Free Republic

Think the lines were long already? Disney executive chairman Bob Iger said the company may institute temperature check at its theme parks once they reopen. In an interview with Barron’s, he said he thinks that might make a traumatized population feel safer once people venture out again. “One of the things that we’re discussing already is that in order to return to some semblance of normal, people will have to feel comfortable that they’re safe. Some of that could come in the form ultimately of a vaccine, but in the absence of that it could come from basically, more scrutiny,...

Bob Iger will step down as Disney CEO and assume the role of executive chairman, Disney announced on Tuesday. Bob Chapek, who most recently served as chairman of Disney parks, experiences and products, will assume the role of CEO, effective immediately, Disney announced. Shares of Disney fell about 2.5% after hours. Iger will remain executive chairman of Disney through the end of 2021, according to the company. He has been instrumental in making Disney a media powerhouse with key acquisitions and content plays. He launched Disney+, immediately making Disney a popular streaming service provider. Disney said the service had 26.5...

George Lucas “felt betrayed” by Disney‘s initial plans for the Star Wars sequel trilogy, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger. Iger has recalled the early meetings that Disney held with the creator of the acclaimed sci-fi franchise ahead of the making of The Force Awakens, which hit cinemas in 2015 as the first part of the sequel trilogy. •Read more: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – what we know so far about the final film in the trilogy In Iger’s new memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company,...

As an heiress to the Disney fortune, anything Abigail Disney says about the brand beloved by millions worldwide garners attention. And she’s calling out Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger for his nearly $66 million yearly salary, saying he isn’t doing enough to rectify the huge gap between his own earnings and that of other Disney workers. “Bob needs to understand he's an employee, just the same as the people scrubbing gum off the sidewalk are employees,” Disney said during an interview with the Yahoo News show Through Her Eyes. “And they're entitled to all the same dignity and human...

Like more or less everyone I know, I have no desire to see a single entertainment company take over the future, dominating what had been a movie industry of multiple entities, each one fighting for their slice of your attention span. Disney, the movie studio so powerful that it ate another movie studio, looks, to many, like it could be that company. The full impact of its absorption of 20th Century Fox has yet to be felt, but now that the smoke has cleared, the mega-corporation that was formed stands before us like an unprecedented colossus, looming over all other...

Savor the moment when Star Wars 9 rolls around this December—it may be the last new Star Wars movie for a little while. All involved at Lucasfilm and Disney have been touting the upcoming film as “the end of the Skywalker saga,” and with that comes something of a “reset” according to Disney CEO Bob Iger. Speaking with Bloomberg (via The Playlist), Iger revealed that after Star Wars: Episode IX, the movies will be taking a bit of a break: “We have not announced any specific plans for movies thereafter. There are movies in development, but we have not announced...

Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger saw his pay rise to $65.7 million, an 80% increase over a year ago, according to documents filed today with the SEC. The compensation reflects the generous stock package Iger was awarded as incentive to remain with the company past his planned retirement date, and lead Disney through its acquisition of much of 21st Century Fox’s film and television assets. Iger earned a salary of nearly $2.9 million, up from $2.5 million a year ago. He collected options worth $8.3 million and non-equity compensation of $18 million. But the biggest chunk of...

To borrow one of Han Solo's lines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, "That's not how the Force works!" It's an apt way to sum up the troubled performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. In one of the biggest box-office surprises in recent times, Solo is badly underperforming and will become the first of the Star Wars movies made by Disney and Lucasfilm to lose money. Wall Street analyst Barton Crockett says Solo will lose more than $50 million. Industry financing souces, however, say that figure could come in at $80 million or higher, although no one knows the...

Shortenend title. Full Title: Bill Press Says Joy Behar Was Right: Vice President Mike Pence Is Mentally Ill Because He’s a Christian Cameron Cawthorne at the Washington Free Beacon found the latest example of Bill Press trashing conservative Christians. He said Joy Behar was “right” to suggest Vice President Mike Pence had a “mental illness” in thinking Jesus was talking to him, giving him guidance. “Where was Bob Iger’s apology to the White House staff for Jemele Hill calling the president and anyone associated with him a white supremacist? To Christians around the world for Joy Behar calling Christianity a...

President Trump's first public reaction to the cancellation of "Roseanne" is a shot at Disney CEO Bob Iger. What he didn't say is just as notable. He didn't say anything critical of Roseanne Barr's racist and conspiratorial tweets -- the comments that got her fired on Tuesday. Instead, he tweeted this on Wednesday: "Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that 'ABC does not tolerate comments like those' made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just...

