| Bob Iger told my colleague Thomas Buckley just three weeks ago that he didn't want to return to Disney. He said the same to friends, colleagues, podcasters and maybe even himself. We should have known better. Iger spent years saying he was going to step down as CEO of Disney — and not doing so. When he finally did leave, he hung around as chairman. He didn't actually leave the company until the end of last year, and Disney was still paying him $2 million a year as a consultant and chipped in another $745,222 for security. Now he's "back" after defenestrating his hand-picked successor. The creative community at Disney is thrilled and so are investors. Iger will address the troops tomorrow. I would love to interview Iger and the Disney board about this turn of events. I suspect that won't happen, at least not with me and not right now. So, in lieu of that interview, here are the five biggest questions I hope someone asks Iger tomorrow. (Spoiler: Some of these questions have follow-up questions.) Why did the board renew Bob Chapek's contract earlier this year? Chapek has been on shaky ground for more than a year. The Disney CEO got sued by one of the biggest movie stars in the world, flubbed his response to Florida's 'Don't' Say Gay' bill and alienated almost every creative executive at the company. As his contract neared its conclusion, speculation was rampant that he was on his way out. But the Disney board extended Chapek's contract in June, leaving him in charge until July 2025. Though the board clearly harbored doubts about Chapek, they delivered a major vote of confidence for an embattled CEO. They said the vote was unanimous. The narrative being pushed by the company (and those close to Iger) is that the board's support evaporated in a matter of days. The company reported sales and profit well below what investors expected, Chapek did nothing to reassure investors on a call with analysts and the company's stock price plunged. Disney chair Susan Arnold called Iger the following week after not speaking to him for months and offered him the job. Iger said yes. It's all a bit too tidy; it seems unlikely that Arnold didn't speak to Iger for months and then offered him his old job. But until we know more, let's not speculate. What we can say is this: In firing Chapak after renewing him, the company has to pay him more than $20 million to go away and pay Iger another $27 million to be CEO. It's also changed leaders at a company that was about to implement major changes. Chapek announced layoffs, cost-cutting measures and price increases that Iger will need to carry out or undo. Bob Iger, why are you coming back? Iger is one of the best CEOs of this century. He acquired Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, transforming Disney into the single most powerful creative studio in the world. He then navigated the transition to streaming better than any other legacy media executive, bolstered by the acquisition of assets from one of his biggest rivals (Fox). After teasing his retirement for years, he departed on the highest of high notes and left his successor to deal with the fallout from the pandemic. There is only downside in coming back. If he succeeds, he burnishes a legacy that was already pristine. If he fails, he joins a long list of legends who couldn't let go. He is Michael Jordan on the Wizards. Muhammad Ali against Trevor Berbick. Tom Brady this year. To you and me, it seems obvious that a 71-year-old with hundreds of millions of dollars should just find something else to do. Start a foundation. Travel the world. Catch up on all the reading and downtime you didn't get to before. But then again, that is why you and I are not Bob Iger. Iger sees a company he led in distress, which reverses his hard work and his legacy. He also, presumably, has a plan to fix it. So... Now that you are back, Mr. Iger, what is your plan? Disney is in a different — most would say worse — position than when Iger left. The pay-TV business is declining at a faster rate and the streaming business has slowed down. Wall Street no longer wants to hear that companies are spending billions of dollars on unprofitable streaming services. They also don't want to hear that cable networks and movie theaters are the answer. They don't really know what they want to hear, which is why no entertainment company in the US has conceived the right sales pitch. If there is one person who can come up with the right pitch, it is probably Iger. He was always very good at communicating to Wall Street, even when he had bad news. Shares in the company soared upon news of his return. But first, he has to make some decisions. - Does he keep ESPN, or spin it off? It's the symbol of the shrinking pay-TV business, but it also generates a ton of cash at a time when investors want to see profits.
- Can he convince the NBA to give him streaming rights for ESPN+? Disney is going to keep its basketball deal, which expires right after Iger is supposed to appoint a successor. But just keeping rights for the linear network won't be enough if Iger wants to transition his sports business from pay-TV to the internet.
- Does he buy Comcast out of Hulu now, or wait? Chapek was positioning Disney+ as a more general entertainment service, and it was seen as inevitable that Hulu would get folded in. That can't happen until Disney spends about $9 billion, if not more, to buy Comcast's 30% stake in Hulu.
