THB #512: Resurrection Blues

We live in a time of miracles and wonders.

Oh, wait… we don’t.

So why is the news cycle, especially in the filmed entertainment industry, forever hanging on life and death and fulfilled or unfulfilled expectations?

I started this piece on Sunday, thinking ironically. But box office ate it. Happens.

This morning (Tuesday, April 2), I am reading sane writers talking about the Disney board vote, “D-Day.”

That’s it. That’s just what I am rambling about.

The worst thing that can happen to Disney is that an aging narcissist ends up in a board seat in which his ignorance of the core businesses will make him, more or less, like your know-it-all grandmother moving into your house for the last few years of her life. He’s not going to change the course of the company… he wouldn’t know how to even start.

With due respect to a guy who is very rich, Disney has achieved exactly what he demanded twice now. But after he backed down the first time (counting his profits on a stock increase), his ego (and Ike Perlmutter) seems to have gotten the better of him and he couldn’t let go of his windmill tilting, even after the stock went from $99 to $121 after the last quarterly, masterfully presented by Iger… who is far from out of the water, but made the case for the future brilliantly.

“Hey… that guy who raised the stock price by a third after making the cuts that I also wanted and presenting a forward vision… he needs someone to oversee him… and my main argument is that we need to find out who will replace him immediately!”

But here is the other side of this… if Peltz doesn’t get on the board… that isn’t a giant game-changing victory for Disney either.

Clearly, I don’t think Peltz deserves anything but a kick in the ass. But as annoying and time-consuming as he would surely be, he is not going to change the future of Disney. He might narrow the window for success that Iger has by a little bit… but in the end, Iger needs to produce and it doesn’t matter what jackass is yapping at him. (We can discuss the cost of this fight some other time… Peltz should get a bill for what Disney spent in defense. I don’t much care how much he blew.)

And yes, in the media world, this has been an ongoing saga for over a year and if Peltz loses, it will likely still cause more noise because he can’t let it go. First time the stock dips under $115… “Waaaaaaahhhhh!!!!”

So I get why sane writers might overhype the moment. But the problem is that while water cooler chatter is fun, the public is not as steeped in this stuff as we are and they don’t get the subtleties (that some writers have in between the lines).

Does it matter that people don’t understand the industry accurately?

Well… truthfully… no.

After being in this for over 30 years and raging at so many stupid, misguided, smartass stories, worrying they will have an impact… after hearing smart people repeat so many of these stupid things with great vigor, in and out of the industry… the bottom line is… it doesn’t matter… it changes nothing.

You can be as wrong about box office or streaming or truth-telling or how media companies grow and fall as you want, in the end, the actions of these companies dominate the reality and, ultimately, the results.

As someone who has spent half his lifetime writing about the industry, I really would love to believe that I matter. And in some context, I do… I have… I will leave a legacy, even if I don’t get credit for it. Some want me in their ear… some do not. But my ego just doesn’t matter to the future of the industry.