A Strike-Filled Summer Looms Over Hollywood As Iger Goes Deal Hunting

Bob Iger bagged a two-year extension on his second tour as head of Disney, and used a CNBC interview this morning to signal he’s ready to do deals with the moguls assembled at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley, Idaho retreat.

But it’s shaping up to be a rugged rest of the summer for DIsney and its Hollywood media competitors. Hours after Iger’s conversation with CNBC’s David Faber, the union representing 160,000 actors, SAG-AFTRA, confirmed it was going on strike. For the first time since 1960, both the actors and the WGA, which represents Hollywood screenwriters, are on strike simultaneously.

And they may stay out a while, with difficult, complex issues around the entertainment industry’s transforming business models to be solved, even though both sides seem dug in for what they each term existential reasons.

Deadline reported earlier in the week that the studios’ negotiating strategy for the writers, who went out in May, was to basically let them marinate in their unemployed status until the fall, even if that meant some writers ended up homeless and all of them got nervous.

Such a wait-’em-out approach depended on SAG-AFTRA agreeing to a deal similar to what the Directors Guild of America signed in June. The Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the media companies, said its offers were significant and, regarding the thorny issue of using artificial intelligence tools, “ground breaking.”

SAG-AFTRA executives had far more dismissive terms for the offer during a Thursday afternoon news conference announcing the strike.

“So it came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads, but we had no choice,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I'm shocked at the way the people we have been in business with are treating us. I could not believe it. How they plead poverty while giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOS. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”

Yes, that suggests it’s going to be an ugly summer and potentially, fall.

First in line for problems: the movies coming to theaters beginning this weekend. Actors won’t be allowed to do promotional work on any film, TV show or streaming program created under the now-expired contract, said the union’s executive director and lead negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.

“We will be issuing a strike notice order that will lay out what members can do,” said Crabtree-Ireland. Any additional work done under contracts “will not be allowed.”

That includes showing up on red carpets, participating in awards shows, and speaking as part of media junkets and talk-show appearances, if those latter hadn’t already been shut down by the writers strike. Film premieres and screenings, podcast and personal appearances, social media, For Your Consideration events, tours, wardrobe and makeup tests, rehearsals, and much else, also are all banned unless a member wants to risk being labelled a strikebreaker.

The prohibitions have huge implications for fan conventions and film festivals, Crabtree-Ireland said. That includes the grand-daddy of them all, San Diego Comic-Con, which is supposed to kick off in a week.

In the past, studios have relied on cavernous Hall H at Comic-Con to kick off the next big Marvel or DC movie, giving the ardent superhero fans who overstuff the convention a sneak peek at the film or show, and panel conversations with stars, writers and directors.

Some of those events had already been short-circuited after the writers went on strike, but now it’s all shut down. The lone exception may be such promotional events that aren’t tied to specific project, such as autograph signings for a performer, Crabtree-Ireland said.

That’s bad news for Hollywood media companies and a theatrical exhibition business still stumbling three years after the pandemic closed nearly all theaters and slowed the flow of films to a trickle.

Domestic box office grosses for 2022 were still 35% lower than the $11 billion-plus that the industry raked in annually between 2015 and 2019 when Iger was still CEO of Disney the first time.

This year – slightly more than halfway through the year and two-thirds of the way through formerly lucrative summer blockbuster season – domestic box office is only $4.7 billion.

Cut off the waves of interviews, previews, celebrity appearances, and red carpets building up to a typical big movie release, and box office could suffer even more. And that’s coming at a bad time for the entire industry grappling with the expensive shift from legacy business models to a streaming-dominated future.

Iger didn’t let that slow him down in Thursday’s interview, however. He told CNBC’s Faber that the company is seeking strategic partners for ESPN, the cable cash cow now staggering from cord-cutting’s impacts on carriage fees and ad revenues.

Though Disney still wants to be in the live sports business, it’s preparing for a shift from cable to direct-to-consumer streaming, and looking for help crossing that wide economic rubicon.

“Conversations” have already been held with some potential partners, though Iger was vague about both them and what a strategic partnership would look like.

“Whether it's content value, whether it's distribution value, whether it's capital, whether it just helps the risk of the business some extent, but that wouldn't be the primary driver," Iger said. "But if they come to the table with value that enables ESPN to make a transition to its direct-to-consumer offering, then we're gonna be very open minded about that."

ABC and its broadcast station group is less likely to be part of Disney’s future. Iger acknowledged that Faber was correct that the broadcast network and stations “may not be core” to the company’s future, even if their programming remains important to Disney’s broader strategy.

"We have to be open minded and objective about the future of those businesses," Iger said, callilng broadcast “definitely broken.”

And those problems won’t get any simpler heading into a new fall season and Emmys award show whose primetime nominations were also announced this week if there’s not a strike resolution by then.

It won’t be pretty. But Iger didn’t have to extend his contract out to 2026. It’s going to be a busy three and a half years.