- Does he proceed with a gambling deal? Iger was opposed to getting into gambling because it didn't comport with the Disney brand. But sports gambling is now legal in much of the country. A gambling deal could bring in billions of dollars for ESPN.
- Does he keep Chapek's pricing changes at the parks? Disney fanatics hated Chapek for what they saw as his nickel and diming them at the parks.
And yet, none of these decisions is as important as the next two. Is Iger's successor already at Disney? Iger cleared out most of the best candidates to succeed him before he left the first time. Jay Rasulo left when Iger made it clear that Tom Staggs was his successor. Then Staggs left when Iger decided not to give him the job. Kevin Mayer left when Iger anointed Chapek as the one true king. But then Iger soured on Chapek almost right away. It was too late for Iger to change his mind, so he left. Chapek then got rid of his biggest internal threat, Peter Rice. (He learned from the best.) Dana Walden, who runs Disney's TV studios and TV networks, is seen as the strongest internal candidate. She has real connections in the creative community and oversees the majority of the company's programming. She has no experience in theme parks, but does serve on the board of Live Nation. The other option is an external candidate. Disney has tended to promote from within, but Iger hasn't left himself a ton of options. Iger could even acquire (and rehire) Mayer or Staggs, who teamed up on their own venture and acquired Reese Witherspoon's company and the YouTube kids' media factory Moonbug. Iger already had one bad experience buying a YouTube business, but that leads to the final question. Does Iger have one big deal left? Iger transformed Disney through mergers and acquisitions in his first stint as CEO. Why not do it again? There is limited growth left in traditional film and TV, which means he has three options. He can buy a competitor and amass greater scale in his current business. (While some have proposed a merger with Netflix, it's hard to imagine regulators allowing that.) He can buy into a related business. Gaming is one of the few blemishes on Iger's resume right now. Disney tried and failed to make its own games. But gaming has a young and passionate fan base that would offer Disney another way to make money from its trove of characters. It already has a big partnership with Electronic Arts, which releases Star Wars and Marvel games. EA already held talks to sell itself to Comcast. Or, he could sell. He has great affection for Steve Jobs and Apple, and the press is already speculating that is his grand plan. The end of Disney as a standalone company? It seems far-fetched, but so did Iger's return. — Lucas Shaw Disney's A Strange World grossed just $19 million this holiday weekend, the company's second costly animated flop this year. Lightyear, a spinoff of the Toy Story franchise, grossed $226 million earlier this year. Disney and Pixar animated movies tend to cost $150 million or more to produce and are expected to gross upwards of $500 million at the box office. The studio has owned the holiday period in recent years. Frozen II grossed $1.4 billion after its release in November 2019. Has Disney lost its mojo? It released Turning Red and Encanto in the last 12 months so it is hard to say that. Are families reluctant to go to theaters for animated movies? Disney has released many animated movies on streaming since the start of the pandemic, which has conditioned parents to wait for the movies to be available at home. But it isn't just animated movies underperforming. She Said, a drama about the reporters who exposed the predations of Harvey Weinstein, has grossed just a few million dollars. Other adult titles, including The Menu and Devotion, aren't faring much better. Box office receipts this month are down more than 50% from pre-pandemic. We now live in a world where the movie theater is for events. People will show up en masse for something they know or something that everyone is talking about. Minions: The Rise of Gru and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, both family movies, did just fine at the box office. A new model for talentBen Affleck and Matt Damon are starting a new production company they say will give artists more control and upside. Backed by financier Gerry Cardinale, the two actors plan to share profits with cast and crew. They are just the latest creative people looking to reverse the current transition away from individual TV shows and movies being judged on their own merits. Projects released via streaming don't produce a traditional profit (or loss), as United Talent Agency Chief Jeremy Zimmer outlined in a recent piece. But many agents, lawyers and movie stars want to stop this. The No. 1 TV show in the US…is football, duh. The World Cup match between the US and England drew 15.4 million viewers, the most-watched men's soccer match on US English-language TV in history. And yet, a Thanksgiving football game between Dallas and the New York Giants drew 42 million. Deals, deals, deals - The sequel to Avatar scored a release date in China, where the original grossed more than $200 million (and most US movies have been shunned)
- Horror maestro Jason Blum is merging his production company with that of James Wan. It's a coup for Universal to take Wan, the director of The Conjuring and Aquaman, away from Warner Bros.
I just finished Michael Mann's sequel to Heat, a book that takes place both before and after the events in the movie. Free holiday gift idea! Also, if you aren't watching the World Cup I am not sure what to do with you. | 
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