A commission headed by Anita Hill and composed of and funded by some of the most powerful names in Hollywood has been created to tackle widespread sexual abuse and harassment in the media and entertainment industries. Called the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, the initiative was spearheaded by Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm; Maria Eitel, the co-chair of the Nike Foundation; the powerhouse attorney Nina Shaw; and Freada Kapor Klein, the venture capitalist who helped pioneer surveys on sexual harassment decades ago. The commission’s mission, according to a news release, is to “tackle the...

"""Disney CEO Bob Iger Influenced ESPN’s Jemele Hill Discussion, Decided Not to Punish Her for Calling President Trump a ‘White Supremacist’""" Disney CEO Bob Iger, who is mulling a 2020 run for the Democratic nomination, says that he got personally involved in ESPN’s decision on whether to punish SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill, after she tweeted that President Trump is a “white supremacist.” While speaking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit on Tuesday, Iger said he decided the mess at ESPN was important enough for him to pull rank and get directly involved with the cable network’s disciplinary moves. Iger’s...

Disney CEO Bob Iger, one of the few entertainment industry executives asked to attend President Donald Trump’s policy forum at the White House this week, has refused the invitation. In December, President Trump described the policy forum being held at the White House as a meeting of “CEOs and business leaders who know what it takes to create jobs and drive economic growth.” The event was organised by Blackstone chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman and Bob Iger was considered one of the more high profile attendees but a source has told The Hollywood Reporter that Iger will not be there. Many...

"I assure you, if we felt George was not presenting it fairly or were bias, he would not be on our air," Iger said of George Stephanopoulos. "It's something we take very, very seriously, and we monitor closely." Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger defended ABC News and one of its anchors, former Democratic party advisor George Stephanopoulos, against charges of liberal bias when pressed to do so Thursday by a shareholder who works for a conservative advocacy group. "Are we perfect? No. But I believe the overall presentation of ABC News, the reputation of ABC News, is one that we are...

Michelle Obama to Announce Food Initiative With Disney Theme Parks First lady Michelle Obama will appear with Disney CEO Bob Iger in Washington Tuesday to announce an expansion of the media company’s food guidelines. Disney representatives say the corporation will be making health-conscious revisions to menus at their theme parks and resorts, though the details and scope of their implementation are yet to be revealed.” Disney is the parent company of ABC News. Michelle Obama has made promotion of nutrition and exercise a major theme of her tenure as first lady, particularly concerning children. The administration says her “Let’s Move”...

Activists tell The Daily Caller that The Walt Disney Company is refusing to re-air a 9/11-related docudrama, effectively burying politically inconvenient facts about the events which led to the 9/11 terror attacks, in order to protect the political future of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “The Path to 9/11,” first aired on ABC in 2006, portrayed President Bill Clinton’s administration as ignoring warnings and signs that Osama bin Laden and al Qaida were planning a major attack on the United States — a finding supported by The 9/11 Commission Report. But since 2006 Disney CEO Bob Iger has repeatedly refused...

...five well-known Hollywood Democrats -- David Geffen, Bob Iger, Peter Chernin, Haim Saban, and Ari Emanuel -- are hosting a November 4 fundraiser for Ari's brother Rahm Emanuel in his bid to become Chicago's next mayor. Rahm, a former Democratic U.S. Representative from Illinois' 5th Congressional District (2003-2009), resigned as President Obama's White House Chief Of Staff on October 1 to throw his hat into the mayoral race following the retirement of Richard M. Daley whose last name more or less owned that political office the way most families would takeover the dining table. The Hollywood fundraiser will be held...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney Co.'s 1946 film "Song of the South" was historic. It was Disney's first big live-action picture and produced one of the company's most famous songs _ the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." It also carries the story line of the Splash Mountain rides at its theme parks. But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives _ never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film's 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO...

'Song of the South' pits art vs. cultural sensitivity http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=136791&pubDate=3/31/2007 http://tinyurl.com/2w5vty BY RON MENCHACA The Post and Courier Talk of a possible re-release of the 1946 Walt Disney film 'Song of the South,' which is criticized for its plantation-era depictions of blacks as the happy servants of wealthy whites, already is sparking a debate. The film was reshown in theaters as recently as 1986, but it never was released on video in the United States. Its cultural and cinematic significance have been the subject of scholarly debate for decades, and bootlegged copies of the film are popular on the black...

I told you people yesterday and the day before of a movie, a mini-series running on ABC on September 10th and 11th, called The Path to 9/11 and I told you that I have the DVDs. I also told you because I am in touch -- I am poor when I'm in New York -- I do not have a DVD player. I don't. My apartment's got an old media room in it, it's got a laser disk player in it, but it doesn't have a DVD. Well, actually it has a DVD player in it, but the TV doesn't...