Iger and his Walt Disney at the Judgement of Time
In December 2022, familyandtrends had analysed the return of Bob Iger at the helm of Disney was not just a change of CEO, but an attempt to return to the entrepreneurial essence designed by Walt himself. At the time, The Economist argued that the problem was the 'storyline', i.e. the streaming and content crisis, and that calling back a 'star from the past' would solve nothing. It was not only the prestigious British magazine that thought so. familyandtrends had then thought that The Economist and other experts were wrong; let's see what has happened in the past three years.
Since his arrival on 20 November 2022, Iger has dismantled the bureaucratic structure created by Chapek, the previous CEO, where Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution separated those who create from those who sell, and put creativity back at the centre just as in the design of Walt's entrepreneurial essence. On the first day of his return to lead the company he wrote to employees "I will work to put things back in place so that we honour and respect creativity as the heart and soul of who we are... I firmly believe that story creation is what gives life to this company and that is the centre of how we should organise the company." He has done that.
The first confirmation came from the cinema, the engine of the Entrepreneurial Essence that Walt charted in 1957. Iger reduced the number of Marvel and Star Wars films to return to making fewer but better titles in terms of creative quality. In 2024 Inside Out 2 surpassed $1 billion at the box office, marking not only the revival of Pixar but also the return of film as the primary source of creativity; a source that fuels the business, from parks to merchandising. In Iger's words, "every creative success generates economic value for years.
The second confirmation came from streaming. In 2023 Disney+ and Hulu were merged into one platform, with the aim no longer to grow at any cost but to become profitable. In 2025 the direct-to-consumer segment recorded three consecutive profitable quarters. Iger thus transformed streaming from an end to a means, something similar Walt did with TV in the 1950s: not to sell advertising, but to support films and parks.
The third confirmation came from the parks, which once again became the physical crowning glory of the Disney world. With $60 billion of investment over 10 years announced in 2023, Iger relaunched the dimension where the creativity of the Studios is unleashed and where characters take shape and give plastic meaning to Walt's vision: 'out of dreams must come a place'.
