Bob Iger's Long Disney Goodbye Just Got Longer

A multi-millionaire CEO who steps down just before an economic crisis might not want to look back. But Bob Iger, who never made a clean break from the Walt Disney Co., appears to be retaking the reins from his ill-fated successor. It’s Iger’s chance to rethink what the company he made into a media and entertainment juggernaut — now battered all around by the pandemic and grappling with a new media business model — looks like in the end when he eventually does leave it behind. That could involve dismantling some of what he proudly built during his more than four decades at the company in order to now create a Disney better suited for the new normal.

After 15 years as CEO and an ever-fluid retirement date, Iger abruptly relinquished the title in February, staying on in a somewhat undefined role as executive chairman. Bob Chapek, a longtime Disney executive who had been running the parks and cruises side of the company, stepped into his shoes. It was seven weeks ago, and yet the world was so different: Americans could still go to work, Disney’s domestic theme parks were bustling, toilet paper hoarding was only just beginning and for many, the coronavirus outbreak was something to hear or read about on the news rather than a lived experienced. Then, suddenly, as the pandemic shut down wide swathes of the U.S. economy and took particular aim at some of Disney's core businesses, a momentous retirement that seemed like it’d never arrive was instead happening all too quickly.