The Ride of a Lifetime

by Robert Iger;

  Whatever the case, I was detecting a growing tension between the Marvel team in New York and Kevin’s team in L.A. The New York office was overseeing the film studio’s budget—and therefore experiencing the anxiety over costs and risks—but they were also removed from Hollywood culture and perhaps less sensitive to the challenges of the creative process. Putting pressure on movie executives, particularly creative producers, to make better films for less money isn’t necessarily a terrible approach. Any studio has to be aware of the economic realities of the business: production costs do sometimes get out of hand; hard lines do sometimes have to be drawn when it comes to negotiating contracts; there’s an endless litany of financial decisions that have to be attended to in order to guard against losing money on a film. It’s a fine line, though, and I’ve often observed how the business side can sometimes put too many demands on the creative process, and be too indifferent to the pressures that the filmmakers are under, and that strain ends up doing more harm than good.

  Kevin is one of the most talented film executives in the business, but my sense was that the strained relationship with New York was threatening his continued success. I knew I had to intervene, and so in May 2015, I made the decision to split Marvel’s movie-making unit off from the rest of Marvel and bring it under Alan Horn and the Walt Disney Studios. Kevin would now report directly to Alan, and would benefit from his experience, and the tensions that had built up between him and the New York office would be alleviated. The transition wasn’t an easy one, but ultimately it defused what could have become an untenable situation.

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  FIRING PEOPLE, OR taking responsibility away from them, is arguably the most difficult thing you have to do as a boss. There have been several times when I’ve had to deliver bad news to accomplished people, some of whom were friends, and some of whom had been unable to flourish in positions that I had put them in. There’s no good playbook for how to fire someone, though I have my own internal set of rules. You have to do it in person, not over the phone and certainly not by email or text. You have to look the person in the eye. You can’t use anyone else as an excuse. This is you making a decision about them—not them as a person but the way they have performed in their job—and they need and deserve to know that it’s coming from you. You can’t make small talk once you bring someone in for that conversation. I normally say something along the lines of: “I’ve asked you to come in here for a difficult reason.” And then I try to be as direct about the issue as possible, explaining clearly and concisely what wasn’t working and why I didn’t think it was going to change. I emphasize that it was a tough decision to make, and that I understand that it’s much harder on them. There’s a kind of euphemistic corporate language that is often deployed in those situations, and it has always struck me as offensive. There’s no way for the conversation not to be painful, but at least it can be honest, and in being honest there is at least a chance for the person on the receiving end to understand why it’s happening and eventually move on, even if they walk out of the room angry as hell.

  In fact, Alan Horn was now the head of Disney Studios as a result of my having fired his predecessor, Rich Ross, whom I’d put into the job right after we’d made the Marvel deal. At the time, I’d thought I was making a bold, unconventional choice. Rich didn’t have movie experience, but he’d been tremendously successful running the Disney Channel. He’d launched several franchise shows and coordinated the success of those brands across our divisions. He’d expanded our children’s TV business into markets all over the world, but I’d underestimated how hard a leap it would be to run the studio, in part because I still didn’t fully appreciate the complexities of the movie business myself. I was eager to make a bold choice, and while Rich didn’t have any experience navigating the close-ranked culture of Hollywood, I thought he could bring a different and necessary set of skills to the job.

  I’ve made some big personnel mistakes over the years, and this was one of them. I’d always been grateful that Tom Murphy and Dan Burke had bet on my ability to succeed in one business because I’d succeeded in another. I made that same gamble with Rich, but the transition was just too tough for him, and once he got underwater, he never stopped struggling. After a couple of years we had too few films in the pipeline. Various powerful partners, inside and outside Disney, had lost faith in Rich and were openly complaining about doing business with him. (Ike was one of Rich’s most vocal detractors.) As I looked at the studio, very little was going right, and it was clear that my instinct wasn’t going to work out. Rather than putting more effort into making it work, or becoming defensive about having done it, I needed to contain the damage, learn from my missteps, and move on, quickly.

  At some point in Rich’s brief tenure as chairman of Disney Studios, Bob Daly, who was then co-chair of Warner Bros., called me and said I should talk to Alan Horn about serving as an adviser to Rich. Alan had been pushed out as president and COO of Warner Bros. He was sixty-eight at that point, and though he was responsible for several of the biggest films of the past decade, including the Harry Potter franchise, Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s CEO, wanted someone younger running his studio.

  Alan was still contractually bound to Warner Bros. when Bob raised the possibility of his serving as Rich’s mentor, but a year later, when it was clear to everyone in the industry that Rich wasn’t long for the job, Bob called me again and urged me to consider Alan. I didn’t know Alan well, but I respected his work, and I respected what he stood for, inside and outside the industry. I was also aware that the forced retirement had been humiliating for him. I asked him to breakfast and explained that I needed to replace Rich soon. It was clear over the course of that and two subsequent meetings that Alan wanted to prove he had another chapter in him, but he was also wary of trying something and having it go awry and adding one more sour note to the end of his career. The last thing he needed, he said, was to go to another place and have it not work out.

