In this edition of cinema issues we are talking about Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney.

So for many Bob was THE Disney CEO he brought in Marvel and Star Wars and led Disney to many successes under his regime. A lot of the misses such as Disney + we blamed on Bob Chapek during his short tenure before Bob returned.

However as the man looks set to leave at the end of the year let’s look over how he leaves Disney as a company, it’s not good.

Lucasfilm has collapsed. Lucasfilm has not released a Star Wars film in 7 years, the last Indiana Jones film flopped. Star Wars this thing that Disney spent billions on has become a TV brand and even in the realm of streaming it is struggling to bring in big numbers. The Mandalorian and Grogu is on the horizon but the likelihood of that making past 700 million is unlikely as the Star Wars fandom is just too divided, due to executives who operated under Bob.

Marvel is trying to right the ship to not end up like Lucasfilm. However, in the last year all 3 films Marvel released at the cinema flopped and the Disney + offerings are not doing big numbers. Since Endgame back in 2019 Marvel has been in decline and has been haemorrhaging viewers and engagement. Whilst some of the terrible glut of phase 4 and phase 5 can be blamed on Chapek demanding content at all costs, Iger could have cancelled and scrapped projects when he came back but he didn’t. He allowed the brand harm.

Pixar is still capable of making money with films like Inside Out 2 but scattered around that are films like Lightyear and Elio. Films that flopped terribly and that show that Pixar is not the titan it used to be. Whilst Chapek did harm the brand by letting a lot of Pixar’s films go straight to streaming teaching audiences to stay home, Iger did not do enough to manage quality since his return.

Disney animation has not been able to get out Frozen 3 despite it being a guaranteed billion dollar film, with Frozen 2 coming out 7 years ago.

The live action remark strategy has been mixed with some hits and some misses and that is probably Iger’s shining light of his second tenure.

Crucially Iger has been the message CEO he has been the one to see Disney lean into DEI, Bob Chapek again gets a lot of criticism for this but it all started under Bob. He has since said things such as they are going to focus on storytelling over message yet this is not reflected in filmmaking output. What has been required is a much stronger hand at the executive level over production. As you can see from this article Iger hasn’t been that strong hand he has been a CEO representing managed decline of a brand.

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In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the death of movie stars.

Now I don’t mean literally, I mean in terms of career suicide. The basic premise going into this is the following as a movie star you need as many people as possible to turn up to your films, splitting the audience down political lines is stupid.

Celebrities don’t seem to realise that by making nearly everything political they alienate themselves from the audience. For example why did Florence Pugh the British Actress need to have a little rant about I.C.E, she didn’t she’s not even American and yet she did it to virtue signal. That’s all it’s ever been, it’s showing allegiance to whatever cause their agent tells them to.

Increasingly, studios need to crack down on this, actors need to be told to shut up whilst promoting a film and that if they run their mouth about hot button issues it will cost them work. There is a reason stars of old generally kept their mouths shut about this kind of thing, they aren’t politicians, they aren’t unionists, they aren’t even political agents, they are actors their job is to entertain the public and that is it.

Seeing Natalie Portman or Jenna Ortega run her mouth about politics just means more and more people aren’t going to show up for their next project. In an era where people don’t go to the cinema much anymore this is not helping matters.

In this edition of cinema issues we are talking about the Wicked Franchise.

So after the crash out of many Wicked fans over the fact that the Oscars don’t hand out awards to the happiest film, or for fun and don’t exist to soothe them during “difficult times” in their privileged lives, we are talking about how this franchise fell from grace.

The first film did well at the box office , not billion dollar well but well and that set an unhealthy precedent. A lot of these musical theatre types thought that it was their moment and rallied behind the film thinking that due to it doing well at the box office it would win awards, then it didn’t.

They consoled themselves by saying well okay they are just holding off for the second film and then it’ll get all the awards. Things changed when the second film came out, the hype was smaller people had moved away, it made far less than the first film, and it was simply a worse film overall. As such it didn’t get nominated. The Academy doesn’t care about box office gross particularly, they care about good films.

You see when the second film came out there were conversations coming out from Universal about Wicked as a universe and new stories within it. I would argue these were premature as the box office for the second film highlighted diminishing returns. I don’t think a third Wicked film or a Wicked spin off would have anywhere near the audience of the first or even second film. I think that the musical theatre folks need to take the L on this one and move on.

Id argue that the Wicked Franchise is probably done and there shouldn’t be anymore films as if they stop here they can still go out calling it a success if they keep going that will get harder and harder to do.

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In this edition of cinema issues we are talking about the Oscar Nominations.

So in response to the Oscar nominations I saw a post from a Wicked fan having a fit that Wicked For Good wasn’t nominated saying that the Academy hates fun. This is the whole thing, awards aren’t about what you like or about fun they are about achievements in filmmaking. As this isn’t baby’s hour at the local daycare they aren’t going to have an award for most fun.

It seems both with the Golden Globes and now the Oscars a lot of the people commenting on what was picked don’t understand what it is or why certain films get nominated.

Our take on the nominations is two fold. Firstly One Battle After Another being widely nominated despite being not good, in our opinion, and not achieving much of anything worth nomination for, shows that Hollywood wants to reward message films over actual cinematic achievement. They want to have as best picture the film that best represents them and their specific progressive values, they are voting for what they agree with and to avoid being cancelled rather than to reward excellence in filmmaking.

Talking of a fear of being cancelled the fact that the From Dusk Till Dawn reboot/rip off is the most nominated film in Oscar history, goes to show that the Oscars were deeply bothered by the Oscars so white hashtag. They are so worried about being cancelled that they have to nominate it for everything just so no one accuses them of racism again. The fact is they still will be accused as you can’t please these people, unless it wins every single award at the show they will accuse the Academy of racism, and it likely won’t win everything.

Ultimately the discourse around awards season this year has been led by racial tribalism and people who don’t understand how the Oscars work and haven’t seen most of the films. It’s a damning indictment of the state of online film discussion.

If you enjoyed this Cinema Issues article , then please head over to my Patreon to support me. All film reviews are free, with no early access, sponsorships, or content locked behind paywalls. If you value independent coverage of the entertainment industry, your support over there helps to keep it going. Become a member on Patreon below

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