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Iger’s Four Horsemen of the Succession Apocalypse

Now that Disney, under the watchful eye of Nelson Peltz, appears to have settled on a quartet of internal (yet by no means ideal) candidates, can it manage a complex process that allows for one winner without creating three sore losers?

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 23: Honoree Bob Iger speaks onstage during the YES 20th Anniversary Gala on September 23, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for YES 20th Anniversary Gala)
Matthew Belloni
May 29, 2024

I got stuck for a bit in the Disney scrum near the jamón station at the Governors Ball last Sunday. At the center, of course, was C.E.O. Bob Iger, who was congratulating the various contributors to Poor Things, which won four of the company’s five Oscars that night. Not as many as his arch-nemesis Brian Roberts at Comcast, but a long way from the tech interlopers: Apple’s Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, on the other side of the Dolby Ballroom, got completely blanked, despite 10 nominations for Killers of the Flower Moon; Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos and Amazon leader Andy Jassy, perhaps sensing the coming shellacking (each won just one Oscar despite a combined 21 noms), didn’t even bother to attend the ceremony.