Disney Succession Goes Off the Rails

The problems with bake-offs and 10 observations

A THOUSAND WORDS? I’m not one to read into body language, but the difference in chumminess between Bob Iger, Dana Walden and Alan Bergman struck me between last year and now. (left: Jesse Grant/Getty Images; Monica Schipper/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images)

Welcome to the Jamboree, my weekly series of quick(ish) takes on the industry’s passing parade.

This Week’s Jamboree Listening Companion:

(Enjoy with each item as you read)

Igerology

A week and a half since the NYT’s blockbuster review of the whole Chapek succession, questions still linger. This may be the most examined incident in Hollywood executive history, but the fascination remains because there’s still this nagging feeling that none of this makes sense, that nothing explains how such a slow-motion, multi-year debacle is possible at a company that had been the absolute model of smooth functioning efficiency. With every new look, we come away with more questions than we went in with.

In particular, there is the question of who wanted this story, and who were the sources behind it. Given that every single person mentioned comes away looking worse, one presumes it wasn’t any of them? So whose off-screen hand urged this piece on?