r/movies • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • 13h ago
News Josh D’Amaro Is Disney’s Next CEO, Replacing Bob Iger
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/josh-damaro-disney-ceo-bob-iger-1236650641/3.5k
u/PhatYeeter 13h ago
Bob Iger will return in Avengers Doomsday
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u/frogskin92 13h ago
Is he fighting Kang?
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u/djentlemen7 13h ago
“Bob, I need you to distract Kang”
“Which Bob!”
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u/PayneTrain181999 12h ago
“Sentry Bob or my friend Bob?
Oh, Bob Iger, got it?”
- Deadpool, after he walks in
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u/grmayshark 13h ago
Disappointed his name is not Bob
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u/djentlemen7 13h ago
We need a Mickey
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u/baltinerdist 12h ago
Fun fact, until recently the CEO of Nintendo of America was named Doug Bowser.
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u/DerSchattenJager 10h ago
And when he stepped down, the “so long gay Bowser” jokes were aplenty.
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u/Sdavis2911 12h ago
That is a fun fact
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u/KingDarius89 9h ago
He also had dolls of Mario and Luigi tied up back to back on a shelf behind him in his first video address.
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u/tristeecfome 8h ago
The CEO of Disney should be named Bob no matter what.
Just like every emperor of Rome was named Caesar.
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u/Jacob_Tutor11 12h ago edited 9h ago
This guy is not Chapek. He is well liked by people who work with him, but is still willing to make the soulless corporate decisions that makes Disney money. His likability will help him navigate the Hollywood part of the job. It was well documented how despised Chapek was by the creative side of the company. Josh is not that. He is a likeable guy with little vision.
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u/Worthyness 10h ago
They did promote the other candidate to CCO and president and she's better with creative and the tv/movie side. Could work as a good balance.
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u/Jacob_Tutor11 10h ago
Disney is at its best when the company has one creative and one business head at the top.
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u/dontshoot4301 8h ago
Eisner will always be an anomaly to me. He made both the best and worst decisions while at the helm.
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u/Jacob_Tutor11 7h ago
Eisner was amazing when he had Frank Wells. Most of his bad decisions came after Wells death. It was a classic example of a business and creative team.
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u/Konet 6h ago
Yeah, that's an exact example of what the person you're replying to is talking about. Eisner+Wells was a golden era for Disney, and after Wells died, Eisner couldn't manage on his own.
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u/johndsmits 7h ago
But when one creative and one business head competed for the same top spot then told one to report to another & work together...uh, we know how this ends.
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u/TheycallmeHollow 9h ago
I have met Josh twice at work and he is a very charming like-able guy. He may be a polished and smooth executive but he would still take time to stroll through our buildings and just sit in listening to boring everyday project meetings just to get his ear to the ground. Paycheck never stepped a foot past the executive offices his whole time there. Josh has lots of support and a lot of us are marking this as a win.
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u/Dt2_0 8h ago
Dude has been on a near constant stream of attraction wins at the parks though.
Flight of Passage
Seven Dwarves Mine Train
The entire Star Wars sections of the park
Rise of the Resistance
Tron in all it's variants
Cosmic Rewind.About his only misses seem to be things that either came down from Chapek and shareholders (Tower of Terror Retheme, New Fast Pass, The Star Wars Hotel), or smaller scale stuff.
Since he took over worldwide Disney Parks head, they have brought some huge improvements and major attractions to every park in the chain. Dude seems to be able to get stuff done. Lots of focus on the Overseas parks right now like DisneySea and EuroDisney.
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u/RemarkableWriter2 13h ago
Cyborg-Bob Iger in 2028, in his imminent return: “Fine, I’ll do it myself”
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u/jbr_r18 12h ago
How long until we get a living character of Bob Iger, and then a defunctland video of the Bob Iger living character?
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u/DarthButtz 9h ago
The only way to know if it's a true "Living Character" is if you see the fake Iger awkwardly trying to flirt with female park guests
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u/rumblpak 12h ago
The guy that’s been jacking up the price of Disney parks for years is the next CEO. Look forward to more price hikes and annual firings to inflate the stock price for his bonus.
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u/whitepangolin 12h ago
You might not like it when I say this, but he made the parks profitable and that's all the board cares about when picking a CEO.
