along.

Do you know which job fits perfectly with Sarandos’ skill set? Yup, it’s Disney.

Sarandos and Disney

As someone who spent his early years selling movies, Sarandos knows all too well about the power of Disney licensing.

More recently, Disney has seemingly followed Netflix’s lead every step of the way in building its own streaming empire.

In between, Disney’s Marvel branch worked closely with Sarandos and Netflix in building a mini-franchise around The Defenders.

That’s not to say that the relationship worked perfectly smoothly. Here’s a recent Sarandos quote about the experience:

“On our shows, we were dealing with the old Marvel television regime, which operated independently at Disney.

“And they were thrifty. And every time we wanted to make the shows bigger or better, we had to bang on them.

“Our incentives were not well aligned. We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money.

“I thought we could make money with great television.”

Before you overreact to this and think that Sarandos burned a bridge, I’ll remind you of something.

Isaac Perlmutter was in charge of Marvel at the time. His penny-pinching was notorious.

Anybody who slams Perlmutter immediately becomes best friends with most of the people at Disney right now, including Marvel’s Kevin Feige.

So, if anything, Sarandos’s venting endears him to many of the people with whom he’d potentially work as Disney CEO.

Summarizing, Sarandos possesses many of the skills Bob Iger would desire for his replacement.

The question becomes whether the current Co-CEO of Netflix would even want the job.

Many would argue that running Netflix is a less stressful gig, as the whole business runs on autopilot these days.

Now, Sarandos has addressed the possibility directly. So, let’s quickly discuss what he said.  

What Do SNL and Disney Have in Common?

Last October, the Wall Street Journal asked Sarandos about the idea of replacing Iger as Disney CEO.

At the time, Sarandos dismissed the question, stating, “It’s not even on my mind.”

To his credit, the Netflix leader provided an excellent explanation about why:

“It’s hard for me to recommend the program to another company where I don’t really understand their business and, in turn, their business culture. I understand their business pretty well but not their business culture.”

However, the topic keeps coming up because analysts perceive Sarandos as the best overall fit, at least outside Disney.

So, during the recent Time 100 Summit, someone bluntly asked him, “In your next job, would you rather run Saturday Night Live or Disney?”

Without hesitation, Sarandos answered, “Saturday Night Live.” Of course, that’s the easy way out.

The executive knows that he’ll never be offered that job, so there’s no harm in answering that way.

If he’d answered, “Disney,” a media frenzy would have ensued.

Also, CEO candidates Dana Walden and Josh D’Amaro would be dripping with flop sweat, knowing they weren’t getting the job.

Of course, should Disney seriously court Sarandos, his other comments from the same interview wouldn’t play well.

Often considered an enemy of theatrical exhibition, Sarandos defended Netflix’s disruption of seeing movies in theaters.

He explained, “I’m saving Hollywood.” Every exhibitor in North America would have booed and thrown popcorn at this response.

Let’s just say that your local movie theater owner doesn’t see it that way.

Realistically, Disney is the only studio that really matters, so the last thing exhibitors want is a Netflix person in charge.

Is Ted Sarandos a Hard No?

For Disney, the fit makes sense, though. Nobody knows streaming better than the head of Netflix.

Independent of titles, that’s been Sarandos for the past five years, which represents the body of the streaming boom.

Since Sarandos came up through video, he has sold his fair share of Disney movies over the years, too.

Disney could slot Sarandos at the top and feel confident that its fledgling streaming empire is secure.

The problem is that Sarandos knows virtually nothing about the parks, and, to his credit, he seems to realize that.

That’s why I consider Sarandos a better idea in theory than in practice. He’d struggle with your and my favorite part of Disney.

That’s why I don’t view Sarandos as an ideal fit, in addition to the fact that the job would be somewhat of a lateral move for him.

Despite my personal feelings, there are enough connections from Sarandos to Disney that he’ll keep getting this question.

People will only drop this line of thinking when Disney finally announces a CEO who is NOT Sarandos.

Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below, and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond Level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!

Feature Photo: (Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images)