  “I can’t afford another mistake, either,” I told him. Over the next several months, Alan and I discussed the possibility of his becoming our new studio head. One of the questions was what my involvement in his business would be. I told him that no one at the company could approve huge projects without me. “The head of Parks and Resorts can’t build a two-hundred-million-dollar ride without my approval,” I said. “The same goes for movies.” Though things had ended badly at Warner Bros., Alan was used to having more or less complete autonomy. Even if he wanted to be involved in the movie business, Jeff Bewkes was three thousand miles away in New York. “I’m thirty feet away,” I told Alan. “And I care about this, a lot. You need to know before you make a decision that I’ll definitely be involved in your business. Ninety-nine percent of the time you’ll be able to make what you want to make, but I can’t give you total freedom.”

  Alan eventually agreed, and in the summer of 2012 he came on as the head of Disney Studios. What I saw in him wasn’t just someone who at this late stage in his career had the experience to reestablish good relations with the film community. He also had something to prove. He was galvanized, and that energy and focus transformed Disney Studios when he took over. As I write this, he’s now past seventy-five and is as vital and astute as anyone in the business. He’s been successful in the job beyond all of my hopes. (Of the nearly two dozen Disney films that have earned more than $1 billion at the box office, almost three-quarters of them were released under Alan.) And he’s a decent, kind, forthright, collaborative partner to everyone he works with. Which is another lesson to be taken from his hiring: Surround yourself with people who are good in addition to being good at what they do. You can’t always predict who will have ethical lapses or reveal a side of themselves you never suspected was there. In the worst cases, you will have to deal with acts that reflect badly on the company and demand censure. That’s an unavoidable part of the job, but you have to demand honesty and integrity from every
one, and when there’s a lapse you have to deal with it immediately.

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  THE ACQUISITION OF Marvel has proved to be much more successful than even our most optimistic models accounted for. As I write this, Avengers: Endgame, our twentieth Marvel film, is finishing up the most successful opening weeks in movie history. Taken together, the films have averaged more than $1 billion in gross box-office receipts, and their popularity has been felt throughout our theme-park and television and consumer-products businesses in ways we never fully anticipated.

  But its impact on the company and on popular culture has gone far beyond the box office. Since 2009, Kevin and Alan and I and a few others have met quarterly to plot out future Marvel releases. We discuss projects that are well into production, and others that are specks of an idea. We mull potential characters to introduce, consider sequels and franchises that we might add to the expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. We consider actors and directors and think about how the various stories can be cross-pollinated.

  I often resort to reading my handy Marvel encyclopedia before these meetings, to immerse myself in the depths of the characters and see if any spark my curiosity enough to push them into development. Back when Kevin was still reporting to Ike and studio decisions were being made by the Marvel team in New York, I raised the issue of diversity in one of these meetings. Marvel films so far had been built largely around characters who were white and who were men. When I said that I thought we should be changing that, Kevin agreed, but was worried that members of the Marvel team in New York would be skeptical. I called the team to discuss my concerns. One of them told me, “Female superheroes never drive big box office.” Their other assumption was that international audiences wouldn’t want to watch black superheroes.

  I didn’t believe that those old “truisms” were actually true, and so we started to discuss what characters we could introduce in their own films. Kevin mentioned Black Panther, who was about to be written into the Captain America: Civil War script, and Alan and I were both intrigued. Chadwick Boseman, who’d received considerable acclaim for playing Jackie Robinson in 42, was going to be cast as Black Panther. He was such a magnetic, compelling actor, and I could easily see him in a leading Marvel role.

  Around the same time, Dan Buckley, who runs Marvel’s television and comic book businesses, told me that the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I felt was one of the most important voices in contemporary American literature, was writing a Black Panther comic for us. I asked Dan to send it to me and was amazed by the elegant storytelling and the way Ta-Nehisi had added such depth to the character. I devoured the comic, and before I even finished it had placed Black Panther on the list of must-do Marvel projects in my mind.

  The Marvel skeptics in New York weren’t the only ones who felt that a black-led superhero movie couldn’t perform at the box office. There’s a long-held view in Hollywood that films with predominantly black casts, or with black leads, will struggle in many international markets. That assumption has limited the number of black-led films being produced, and black actors being cast, and many of those that have been made had reduced budgets to mitigate the box-office risk.

  I’ve been in the business long enough to have heard every old argument in the book, and I’ve learned that old arguments are just that: old, and out of step with where the world is and where it should be. We had a chance to make a great movie and to showcase an underrepresented segment of America, and those goals were not mutually exclusive. I called Ike and told him to tell his team to stop putting up roadblocks and ordered that we put both Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production.