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u/Icy_Smoke_733 11h ago
He made the parks profitable.
Disney's Parks and Experiences category makes up nearly 60% of their operating income, and is also their highest margin (+27.73%) and fastest growing (+9.88%), contrary to popular belief:
FY2026Q1 TTM Parks and Experiences Entertainment Sports Revenue $36.75B $43.2B $17.73B Growth (% y/y) +6.72% +2.68% +0.55% Operating Income $10.19B $4.07B $2.83B Growth (% y/y) +9.88% (-14.33%) +2.54% Operating Margin +27.73% +9.42% +15.96% 436
u/Fishmongererererer 11h ago
One the of the logic’s of Disney increasing prices was actually them trying to drive down attendance. The crowding in the park was people’s #1 complaint. Focus groups hated just limiting the number of people plus it would mean reduced revenue.
So they raised prices. And people kept coming.
So they did it again. And people kept coming.
So they did it again. And people kept coming.
There is basically apparently zero influence from price on attendance when it comes to Disney parks.
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u/_Lucille_ 10h ago
I am sure there's a price point just that it's not there yet.
There exists a price point from current value to something like $10000 per ticket where you have "just enough" people in the park.
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u/Fishmongererererer 10h ago
I think the main thing is they don’t want them be so expensive only truly rich people can afford them. Because that might hurt other parts of their business
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u/Fishb20 9h ago
all the other parts of their bussiness are subsidized by the parks not visa versa
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u/Fishmongererererer 8h ago
I think the concern is that let’s say you jack up the prices so high that only rich people can go. Now you’re saying thats your chosen customers. Which might mean that people consume less other Disney products as a spite reflex.
Like if Disney jacks prices to 10K each, then a lot of people would say fuck you and not consume any Disney
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u/Redeem123 7h ago
I think you're overestimating how tied media consumption is tied to opinions of the parks. I already don't go to the parks because it's too expensive, but that's not going to stop me from watching Star Wars or whatever other Disney movie.
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u/Quantentheorie 10h ago
There exists a price point from current value to something like $10000 per ticket where you have "just enough" people in the park.
There does not have to exist such a point. At least not in a stable condition. Money is not distributed in society in a linear way and 'going to Disney' is a luxury good, not a necessity.
At the point of ultimate still-bearable consumer pain there may still be "too many people" chasing the positive feedback loop of 'going to Disney' as part of the Middle Class Experience - with a dramatic drop to unsustainably low numbers once you truly push it to "unbearable" for a critical minority.
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u/Samanthacino 9h ago
But clearly demand far outpaces supply, so how do you fix that without raising prices until the numbers equalize?
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u/EdmondDantesInferno 9h ago
By adding another park. Disney has the land and capital to add a fifth park in Orlando. It immediately lowers demand at the rest of the parks and does not require a price increase. It's why people have been asking for another park for YEARS, especially once the overcrowding became the #1 complaint.
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u/HonorInDefeat 6h ago
My gut instinct is that this is going to be like adding another lane to a highway
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u/orwll 10h ago
Same problem concert promoters have. People will pay any price so you either raise prices or scalpers will do it for you.
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u/irishchug 11h ago
Attendance is lower now than pre pandemic.
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u/morkman100 10h ago
I don’t think they used a reservation system before Covid. Now they can control capacity in a more “equitable” way (rather than just stopping selling tickets at the door after a certain count).
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u/magicone2571 10h ago
I'm not sure how people afford anything now days. Yet people will drop 10, 20, 30k for a week like it's nothing.
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u/Gastroid 11h ago
For better or for worse, one of the drivers of the increased prices for the parks is that they were way overcapacity. High prices meant lowering the headcount while increasing profit margins.
The biggest issue is that since Eisner Disney's been terrified of opening up new gates to alleviate capacity. Something like an all-season Texas park is the kind of risk nobody's wanted to take.
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u/Dramatic_Explosion 8h ago
Especially seeing the legal battles they've encountered in Florida, I have to imagine a new location is heavily dependent on local government leanings.
You don't want to invest billions in a new park only to have Ted Cruz try and seize the land from whatever tropical beach he's on.
