迪士尼继承之战
Soon after my arrival at The New York Times in March 2020, a source suggested I write about the fact that Bob Iger, who had just handed the reins at Disney over to Bob Chapek, appeared to have thrown himself back into the company amid the developing COVID-19 crisis. Though my title there was media columnist, I’d never covered Hollywood and didn’t know the players. But this was the Times, so Iger responded to my inquiries:
“A crisis of this magnitude, and its impact on Disney, would necessarily result in my actively helping [Chapek] and the company contend with it, particularly since I ran the company for 15 years!” Iger told me back then in a brief email.
The story — and, I think, the perception that Iger had deviously placed it to undermine his successor — turned into one of the industry’s great dramas. My contact with Iger, it turned out, was the last straw: “When he did the interview with Ben Smith where he essentially reasserted himself as CEO — that was as big a sign as possible of an attempt to undermine me,” Chapek told the The Wall Street Journal last week.
As is often true, the reality was dumber than the theories: While the underlying tensions between the Bobs were obviously real, my story wasn’t some devious plant; I was new to the beat and bumbling around. Iger didn’t call me up to do an interview; he shot back a couple short emails. These theories often give everyone too much credit.