Posted in: Disney+, HBO, Opinion, streaming, TV, TV | Tagged: dc studios, disney, disney plus, hbo max, hulu, Marvel Studios, opinion, warner bros discvoery

Disney: Like Warner Bros. Discovery But With Shinier Distractions

The Walt Disney Company had a rough earnings report week, yet the reactions weren't quite on the level that Warner Bros. Discovery received.

Over $5 billion in cuts are on the way, with most looking to come from the creative content side. Thousands of layoffs are planned, once again, with most expected on the entertainment side. A major corporate restructuring was put into play after a rough run of financial news based on quarterly results. And a streaming future that is as much, if not more, of a question mark than ever before. If by the time you finished reading that, you found yourself wondering what Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) & CEO David Zaslav is up to now, we couldn't blame you. But that's actually a brief rundown of the week that The Walt Disney Company & returning CEO Bob Iger had to deal with. And yet… did anyone notice a difference in how those respective companies' financial woes & responses have been handled? Being in the deep end of the pool when it came to covering WBD over the past year, I can tell you that it was a feeding frenzy of "unnamed sources" and speculation based on nothing more than speculation winning the day (and yes, we did some of that, too). And yet, when it comes to "The Mouse," things have been relatively… quiet. And I think it has to do with Disney's uncanny ability that dates back to the days before Walt became nothing more than a living head in a tank of fluid waiting to return (or, at least, that's what the internet tells me). It's the, "Oooh! Look over here! A bright, shiny object to distract you!" approach.

Because let's be honest… with Iger recently returning at an unprecedented time for the company (over 2 million in lost subs for Disney+ in the last reported quarter, Hulu possibly up for sale), there's nothing out there to give anyone a sense of "he's got this" confidence. Don't get me wrong. If anyone can, it's Iger. But at best, right now? Iger's grade would have to be "incomplete." But where he gets an "A+" and extra credit was the smoke-and-mirrors move he pulled where he "conveniently" dropped the news that new adventures for Frozen, Toy Story & Zootopia were on the way. And the best part? He didn't need to offer details… those IPs were strong enough to shift the reporting narrative from "rough streaming news" to "Tim Allen's coming back as Buzz!" We ate it up, asked for more, and already demanded trailers. And that's fine. Great! I'm not here to judge. In fact, once James Gunn & Peter Safran get the DCU on track, WBD will be able to do that, too. But I am here to ask for just a little bit more consistency. There are dozens of calls that WBD made over the past 12 months that they rightly deserve to have their feet held to the fire over, so this isn't about defending them. But what's good for WBD (or bad, in this case) is good for "The Mouse,"… and AMC… and Netflix… and a number of other companies. It's not about not hating. It's about hating in a way that's fair to everyone involved. And now you know… (cue '80s Saturday morning inspiring message from G.I. Joe).

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