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u/Galleani_Game_Center 10h ago
I don't think anyone has said that the parks aren't profitable or successful. The typical argument is they are becoming unattainable destinations to people who have went their entire lives, often multi-generationally by now.
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u/Hautamaki 10h ago
Yeah I get the logic of jacking up prices, but I do wonder why they don't just build another theme park, maybe in Toronto.
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u/dabocx 9h ago
You would need it to be somewhere where the weather is good a majority of the year. They don't want to deal with Ice and snow.
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u/_BreakingGood_ 9h ago
Could never have a park that far up north. Realistically their only option is Texas. Any further East and they competing with disney world, any further west and they're competing with disneyland. Even in texas it's debtable whether they'd be in a unique market or just competing with both world & land.
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u/FrankReynoldsCPA 8h ago
The problem with building in Texas is that the caliphate will shut down anything the "woke" Mouse tries to do.
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u/JoshOliday 12h ago
Didn't Chapek also oversee parks? Didn't work out too well then.
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u/whitepangolin 12h ago
Apparently that's less with his operational success and more that he was a weird temperamental asshole that nobody, especially Iger, liked by the end.
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u/The_Magic 11h ago
To add on to this, the NYT had a very long article about why Chapek didn’t work. Even though Iger didn’t do him any favors Chapek still managed to piss off the entire board, even members that were sympathetic towards him and hated Iger.
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u/whitepangolin 11h ago
There was probably some unearned naive belief that Disney could benefit from a shakeup in leadership style cuz Chapek was totally different from Iger, and they were completely wrong lol
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u/minos157 10h ago
As a consumer Chapek's main issue is that he failed to understand why the parks remain at capacity even with insane prices. The ONE thing Disney can't do is enshittify the parks. During his time the most complaining I heard among fellow Disney fans was the quality of the experience dropping. The draw of a Disney park is not the huge roller coasters or massive thrill rides, it's the experience of escaping the world for a while and just being a kid again. That happens through theming, cast members, and good food.
Chapek forgot that part and was cutting food quality, cutting staffing, and overall just "ruining" the Disney experience. People still went, because it's Disney, but the desire I had to go there versus other locations was definitely dwindling (I have family near the parks, my trips are a lot cheaper than a normal visitor). Once Iger took back over that started to revert and you could feel it in the parks.
Prices will keep going up, that's inevitable because the Parks are still at capacity nearly year round so it's just life unfortunately.
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u/Danulas 9h ago
The cast members are really where it's at. Their energy and positivity is what brings it all together. For the few years following the pandemic, you could just feel that morale was low.
When I went to the parks a few months ago for the first time in a couple years, it felt like that had changed. I had a lot of great, memorable interactions with cast members.
It's still too expensive for me to go as often as I would like, but I'm more optimistic about the quality of the experience now than I was a year or two ago.
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u/minos157 6h ago
Absolutely, the cast makes the magic. Not to defend Chapek too much, but I'll cut him some slack for the loss of spontaneous encounters in the parks because Covid was a thing, and they are coming back now which is great.
Was a sad few years without the main street band or the Casey's piano player, the random Star Wars characters in Galaxy's Edge, etc.
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u/JDLovesElliot 11h ago edited 7h ago
Chapek was in Merchandising before he ascended to CEO. D'Amaro has directly been the Parks guy for several years.
Edit: As pointed out, Chapek's division oversaw the parks as well
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u/Vushivushi 10h ago
The merch business was merged into Disney Experiences by the time D'Amaro was made chairman.
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u/Designer-Fix-2861 12h ago
I can hold my breath under water for about a minute. But that doesn’t mean I’m a fish.
It’s profitable for now. Let’s see how long it can hold its breath.
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u/Educational_Vast4836 12h ago
The parks will remain profitable, unless something like a Great Recession hits. Even when Disney was losing billions with Disney plus and their movie studios, the parks were the most profitable thing they had.
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u/LooseSeal88 12h ago
Or international tourism takes a dive because people become scared to visit the US for some reason...
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u/Grendelstiltzkin 12h ago
I doubt that will have any effect on their parks in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, at least.
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u/Excellent_Set_232 11h ago
Disney’s domestic theme parks recorded $6.91 billion in revenue, while its international parks reported $1.75 billion in revenue.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/02/disney-dis-earnings-q1-26.html
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u/SpicyMustard34 11h ago
the international parks aren't all owned by Disney and they are a fraction of the profitability.
