Disney chief Bob Iger. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Variety via Getty Images)
As a rare Southern California rain storm moved in Thursday, Bob Iger held his penultimate year-end earnings call (for real this time) in the pre-dawn dark for Walt Disney Co. employees in Burbank. For anyone following the studio, the symbolism was hard to miss as Iger closes the books on a storied 20-year reign with one last chapter to come—anointing a successor.
As the home of “The Bachelor” and all those princesses, Disney knows something about choosing winners and heirs. But the thorny rose an Iger replacement will inherit raises the stakes on Hollywood’s latest corporate “bake-off,” pitting internal candidates against each other, and has invited speculation the Disney board could and perhaps should opt for co-chiefs, concluding it will take two people to fill Iger’s shoes.
While running a studio has never been easy, the combination of Hollywood undergoing wrenching transitions, coupled with Trump administration and conservative hostility toward mainstream media, offers a corporate minefield the “winner” will have to navigate.
“Nobody can surf 100-foot waves every day,” Ted Harbert, who worked with Iger as president of ABC Entertainment before moving on to Comcast/NBC, told me of the current environment. “Bob knows I’m his biggest fan. He also knows I wish he was watching the surfers from his boat.”
Iger can hit the beach, officially and figuratively, at the end of 2026. Disney has only stated a replacement will be named early next year, with board chairman James Gorman spearheading the process.
Yet that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from trying to read Madame Leota’s Haunted Mansion crystal ball for elusive signs…
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The Los Angeles Times building in El Segundo, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Status Scoop | A strike at the Los Angeles Times has been averted! The Los Angeles Times Guild informed its members via email Friday that it has "come to a tentative agreement with management on all outstanding issues in the contract.”
In the email, guild chief Matt Hamilton said…
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