Bob Iger, who resigned from his second term as Disney CEO in March, revealed in an exit interview with the Financial Times that he sought to buy Disney’s James Bond series amid a spending spree that included acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. Pixar was a top priority for Iger, and when he acquired Pixar in May 2006 for $7.4 billion, the studio “felt unstoppable.”
“It was like the clouds were lifting and the sun was shining again,” Iger said. “We put together a list of acquisition targets. Marvel was one of them, Star Wars was one of them, James Bond was one of them. We had a list, so we thought we’d check them off and buy them all.”
James Bond is a runaway franchise (Amazon is the current owner). So did other companies. Iger told the FT he was in the process of buying Twitter from owner Jack Dorsey “at a very attractive price.” The plan was for Twitter to be Disney’s global distribution platform, but Iger admitted he felt cold the morning of the deal and worried it would be a “terrible distraction.” Elon Musk eventually bought Twitter and turned it into X.
Disney also flirted with the Apple merger. In his 2019 memoir, Iger first revealed that he believes the two companies would have merged, or at least discussed the possibility of a merger “very seriously” had Steve Jobs “still been alive.” But Iger now revealed that there had been “some conversations” between Apple and Disney about what he thought would actually be a “truly transformative and egalitarian” merger.
“We discussed this internally, and we had several discussions with Apple, but we never resolved it,” Iger said. Apple wasn’t that interested. ”
Iger stepped down as Disney CEO in March and was replaced by Josh D’Amaro. News broke in April that Iger had been appointed as an advisor to venture capital firm Thrive Capital. The New York-based company was founded in 2009 by Josh Kushner, the younger brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. In September 2022, Iger joined Thrive Capital as a venture partner.