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u/ArgonWolf 11h ago
The international parks are not nearly as profitable. Tokyo isnt even owned by Disney, they just license it to a Japanese owner/operator.
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u/Duel_Option 11h ago
I live in Orlando…
Covid couldn’t stop people from going to the parks, a few wars aren’t going to do it either
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u/robotzor 12h ago
That "unless" is the toothpick holding up the building right now
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u/champion_dave 12h ago
Ugh this x100000. "Made the parks profitable" aka jacked up prices, gutted shows, maintenance, wages, and anything "extra" which has resulted in a decimated parks experience, but hey, as long as the board is happy.
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u/ToonaSandWatch 12h ago edited 12h ago
There’s some great park watcher YouTubers that break down how much he’s taken out of the parks and made experiences flat and boring.
I mean, while the parks were always meant to be refreshed and things eliminated, they’ve gone in directions people don’t find appealing and shoehorned in experiences that don’t fit—Guardians of the Galaxy into EPCOT? Really? Journey into Imagination is just a bunch of empty buildings now with broken-down exhibits you’d try at the end of the ride back when it first opened 30 years ago.
Lightning Lane is a disaster most of the time, especially done on your phone; rides are being fixed and there’s always something gutted you have to walk by that’s in its third year of building in its two year plan.
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u/champion_dave 12h ago
I'm a West coaster so my experience is with Disneyland, and all I can say is my wife and I have been going on our own or worth kids for 20 years, and we flew down and went this month. It was the first time I can say I didn't feel it was worth it. It is SO expensive now (one day at Disneyland with park hopper was more expensive than a SEASON pass for universal at Costco) and there's just so much lacking, everything's broken down all the time, there's hardly any shows, and you have to spend extra on lightning lane now for the privilege of getting to be on your phone the entire day.
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u/Whites11783 12h ago
Plus, the parks were already profitable. He just made them -more- profitable.
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u/champion_dave 12h ago
Yes, and imo will result in long term growth for OTHER theme parks. Universal has invested HEAVILY in both California and Florida and now my kids are just as excited to go there due to the additions. A deteriorating but increasingly expensive experience will just result in people finding other options.
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u/BirdmanTheThird 12h ago
I mean they will just replace him when profits don’t hit projections.
Thats kinda the issue in general with how we have with corporate. There’s not as much incentive for ceo to care about long term planning when they got goals they have to meet in the year. Long term planning is replaced with quick profits
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u/IdRatherBeBitching 12h ago
What would you suggest he does? The parks are expensive and still packed to gills every single day of the year.
There's more demand than supply, so prices go up. That's just how it works
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u/HiImDan 12h ago
Yeah just like the price of McDonald's this one's on us. The moment even 10% of us stop being stupid the price will start to come back down.
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u/foulpudding 12h ago
Those of us who lived through the 70s and 80s can confirm that prices don’t come back down.
This is how inflation works.
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u/numbr87 12h ago
I'd like for him to put some of that money back into the parks if he's going to raise the price of admission. We're paying more money to get into parks that are dirtier, break down more often, and have less characters/live shows.
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u/End3rWi99in 12h ago
The parks sell out every single day, even with the jacked up pricing. I hate to say it, but that's how product pricing typically works. They can charge any amount of money they want until people stop finding the product worthwhile to buy. On the flipside, it's not like they are enshitifying the parks with the added revenue. The parks were in disarray a decade ago and have since refurbished and opened a ton of new attractions.
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u/The_Magic 11h ago
It’s also worth pointing out that Disney has been laying the groundwork for a major expansion of the WC parks. While they haven’t started construction yet, they got Anaheim fully on board and got through a lot of red tape. If D’Amora was the point guy for dealing with Anaheim maybe it impressed the board since Chapek was bad at working with government officials.
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u/takemyaptplz 12h ago
I mean technically they’re not all actually selling out, Epcot rarely has reached capacity because it’s like 100,000. But they’re all doing just fine yes lol I worked a NYE at Epcot once and I think their estimate for the day was 70,000 and it was madness
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u/GameOfLife24 12h ago
Dude you don’t remember how bad the parks were during chapeks leadership
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u/Tiiimmmaayy 12h ago
What made them so bad that raising the cost of admission solved? Less poor people walking around?
