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Bob II (née Chapek) has helped Hollywood find its courage.
In the past few months, Hollywood has been experiencing an outbreak of something that viewed from a great distance, perhaps with one eye closed, looks astonishingly like bravery.
Since last fall, websites and blogs covering the entertainment industry have been speaking up to the head of Hollywood’s leading legacy studio and slapping him back into place like a dog whose fallen off his obedience school curricula.
Trade journals that slavishly genuflect towards any marketing assistant who remembers their name, that chronicle the activation of a TV series hashtag with the adoration of medieval monks compiling the miracles of the apostles, are suddenly calling BS on one of Hollywood’s two most powerful leaders – Ted I the other. Elsewhere, columnists are openly speculating about his replacement and measuring corner-office carpets for favored candidates.
Quickly, the list of particulars during the brief reign of Bob II: the back and forth theatrical policy, the shunting aside of Pixar, the failure to generate new mega-hits, cheapness towards the employees, moving jobs from California to Florida, the still-bleeding wounds from the war over Scarlett Johansson’s backend pay. The list continues.
And hovering over all of them, the greatest, most unforgivable failure of them all — replacing the great, the charming, the sainted Bob I, the most brilliant and inspirational leader to lend his services to a corporation since St. Peter cut the ribbon on the Catholic Church.
In the shadow of such a man, how can we look upon Bob II as anything but a miserable failure, a hollow plastic imitation occupying the seat where greatness rested in our times.
All to be considered. But before we do let’s take a step back and review how Mr. Robert Chapek came to find himself in such an unfortunate spot.
I take you back to a distant world…step with me through the portal to the year 2020.
Bob the First had been at the helm of the Disney company for 15 years and the time was right, more than right, to move on. After his miraculous, storied run, his last great mountain — bringing Disney into the digital age — had been not just climbed but conquered more successfully than anyone dreamed possible in a streaming war pundits had declared Netflix had won before a shot had even been fired.
Bob I had been toying with exit strategies for years — publicly musing about a Presidential run for starters — and had been granted serial extensions of his contract at every turn after he discovered, that no one, NO ONE, was suitable within the company to replace him, even the anointed successor who had saved him from choking in the company boardroom.
The time was approaching and eventually, probably soon, that truth would have to be looked in the eye.
As he considered the transition, however, one consideration loomed majestically above all else. The Iger Legacy. His place in history. Mount Showbizmore. Et cetera.
Always one to keep a tight watch on his public portrayals (and to give a very free hand to enforcers of that image), those who know Bob I make very clear — this is a man not concerned but obsessed with his legacy.
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