“Barbenheimer” aside, it was the summer from hell for Hollywood executives, and none more so than Bob Iger. In July he and fellow moguls Gulfstreamed to the jagged green mountains of Sun Valley, Idaho, for their annual retreat, where between power lunches and tandem bike rides they debated media deals and the impact of artificial intelligence. But the big reveal was that Iger, who in November emerged from retirement to temporarily lead Walt Disney Co., would be extending his contract. Disney was worth $160 billion—or less than half what it had been when he left in 2021—and the company’s problems seemed to be getting only worse. Iger was burning through his two-year agreement with no clear successor in sight, and Disney’s board chose the elite confab to announce that the man who had once made the company unstoppable had agreed to stay on until 2026.
Investors barely had time to cheer before the news was overshadowed by an Iger gaffe on the eve of actors joining writers in a strike, the first time both unions had banded together in 60 years. Iger had a long-earned reputation as a dealmaker and diplomat, having played a major role in thawing the ice between studios and scribes at the height of the Writers Guild of America strike in the late aughts. But when asked by CNBC about the actors’ demands, which include better payment from streaming services and job protections against AI, Disney’s chief executive officer said: “There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic.”