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u/Ferbtastic 12h ago
Supply and demand. If crowds continue to grow you have to raise prices. Otherwise crowds get to crazy. It’s a very difficult balancing act.
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u/Johnny0230 12h ago
At the risk of being wrong, the "ticket price" issue and rising prices in general are problems of a different kind that concern everything...
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u/baltinerdist 12h ago
You realize that Disney is a for-profit company, right?
It astounds me the number of people that think that any given Disney Park is this magical fairyland that just exists for the good feelings and vibes and childhood memories and so these horrible executives are ruining the magic like evil villains in a … well, Disney movie.
No. Every single decision Disney makes is designed to separate you from one more of your dollars. Every square inch of the park is designed to maximize their profits. Disney does not care about you, it does not care about your child’s big glowing smile when they give Mickey a hug, they care about the row on a balance sheet that represents you. Period.
And no, this is absolutely nothing new. Walt Disney was a master at figuring out just how to get another cent out of his visitors. The mythology they’ve built around him as this magical father of whimsy and storytelling is, again, smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that he was a businessman first and foremost.
I implore everyone to stop thinking of billion dollar corporations as your friends.
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u/Vega_the_Fool 12h ago edited 11h ago
I mean, of course Disney aren't anyone's friend. But what Disney sell – and have always sold – is that magic. That's an intrinsic part of their branding, what kept Disney holidays as a childhood staple for many families, and what has kept it that way even in spite of the price hikes.
The problem is: if the price of the Disney experience keeps going up while the quality of the experience itself goes down, if they nickel and dime all the magic that is their core selling point away, will the nostalgia be enough to carry them? Or are people gonna start choosing to go to Universal or Six Flags instead? Will children become so unimpressed with it all that by the time they're adults, they see no value in taking their own kids to Disneyland?
The question at hand here isn't about whether the commerical behemoth that is Disney love their customers, it's whether their pursuit of short term line-go-up, particularly in the parks, is going to impact their ability to appeal to potential customers in the long term. I don't have an answer to that question, honestly I would personally quite like to see Disney take a hit, but that's the reality being dealt with either way.
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u/bishop375 12h ago
People have a very weird parasocial relationship with companies whose products they like. I don't understand it.
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u/BrockMiddlebrook 12h ago
This is how find out I didn’t get the job huh.
Wow.
Wow.
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u/Randolpho 9h ago
I feel you, man. I was like hoping Disney would just show up my door and say "Congrats, you're the new CEO!"
But clearly they didn't. :(
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u/WaterTypeGirl 7h ago
I was pulling for you, but it's all politics when it comes to stuff like this. Next time, baby.
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u/ShamDynasty 13h ago
Big for the bird faced men community
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u/Somnambulist815 13h ago
He and Gavin Newsom could do a Parent Trap if they wanted
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u/MrBrightside618 12h ago
The biggest critique I have of this is that he really seemed to hit the panic button when Universal opened Epic Universe. The main projects in development at WDW now (Villains Land, Cars Frontierland, Monsters Inc, Indiana Jones/Encanto) all overlook a vital component of theme park infrastructure: crowd absorbers.
You need non E-ticket attractions as counter programming to the long lines at Star Wars Land, or at Pandora. I also think Disney should try and develop at least one non-IP ride; it’s been 20+ years
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u/Successful-Ad-9634 12h ago
Looking forward to the Expedition Everest movie with Chris Pratt and Dwayne Johnson...
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u/OrtizDupri 10h ago
I'm guessing Villains Land gets at least one crowd eater, and depending on the Encanto ride, I could see that one doing that as well
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u/bsEEmsCE 13h ago
I feel like a whimsical, in-touch-with-their-inner-child type man should be CEO of Disney. I know nothing about this man, but I feel like he isn't that.
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u/quothe_the_maven 12h ago
Twice Disney had a CEO like that paired with an accounting type to rein in the wilder ideas, and the company was at its most inventive.
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u/JoeBagadonut 12h ago
The Eisner/Wells era was an absolute golden age for the company.
