Disney Town Hall: Bob Iger on Quality Over Quantity, Company's "Building" Phase

The Walt Disney Company commemorated its 100th anniversary by dressing its mascot, Mickey Mouse, in a shimmering platinum outfit designed "to reflect the optimism and creativity of Disney as the company celebrates 100 years and looks toward the next century." Optimism and creativity was at the heart of Disney CEO Bob Iger's message to employees as he addressed the rank and file during Disney's Town Hall on Tuesday, telling cast members that Disney Studios is committed to quality over quantity as the company shifts from a "fixing" period to a phase of "building." 

"I talk about optimism being an extraordinarily important trait of a leader, because no one wants to follow a pessimist. But I also believe that hopeless optimism doesn't do anybody any good," Iger said during the event moderated by ABC News anchor David Muir. "I have, I think, real reason — and we have real reason as Disney — to be optimists, and it starts with the fact that we're Disney. And Disney, as you know, is a brand unto itself, but it's also an umbrella company that houses many assets and many great brands. So, reason to be optimistic No. 1 is that."

Iger returned to head the company one year ago, replacing his successor Bob Chapek as CEO just 30 months after stepping down from the role in 2020. Susan Arnold, the then-chairman of Disney's board, said at the time that the board "concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the Company through this pivotal period."

"I knew that there were myriad challenges that I would face coming back," Iger said Tuesday. "I won't say that it was easy, but I've never second guessed the decision to come back, and being back still feels great."

Division chiefs Alan Bergman and Dana Walden (Co-Chairs, Disney Entertainment), Jimmy Pitaro (Chairman, ESPN), and Josh D'Amaro (Chairman, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products) each emphasized reasons to be optimistic about Disney — the combined Disney+ and Hulu "one-app experience" by year's end, ESPN launching its direct-to-consumer offering by 2025, and a $60 billion investment in Disney Parks — but there was still the Dumbo in the room to address.

Disney's 100-year anniversary has been marred by a string of underperformers (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid), flops (Haunted Mansion, The Creator), and bombs (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Marvels), with few bright spots: Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is Disney's highest-grossing release of the year at $845 million, while Pixar's Elemental legged it out to nearly $500 million after initially fizzling out at the box office. The studio ends its centennial with a weak Wish box office: the animated musical from Walt Disney Animation Studios opened to third place over the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We obviously want to build our studio back to making not only great films consistently, but [to] our preeminent status in the business," said Iger, who once left the company on a high note: in 2019, Disney Studios shattered its own record with global box office of $11 billion with a film slate that included such blockbuster behemoths as Avengers: Endgame, Frozen II, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Iger and Bergman both acknowledged the company's box office woes and noted that Disney's 2024 slate includes a diverse lineup from Walt Disney Pictures (Mufasa: The Lion King), Pixar (Inside Out 2), 20th Century Studios (The First Omen, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus), and Marvel Studios (Deadpool 3). Iger confirmed that the latter has resumed filming after a production shutdown amid the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike; the threequel, which reunites Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be the lone Marvel Studios movie in 2024 after Disney delayed Captain America: Brave New World and pushed Thunderbolts to 2025.

In response to Disney's down year at the box office, Iger said: "I've talked about that a lot recently, because in assessing some of our performance, recently, one of the reasons I believe it's fallen off a bit is that we were making too much. I think when it comes to creativity, quality is critical, of course, and quantity in many ways can destroy quality. Storytelling, obviously, is the core of what we do as a company." 

"I spent the year with the team fixing a lot of things," Iger added. "But I feel that we've just emerged from a period of a lot of fixing to one of building again — and I can tell you, building is a lot more fun than fixing."