The Challenges Awaiting Josh D’Amaro

On March 18^th, the big day finally arrives as Bob Iger fades into the sunset.

Hilariously, outsider observers are already wishcasting Iger for other roles such as the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Iger has indicated he’s not interested because he’s ready to retire.

The Disney Flywheel must keep spinning, though. So, in walks a new CEO.

Josh D’Amaro has been the people’s choice for years, but his future popularity is far from certain.

Disney’s next CEO faces a plethora of problems as his company navigates a changing marketplace.

Here are a few of the biggest challenges awaiting Josh D’Amaro.

A Consolidated Media Industry

In case you’ve somehow missed the news, Netflix thought it was buying Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Then, Paramount Skydance happily learned that it will instead…and for even more money.

Now, none of it is Paramount’s money, which is the reason why Netflix was winning for most of the competition.

But the point is that media consolidation is happening at an unprecedented rate.

At the turn of the century, several major media conglomerates were part of an oligopoly.

Technically, that’s still true, but we lost Fox as an independent movie studio in 2019.

Now, the classic Warner Brothers studio, which is the same age as Disney, is dying.

At some point, Hollywood studios stopped being near-omnipotent businesses.

Now, a company like Amazon, Apple, or Nvidia could swallow one without blinking.

The fact that none of them is bidding on Warner Bros. Discovery is telling.

Many of the best businesspeople in the world view Hollywood movie studios as, well, bad business.

Meanwhile, Josh D’Amaro just inherited the job of *checks notes* the most powerful movie studio.

For many years, Iger bristled at the notion that his final act at Disney would be to sell the company.

The Apple/Disney rumor has been around pretty much since the day Disney bought Pixar.

Now that Iger is leaving, we can no longer connect those dots, but it’s still D’Amaro’s problem.

Disney remains the biggest fish in the pond, but no new fish want to swim here.

Does D’Amaro follow the same path as Iger by buying even more valuable IP?

If not, would he consider selling parts of Disney to the highest bidder? These questions are ones he must answer within his first three or four years on the job.

Protecting Disney’s Movie Empire

Speaking of the movie business, every aspect of Disney relies on its flywheel.

Even ESPN, the sports channel/app, performs a highly valued service.

Disney uses the massive numbers of live viewers on ESPN and ABC to market its products.

One of the underrated reasons why Disney films are the envy of their peers is this part of the Flywheel.

However, one other cog in the machine needs lots of elbow grease. It’s original IP.

Disney was once in the business of creating entirely new stories that oiled the Flywheel. During the 2020s, the Flywheel has mostly stopped spinning, at least for new IP.

Not that long ago, Disney was producing four or five bankable stories each year.

Lately, Disney has still dominated the Hollywood box office, but it has done so with rehashes.

We joke about reboots, remakes, sequels, and prequels…and for good reason.

Disney is jamming them down our throats, albeit with significant justification.

Did you go watch Elio or Strange World in theaters? The math says no…and you’re the target audience!

When even Disney fans aren’t going to watch Disney movies, you know it’s a problem.

What needs to happen is simple. Josh D’Amaro must commit to classic Disney storytelling.

In 1994, four Pixar employees famously went out to eat and spitballed ideas for films.

In the course of one extended lunch break, they came up with the following movie concepts:

• A Bug’s Life
• Finding Nemo
• Monsters, Inc.
• WALL-E

For the sake of the Disney Flywheel, D’Amaro should send his staff to lunch.

Then, they shouldn’t be allowed back into the office until they pitch four ideas at least as good as the ones from 1994.

Saving Disney’s Splashy Purchases

Then, we have a byproduct of the Disney Flywheel discussion.

Part of Bob Iger’s legacy hinges on the success of his major acquisitions.

I just backhandedly mentioned one, Pixar, and then he bought Marvel and Lucasfilm, too.

For posterity’s sake, I should mention Hulu as well, although I deem that a side topic.

What D’Amaro must do – other than saving all Disney storytelling – is reinvigorating these brands.

No big deal, right? All he needs to do is create a Pixar hit on the level of, say, Coco.

Also, and this is the crucial point, the story must be original IP. So, Toy Story 5 doesn’t count.

I’m less than 48 hours away from watching Hoppers when I type this.

So, I cannot speak about its quality yet. What I do know is that Pixar needs more Elemental stories.

No, I don’t mean Elemental 2, although I would love that. I mean high-quality Pixar stories.

It’s not a coincidence that Elemental demonstrated exceptional box office legs.

People loved the film, and they would have enjoyed Elio, too, if they’d given it a chance.

That’s the tricky part of these conversations. Audiences aren’t giving Disney the benefit of the doubt.

So, that’s one of D’Amaro’s new mission statements on his job. He must earn more consumer trust.

Making better Marvel movies would be a strong first step, but something will happen before then.

D’Amaro had nothing to do with the quality of The Mandalorian & Grogu. Despite this fact, its perception among the movie-going public will define part of what happens next.

Fans need to learn to trust Star Wars films again, and the same holds for Marvel.

Sustaining the Brand 

Disney faces a meta problem as well, and this one doesn’t have an easy fix.

The company has already taken steps to streamline its marketing and prioritize stories.

We don’t know how successful those initiatives will be, but the attempts are underway.

Then, we have AI, and it’s the great unknown in 2026 society for any number of reasons.

I’m typing this just after Nvidia announced its quarterly earnings, and the whole thing is mind-boggling.

Whether major corporations actually need AI or not, they’re under the belief that they do.

Meanwhile, consumers are choosing AI as a recreational activity to a historic degree.

An argument could be made that AI is earning the fastest adoption rates of all-time.

Hundreds of millions of people play with AI tools every day. ChatGPT debuted in November 2022.

The world has completely reinvented itself in just 40 months. That’s a statement of fact. Now consider what could happen in another 40 months…or 80. AI could revolutionize everything.

Conversely, this whole thing could prove to be an overhyped fad. Nobody knows for sure.

And Josh D’Amaro is part of that collective “nobody,” which makes his task all the more unenviable.

He must guide Disney through this unprecedented wasteland of content thievery.

Throughout this process, he must protect Disney’s treasure trove of IP, but that’s not all.

He almost must find ways to integrate this technology into Disney’s daily operations.

If D’Amaro plays his cards right, he could make Disney more powerful than ever.

If he makes the wrong moves in the AI Wars, Disney’s value as a business all but evaporates. No pressure.

Welcome to your dream job, Josh D’Amaro! Good luck handling these extraordinary challenges!

Oh, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll discuss even more potential challenges after he gets the job.

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Feature Photo: D23