After it was announced that Josh D’Amaro would be Disney’s next CEO, there was speculation about what Bob Iger’s successor would do first.
Will he follow in the footsteps of his mentor Eiger and establish himself as one of the greats? Or is he positioned to flame out as Bob Chapek 2.0? Here are Variety’s five burning questions about D’Amaro and his new role at the head of the world’s largest entertainment company.
1. Will Hollywood let newcomers shine?
Mr. D’Amaro boasts corporate experience that would astound Wall Street, and is familiar with Disney’s highly profitable park business. But to most of Hollywood, he is essentially a cipher, with little direct experience in the film or television parts of the Disney empire. The succession plan solves that problem by promoting Dana Walden to the new role of chief content officer, but D’Amaro will still need to embark on some sort of listening tour to introduce himself to the powers that be and the A-list stars who make the series that keeps Mickey Mouse cheddar. And it’s not an easy job. Chapek, one of D’Amaro’s successors, boasts a similarly parks-heavy resume and has had trouble getting along with the entertainment industry’s bad guys. His conflict with Scarlett Johansson over Disney’s decision to stream Black Widow was a fiasco and set the stage for his bid as CEO to be terminated. Additionally, given that Iger’s successor has been a more than two-year saga that also involved Walden, Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Alan Bergman, and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro, Disney’s new chief executive will also need to mount an appeal offensive among the company’s senior executives and rank-and-file employees. After all, bake-offs always lead to a vicious cycle.
2. How will Disney deal with Netflix and Warner Bros., Paramount and Warner Bros., or whoever gets the studio?
As for its big studio peers, Disney remains equally number one. But the entertainment business is very different from the one Mr. Iger faced when he became CEO in 2005. Streaming services are seen as the future, and Disney has made great strides as a competitor to Netflix with Disney+ and Hulu, but it will have to contend with declining theater attendance and cable cord-cutting. This is a delicate balancing act, and things can get even more complicated. Disney could face an even tougher rival if Netflix wins regulatory approval for its deal to buy Warner Bros. The deal gives Streaming Leviathan access to a library of HBO, DC movies and franchises ranging from Harry Potter to The Hangover. If Netflix stalls, the stage could be set for David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance to swoop in and play spoiler, and with all of Oracle’s dough in place, the combined company could become one well-heeled adversary. That’s not to mention tech giants like Amazon and Apple, which have expanded into film and television, while boasting much larger market capitalizations of $2.6 trillion and $4 trillion, respectively, than Disney’s $1.85 billion. Magic Kingdom may need a bigger wall.
3. Will video games become Disney’s new priority?
In 2024, Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games, whose flagship title is Fortnite. At the time, Iger said he met with Disney Experience chairman D’Amaro and head of gaming Sean Shoptaw to discuss the scope of the gaming business. “The first thing they showed me was demographic trends,” Iger said. “And when I looked at Gen Z and Gen Alpha and even Millennials, I saw how much time they were spending on video games in terms of total media viewing time, which was the same amount of time they were spending on TV and movies, which was surprising to me. And the conclusion I came to was , we had to go there, and we had to get there as quickly as possible in a very convincing way.”If D’Amaro was one of the driving forces behind Iger’s bullish video game play, how much more could Disney get into the estimated $564 billion gaming market?
4. Will Damaro be able to overcome the challenges of the park?
One interesting indicator of Mr. D’Amaro’s perception is how so-called “Disney adults” (perhaps the most passionate group of non-shareholder Disney analysts) discuss him online. While some groups praise his enthusiasm for the parks and the fan experience, and others say he likes to talk to the public about what they like and don’t like about the parks, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. A common topic of discussion is park price hikes, which have been steadily increasing since 2016, with a dynamic pricing model that allows a single-day Disney World park pass to cost $199, according to Business Insider. Additionally, many of the previous park perks have added fees, food prices have increased, and Lightning Lane Fast Passes can add hundreds of dollars to the daily price. The second was the failure and closure of Disney’s Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser in Florida, which was criticized for high costs and low profits. The project, which was announced in 2017, started in 2022, and ended in 2023, was a fiasco that D’Amaro described as “difficult to even explain to the public.” Will he be able to articulate big ideas in the future?
5. How is he going to manage Trump and his big government FCC?
Disney’s contentious relationship with President Trump and activist FCC Chairman Brendan Carr came to a head last year after Jimmy Kimmel spoke about the assassination of Charlie Kirk on his show. Kerr directly threatened ABC in an interview on a conservative podcast, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Frankly, these companies can change their behavior and find a way to take action against Kimmel. If they don’t, the FCC is going to have additional work down the road.” Instead of defending their talent, ABC suspended Kimmel indefinitely — presumably to maintain good relations with the FCC ahead of a major contract that could put him under Kerr’s watch. This is the same move that led CBS to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” just before its merger-focused parent company, Paramount, was sold to Skydance. Will Disney continue to kiss the ring from the D’Amaro era? Or will new indicators likely linked to President Trump’s policies and anti-immigrant sentiment, such as a drop in theme park attendance due to a decline in foreign tourists, help D’Amaro hold firm?