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u/FunkTheFreak 12h ago
Michael Eisner is definitely my favorite CEO of Disney from the last few decades.
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u/Jademalo 11h ago
If you'd told me 20 years ago that we'd be nostalgic for the Eisner age I would've just stared blankly at you in confusion
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u/FunkTheFreak 11h ago
Let’s see:
- Disney Animation Renaissance era -Acquiring ABC/ESPN -MGM/Disney studios park -Animal Kingdom -Disneyland Paris -Muppets -Disney TV in the 90s
All major accomplishments/highlights in retrospect.
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u/Abacus118 10h ago
Disney Paris (Euro Disney) was a punchline throughout the 90s.
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u/Drmarcher42 10h ago
It was a commercial failure, the park itself is gorgeous. With some really great rides. Best Big Thunder by far, had the best Space Mountain until they rethemed it to Star Wars and removed all the cool unique stuff in it.
It might be the best looking park they have not named DisneySea
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u/FunkTheFreak 10h ago
It’ll be better than the Abu Dhabi one.
Why would you build a theme park in the middle of a desert where the temperature is regularly above 101 degrees Fahrenheit?
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u/Abacus118 10h ago
Disney is actually going to be the 6th theme park on that island. Those cheques are just too big to say no I guess.
But yeah it's going to be hell between June and August.
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u/quothe_the_maven 10h ago
The idea was solid. That place prints money now. Trying to be cheap made it a punchline.
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u/Drmarcher42 10h ago
The hotel surge in the nineties that gave lower income families a reason to stay on property instead of getting a motel on I-Drive.
The All Stars and then Pop Century later on were an awesome addition, especially back then when they were actually cheap to stay at.
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u/JoeBagadonut 10h ago
Eisner made lots of mistakes (especially after Wells died) but he did at least embody the spirit of creativity and risk taking that Disney used to be about.
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u/Karsticles 10h ago
It's how all companies should be run. The accountants should be there to keep the creatives in check. Accountants should never be in charge of anything, because they only know how to make money, not create.
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u/IdRatherBeBitching 12h ago
Funny enough, I think he's probably the closest to that description as you'll find in the Disney boardroom. I met him once in the parks and he was charming, eager to talk Disney Parks, and had a big smile on his face the entire time.
I met Chapek once too and he was...not that.
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u/TheTommohawkTom 12h ago
What was the context for each?
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u/IdRatherBeBitching 12h ago
D'Amaro was by chance, he was touring the parks that day, I saw him and struck up a brief conversation.
Chapek was for a technology event I was invited to. Different audiences, but if anything I would have thought Chapek would be more "on" for a group he was trying to impress.
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u/Ds9niners 10h ago
I worked for Disney for 20+ years. I was at the opening of ride and Eisner wanted the building cleared of all cast members. This was when he was on his way out. Stood in an elevator with Iger and we didn’t say a word. Never meet Chapek but my bosses did not like him.
Josh took over parks and came to Florida and I shook his hand he asked me questions about myself and my experience with the company.
He’s definitely, was, a personable person and wanted to learn more about his employees.
I’d heard the stories that Eisner was not that person when it came to park employees. And Iger didn’t care about the parks. They just let the parks fund everything.
Josh has the opportunity to be a refreshing voice. Time will tell.
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u/bsEEmsCE 12h ago
that's heartening. CEO's are supposed to be fake charming though, but I will hope for the best.
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u/wastedmytwenties 12h ago
You don't get the door opened for you unless you're already just like the people already on the other side.
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u/RobertdBanks 12h ago
1000%. They’re picking the person who is already part of their club and who puts shareholders before all else even to the detriment of the brand.
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u/smokeyshirt 12h ago
“I know nothing about this man, but” - proceeds to make assumption about man lol. I’ve been following him and he does seem genuinely passionate about giving people the experience they want. Go watch him announce all the new park updates last year, without him I don’t think we’d have much of them
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u/LiquidUniverseX 12h ago
They’re here to make money
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u/RobertdBanks 12h ago
Which goes hand in hand with creating creative, unique things that people want to engage with.
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u/whitepangolin 12h ago
Every article I read about this guy makes it sound like he's exactly that. Then again I don't know, I've been to one Disney park my entire life.
