Live from Raleigh, North Carolina, it’s the Walt Disney Company’s 2020 annual shareholders meeting. The market was struggling the last couple of days due to the coronavirus, and many shareholders probably want more details on the surprise coronation of Bob Chapek as Disney CEO. The move even caught Disney direct-to-consumer chairman Kevin Mayer, Walt Disney Television chairman Peter Rice, and Walt Disney Studios Chief Creative Officer Alan Horn by surprise. I’ve covered Bob Iger since 2015 everything he does is planned and calculated this didn’t feel like that. This felt more like passing the baton off because 2020 was going to bring a slew of new problems to Disney that Iger’s legacy didn’t need.
Iger was very somber when talking about the coronavirus and its impact on the world.
Bob Iger talked Disney+and showed the shareholders some clips including new material from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Iger also said Loki is coming in early 2021.
The biggest announcement of the day was that they announced that Avengers Campus would be opening on July 18. Chapek also mentioned that stuntronics will be used for Spider-Man, a story we have been covering for a while here on Boardwalk Times.
Then Bob Iger and Bob Chapek discussed Disney films in 2020. Shareholders got to see clips from Mulan, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise, and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.
Then we got into the question portion. Chapek answered questions on numerous topics. Bob Iger even mentioned that Disney always aims to hit home runs but sometimes they hit a double. Iger did say that he believes Disney makes the greatest content out there.
Questions ranged everything from Michael Eisner’s intros to the Disney Sunday Movie to Progress City. Although there are still many questions that Disney needs to answer that they weren’t able to get around too in today’s shareholders’ meeting.
The huge announcements that round out the day are that Disney acquired the distribution rights for Peter Jackson’s The Beatles documentary, Disney Legend Dave Smith is getting a window on Main Street at Disneyland, and Avengers Campus will open to the world at Disney’s California Adventure on July 18.
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Zach Perilstein is the Editor-in-Chief of the Boardwalk Times
