The Dark Herald Was Right, Naturally
I appear to be one of maybe five people who saw this coming.
“This attack was so sudden I have to wonder, did Bob Chapek talk Ron DeSantis into it?
I have no doubt whatsoever that Bob Chapek is the one who leaked the Reimagine Tomorrow videos clips to Christopher Ruffo. He wants Reimagine Tomorrow destroyed. Right now, it’s protected by the Board of Directors, but they will be facing a shareholder revolt if this thing trashes Disney’s stock price.
What would Chapek get out of this you wonder?
A hunting license with no bag limit. If Reedy Creek is dissolved, he can go through Disney with a gutting knife.
Mark my words Peter Rice will be the first to be dressed out.”
Last week, the chairman of Disney Entertainment Peter Rice, the guy in charge of movies, TV, streaming, and you-name-it-any-kind-of-media, was asked to see Bob Chapek. The meeting was short, to the point and exceedingly unpleasant.
“Box your shit. Parking lot. Car. Front gate. Goodbye.”
Okay, not quite, it was only nearly that bad. It was a seven-minute meeting, which is brusque and insultingly brief for a chairman. Peter Rice was told, he was no longer a fit for the new culture they are building at Disney going forward.
Rice, apparently stunned said something like, “I thought I was helping build the new culture we are creating at Disney.”
Chapek cut him off with “this is not the time for that.” And ended the meeting.
Normally when you fire someone in Hollywood, the press release says something like, “We are devastated to lose one of the guiding lights at our studio who has been an integral part of such successes as blah, blah, blah. And who is now moving on to blah, blah, blah. We wish him luck.”
This one basically said, “As of now Peter Rice is shitcanned. He won’t be missed.”
The anti-Chapek Hollywood trade media has spent the weekend going on at length over how devastating for morale this has been at Disney. I’m sure it is. For Woke Disney. Because Peter Rice was absolutely the chief Wokeite at Disney. He was acquired in the Fox buyout and Iger set him to work hiring the people who would create Reimagine Tomorrow.
Peter Rice is huge in SJW Hollywood, he’s one of the biggest leaders of the Wokeites in Tinseltown, and he has been chairman of the Walter Kaitz Foundation. Which I have written about here. I also, remain one of the very few to even dare mention its existence.
The thing to remember about the Walter Kaitz Foundation, aside from the fact that most of the senior execs at Hollywood are on its board, is that the WKF issues the Social Credit Scores for the Hollywood studios. I’m not joking in the least, that is effectively what it does. And those social credit scores are all based on just how Woke that studio is. More importantly, the Walter Kaitz Foundation’s scores would appear to have a direct correlation to a film studio’s federal ESG score.
You’ve heard of the ESG score by now, haven’t you? You know, Obama’s corporate Woke-o-meter? It is the primary reason that going Woke, doesn’t mean going broke, not if your company gets enough federal incentives. At this point, those can outweigh the loss of revenue from right-wing customers walking away.
So anyway, what happened at Disney?
In a nutshell, Rice played the game of thrones and lost. The revolt against Bob Chapek’s politically neutral stance on Florida’s anti-groomer law was extremely well organized. It was clearly and obviously never a grassroots movement. And its objective was to dethrone Bob Chapek. It probably had the covert support of Kevin Feige of Marvel and almost certainly Pete Docter at Pixar. Although Kathleen Kennedy probably sat this one out. It was a pretty high-risk play when she wasn’t that strong.
No denying it. They came pretty close to knocking Chapek off the Golden Mouse Throne. The board of directors was in a genuine panic. They ordered Chapek to sit through a 45-minute struggle session and at the end of it, he had to make his hostage video.
Bob Chapek was now looking pretty flimsy. Geoff Morrell quit on him. The trade media was speculating on possible replacements and Peter Rice was mulling over redecoration ideas for the CEO’s office.
But then, out of the blue, came Ron DeSantis’ extraordinarily well-planned hip shoot attack. It hit all of Disney’s worst-case scenarios for the Reedy Creek Improvement District all at once. It was almost like someone had given the Florida GOP access to the documents that contained all of the things that Mickey the Great and Terrible most dreaded about a possible nosedive in Florida government relations. To include potential counterattacks based on various mistakes the government of Florida might make.
The board of directors had been upset with Chapek, but the institutional investors were enraged by the BOD, and Bob Chapek was in the position of saying, “I told them all not to do this.” Followed by, “Don’t blame the board. You know who’s really responsible for this meltdown in Florida, don’t you?”
One decent earnings report later and Chapek’s position was again secure enough to deal with the leader of the rebellion.
This was no corporate seppuku, this was, ‘drag the condemned from the shogun’s presence and crucify him as an example to others.’ Which brings us to the subject of the others. Since Disney is breaking its contract with Peter Rice the payout to him will be gigantic. But Rice’s loyal lieutenants aren’t going to have that kind of golden parachute. They will need to keep working for a living and that means getting a new job while they still have their old one. And given the blatant nature of Rice’s firing they now know that (a) none of Rice’s followers are safe and (b prime) they are next. Time to bail.
Which means Chapek will not have to fire too many people, not if they already quit.
Yes, this was a win against the Woke in Hollywood. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking the good guys won here. Because Chapek is no good guy. He is a man with no other conviction other than he should be the guy in charge no matter what.
For now, enjoy the Red on Red firefight.
Okay, I’m done here.