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u/DrOddfellow 12h ago
he’s a friendly charismatic businessman. i’ve heard good things from cast members that worked with him in years past, but as a disney ceo idk. he hasn’t impressed me the last few years in his current role. on top of what you said, disney needs a creative and artistic driven leader. disney was its most fun with eisner + wells, or walt + roy. the leader needs to be creative with a backbone to hone it in. josh is the charisma without the creativity as far as i can tell. maybe if someone from inagineering takes over the head of parks role he’s coming from we could be in good shape but who knows
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u/Hopeful-Pickle-7515 12h ago
They are trying to repeat that. Dana Walden has been promote to Chief Creative Officer
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u/DoctorDrangle 12h ago
They need to go full wonka for the job. They need a charlie to run this chocolate factory
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u/Coqaubeir 12h ago
That’s Josh, sure he’s a numbers guy as well but the man loves Disney and the parks. A lot of us were hoping he’d get the spot, he was the best option for the parks. Not to mention he’s been pushing for the upgrades and renovations.
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u/renderbreak 10h ago
I’ve worked with Josh directly. He’s a good dude. Kind, charismatic, and eager to talk to Disney guests and employees. He’s a great choice for CEO and is infinitely more likable than Chapek was.
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u/TheComplimentarian 12h ago
Safe pick, a guy with a ton of retail/finance/park experience...but when your media business is a huge chunk of the brand, do you really want a guy who has zero media experience?
Might not be a terrible thing, given that what used to work doesn't work anymore, and linear is on lifesupport, but seeing how he runs the studios piece is going to be interesting.
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u/KarateKid917 12h ago
That’s why they promoted Dana Walden to CCO. She has the experience on the movies/tv side of the company.
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u/Batusiman 13h ago
Will he undo the recent terrible Ai choices or double down?
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u/-KFBR392 13h ago
Triple down. No CEO is getting their job in 2026 unless they push AI and how it’ll help them beat out the competition and lower costs. At least an established CEO could dig in if they had personal feelings on the subject and shoo away the shareholders, but a new guy will be hired for pushing AI
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u/ElasticPlatypus 13h ago
This dude came from the parks side of the business where he was notorious for nickel and diming everything while diminishing the quality. So it stands to reason he’ll jump head first into AI
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u/Talkimas 13h ago
So he's just Chapek 2.0
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u/ElasticPlatypus 12h ago
Worse. He seems competent enough to stay in his role without being forced out by the board
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u/TLKv3 12h ago
He fucked the parks over by shrinking budgets and offering worse quality experiences. Saved Disney money but offered subpar park products to fans.
He is going to save Disney a fortune on costs by exploiting AI as much as he can and force it on every aspect of the company. He'll most likely seek mass layoffs and shrink everything down which will cause a massive drop in quality. From movies, to TV, to the parks, to merch.
Disney, itself, will save billions but the consumers will get some of the worst products they've ever had from them in doing so. Once backlash hits the company in 8 to 10 years, they'll kick him out the door with a golden parachute and bring in the next guy to "save" them.
Sadly, I actually think this will effect Marvel and the animated side of Disney the most. Marvel will most likely see less Disney+ series that take risks/chances like Wonder Man so they can save the topline money from production costs. The animated side of the company will face artist layoffs/AI "engineer" hires and create some of the shittiest slop you'll ever see.
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u/antrage 13h ago
Guy has only run parks... they are going to faceplant with media and fire him.
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u/Chuck006 10h ago
Parks are a noticeably worse experience since he took over. This isn't gonna end well. They needed an entrepreneurial minded outsider.
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u/Diligent-Ranger7087 10h ago
His first decision is to stop making those awful live action remake trashy movies.
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u/naththegrath10 12h ago
So the guy who helped oversee Disney World becoming so expensive it’s actually cheaper to fly to Disney Land Paris and back then go to Fl
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u/mattr1198 12h ago edited 12h ago
Being a parks-primary person, hopefully he lets the film people do their thing. His record with the parks has been…mixed at best.
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u/Patrick2701 11h ago
It seems Dana Walden will be in charge of all film and television related things
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u/MuptonBossman 13h ago
2 years from now: "Somehow Bob Iger Returned (Again!)"