  Ike heeded my requests. We put Black Panther into development immediately, and Captain Marvel followed soon after. Both movies defied every preconceived notion of what they would do at the box office. As I write this, Black Panther is the fourth-highest-grossing superhero film of all time, and Captain Marvel the tenth. Both have earned well over $1 billion. Both were extraordinarily successful internationally. What they’ve achieved culturally, though, is even more significant.

  The experience of watching Black Panther with the crowd of people that packed the Dolby Theatre for the premiere will remain one of the most memorable moments of my career. Until then, I’d only seen it during screenings at my house or with a small group at the studio. I knew we had something special, but you’re never quite sure how something is going to be received. Still, I couldn’t wait to share it with the world, and to see and feel their reaction to it. That night the energy in the room was electric long before the lights went down. You could feel the anticipation that something unprecedented was about to happen, something historic, and the film more than exceeded those expectations.

  Afterward, I received more calls and notes than I’d ever received about anything I’d been associated with in my career. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington and Gayle King reached out. I’d had a production assistant deliver a copy of the film to President Obama, and when I spoke with him after, he told me how important he believed the film was. Oprah sent a note calling it “a phenomenon in every way” and adding, “It makes me tear up to think that little black children will grow up with that forever.”

  There may be no product we’ve created that I’m more proud of than Black Panther. After its opening week, I felt the need to share my pride of the film and sent this note out to everyone in the company:

  Dear Fellow Employee,

  It’s hard not starting with “Wakanda forever,” as we share great news about Black Panther!

  Marvel’s Black Panther is a masterpiece of movie making, a film that succeeds on multiple levels, touching hearts and opening minds…all while entertaining millions of people and far exceeding the loftiest box office projections. This groundbreaking movie opened to a record-breaking $242 million in domestic box office over the holiday weekend, and delivered the second-highest four-day opening in movie history. Worldwide box office to date is more than $426 million, and the movie has yet to open in a number of major markets.

  Black Panther has also become an instant cultural phenomenon, sparking discussion, causing reflection, inspiring people young and old, and breaking down age-old industry myths.

  As CEO of this phenomenal company, I receive a lot of feedback about what we create. In the 12 years I’ve had this role I have never seen such an overwhelming outpouring of genuine excitement, praise, respect, and gratitude as I’ve seen for Black Panther….It speaks to the importance of showcasing diverse voices and visions, and how powerful it is for all sectors of our society to be seen and represented in our art and entertainment. The movie’s success is also a testament to our company’s willingness to champion bold business and creative initiatives, our ability to execute an innovative vision flawlessly, and our commitment to bringing extraordinary entertainment to a world that is hungry for heroes, role models, and unbelievably great storytelling.

  CHAPTER 11

  STAR WARS

  I WOULD HAVE LIKED for Steve to have seen what our investment in Marvel turned into. He probably would have never cared much for the movies (although I think he would have appreciated how Black Panther and Captain Marvel flew in the face of industry shibboleths), but he would have been proud that he’d been instrumental in bringing Ike around, and that the brand had flourished so much under Disney.

  With every success the company has had since Steve’s death, there’s always a moment in the midst of my excitement when I think, I wish Steve could be here for this. It’s impossible not to have the conversation with him in my head that I wish I could be having in real life.

  In the summer of 2011, Steve and his wife, Laurene, came to our house in L.A. to have dinner with Willow and me. He was in the late stages of cancer by then, terribly thin and in obvious pain. He had very little energy, and his voice was a low rasp. But he wanted to spend an evening with us, in part to toast what we’d done years ago. We s
at in our dining room and raised glasses of wine before dinner. “Look what we did,” he said. “We saved two companies.”

  All four of us teared up. This was Steve at his warmest and most sincere. He was convinced that Pixar had flourished in ways that it never would have had it not become part of Disney, and that Disney had been reenergized by bringing on Pixar. I couldn’t help but think of those early conversations and how nervous I was to reach out to him. It was only six years ago, but it seemed like another lifetime. He’d become so important to me, professionally and personally. As we toasted, I could barely look at Willow. She had known Steve much longer than I had, going way back to 1982, when he was one of the young, brash, brilliant founders of Apple. Now he was gaunt and frail and in the last months of his life, and I knew how much it pained her to see him that way.

  He died on October 5, 2011. There were about twenty-five people at his burial in Palo Alto. We gathered in a tight square around his coffin, and Laurene asked if anyone wanted to say anything. I hadn’t prepared to speak, but the memory of that walk we took on Pixar’s campus years earlier came to mind.

  I’d never told anyone other than Alan Braverman, our general counsel, and Willow, because I needed to share the emotional intensity of that day with my wife. I thought the moment captured Steve’s character, though, so I recalled it there at the cemetery: Steve pulling me aside; the walk across campus; the way he put his arm around me and delivered the news; his concern that I should have this intimate, terrible knowledge, because it might affect me and Disney and he wanted to be fully transparent; the emotion with which he talked about his son and his need to live long enough to see him graduate from high school and begin his life as an adult.