Disney CEO Bob Iger Blames Marvel And Star Wars Zeal On Pixar Flops

Bob Iger, the Grand Poobah at Disney, has called out the room’s navy blue and bedazzled elephant. CNBC’s Squawk Box had Iger on for a chat during the Sun Valley conference in Idaho when he dropped a bomb targeted at his company.

He shared The Walt Disney Company’s “zeal” to ramp up content output has been creatively and commercially has been disappointing. In other news, bears drop deuces in a forest, water is wet, and the Kardashian’s 15 minutes have been up for a few years.

“There have been some disappointments we would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better. It’s reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but I think in our in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been.”

If you have Disney+, you know Mickey’s fiefdom includes Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, National Geographic, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures.

And then, there’s Pixar, the spark behind this mess.

Bob Iger Isn’t Drawing Up Much Success

The mark of a superb chief executive is awareness–knowing something about everything. Bob Iger is no stranger to Disney as this is his second time on the throne, replacing Bob Chapek, who replaced him as CEO. His first go-round lasted for 15 wildly prosperous years. The second one? Not so much.

As Squawk Box asked Iger about his legion of micro brands, Pixar came up in conversation. In particular, the animated cyber pioneer has been on an unprecedented streak of failure dating back to 2019 with the unnecessary Toy Story 4. 

Its most recent belly flop at the box office is Elemental, which earned $29.5M in its opening weekend–the worst in modern studio history. Maybe it’s growing pains at Pixar or not paying attention to audience marketing. Whatever the reason, Mickey is a little butthurt and a lot lighter in his wallet. To wit, Iger pointed a finger.

“There were three Pixar releases in a row that went direct to streaming, in part because of — mostly because of COVID. And I think that may have created an expectation in the audience that they’re going to eventually be on streaming and probably quickly, and there wasn’t an urgency. And then I think there was some, I think you’d have to agree that there was [sic] some creative misses, as well.”

Misses? The odd thing is Disney+ appears to have not been aiming in the past few years. Typically, they don’t miss. Marvel to Star Wars, Disney to even Pixar, it’s the Midas Touch over there at Epcot Central. Iger noted that as well, which is to say, they’re losing some serious coin.

“Our zeal to grow our content to grow our streaming offerings…has diluted focus and attention at Marvel, Pixar and other pillars of the content engine.”

This dilution has also reared its ugly head in the streamer’s subscriptions, dropping 2.4M since its launch in November 2019. Even the coffers at Disney have a bottom, as seen with its $212M budget on Secret Invasion and getting extraordinarily little return on that investment.

To help balance these financial woes, Disney and Bob Iger have been making some serious decisions, like axing 3% of the entire company (most looks like at ESPN). The bean counters are also cutting down spending by $5.5 billion! And, just to be sure there is enough for the holiday rush, Disney is considering a licensing deal or even selling some of their properties (Hulu, we’re looking at you).

Hobbling Along on Your Left

Although Pixar is experiencing an almost-Nordic like cold spell, Bob Iger has a few kerosene-doused words for Marvel as well. The lighter hurled on Stan Lee’s empire had to do with Marvel Studios’ lack of experience with TV series. Never mind all that Netflix stuff; Iger was on a roll.

“Marvel’s a great example of that. They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything.”

Even the great MCU is not beyond a bubblegut movie that limps out of the box office like your old uncle with a broken hip. They bank on the illustrious franchise because there is rarely a miss in the bunch. However, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Ms. Marvel, and the aforementioned Invasion have underperformed. And when these recent additions dropped for global circulation, they made a colossal thud.

Iger notes Disney may be slowing down on its cavalcade of characters.

“[There will be a] pullback, not just the focus but it’s also part of our cost containment initiative,” he said. “Spending less on what we make and making less.”

Whether he sticks by that remains to be seen. This is all about money and cuts need to be made. Oh, speaking of it, Iger extended his contract personally until 2026. The man’s paltry bonus plan is $5M, up from $1M, and his annual compensation is a lackluster $31M.

Good thing he laid off the janitorial crew and a few scrubs at the Worldwide Leader in Sports. The guy has groceries to buy.

See the full interview with Bob Iger on CNBC’s Squawk Box below.