Disney CEO Bob Iger Admits Company Has “To Be Better At Curating The Disney, And The Pixar, And The Marvel, And The Star Wars Of It All”
During The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 FY 23 Earnings Results call Disney CEO Bob Iger seemed to admit the company has a quality problem with many of its major brands and franchises.
While answering a question from Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson, Iger discussed how the company is going to cut it costs when it comes to film and TV production, but also appeared to tacitly admit the company has a quality problem in regards to many of its top brands and franchises.
Iger said, “In additionally we are going to lean more into our franchises, our core franchises, and our brands. I talked about curation in general entertainment. We have to be better at curating the Disney, and the Pixar, and the Marvel, and the Star Wars of it all.”
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“And, of course, reduce costs on everything that we make. While we are extremely what’s proud on the screen, it’s gotten to a point where it’s extraordinarily expensive. We want all the quality. We want the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what they cost us,” he continued.
“So, we are going to continue to go after [subscriptions], but we’re going to be more judicious about how we do that. We are going to look carefully at pricing,” Iger said. “We’re going to reduce costs both in content and, of course, infrastructure, there’s a lot that we’re getting at that there.”
“Marketing is another area where we are going to try and rebalance marketing the platform versus marketing the programs,” he added.
From there, Iger pointed to Nielsen’s recent data that revealed the top streaming movies of 2022 that included 10 Disney produced movies: Encanto, Turning Red, Moana, Hocus Pocus 2, Frozen, Luca, Zootopia, Coco, Eternals, and Frozen II. In total the 10 films racked up 80.397 billion minutes viewed.
“Nielsen came out with something a few weeks ago that was stunning to us, and that was that 10 of the top 15 movies streamed in the United States in 2022 were ours,” Iger said. “That suggests to us that our brands and franchises work extremely well in streaming. I mentioned how Wakanda Forever has done as well.”
The Walt Disney Company previously announced that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was “the most watched Marvel film premiere on Disney+ globally.” However, they didn’t actually reveal any numbers.
Disney previously held the 11 of the top 15 most streamed films back in 2021. However, the 11 films only combined for 65.971 billion minutes viewed.
Interestingly, the types of movies were move diverse. Instead of primarily animated films with the exception of Hocus Pocus 2 and Eternals, 2021 included Jungle Cruise, Black Widow, Cruella, and Avengers: Endgame.
Of note there were at least two Marvel films in the top 15 compared to just one in 2022.
What do you make of Iger’s comments during The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 FY 23 Earnings Results calls?
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