Disney Deathwatch: Doom Approaches
he Carano Trial
The date when both parties could petition the court for a settlement has expired. It looks like they are going to trial and it looks like they are going to roll out the red carpet all the way to the witness stand. Here’s the list of people who will be deposed, whether they want to or not.
First of all, Iger himself is not on the list but that doesn’t mean that if during the course of discovery, something shows up that implicates him directly he won’t be called then. He was no longer CEO at the time of her firing but was Chairman of the Board. The rumor is he was running the studio side of things directly but Carano’s lawyers will need more than that before a judge will okay calling Iger.
Gina is of course testifying, it’s her lawsuit after all, so she will testify on her own behalf. The next two are her former representation, her agency, and her PR firm both of which dropped her like she was radioactive (and this is the important part) within hours of the tweet announcing she’d been given the boot.. Carano’s lawyers, (which is to say Elon Musk’s lawyers) aren’t interested there, because her (former) specific reps aren’t being called so it will just be a couple of company lawyers, probably doing their deposition remotely. Disney’s tactic is going to be, “Hey she didn’t have a contract with us, therefore she wasn’t fired.” But these agencies did fire her and are going to have to provide a plausible reason other than ‘we felt like it.’ It’s unlikely her lawyers will get a damaging admission like “Mickey the Great and Terrible called and said, “If you know what’s good for you…” But you never know. What they want there is just an admission that there was a cause and effect because of Disney. Which her former reps will try to avoid saying directly but will have to acknowledge in some form. That’s less of a problem than admitting to collusion, which is allegedly what really happened.
Now it gets fun.
Jon Favreau will be obliged to go into the plans he had for Carano’s character in Rangers of the New Republic. Thus gutting Disney’s argument about her not being fired. He’ll say a few good things about her character if the judge allows it.
Pedro Pascal, I’m not sure about. I don’t know what her lawyers want out of him. I personally wouldn’t trust him as a character witness on Carano’s behalf but I could be wrong about that. They were supposedly friends and he never showed up on set again after she was fired. It was strictly voice-over from then on.
Lynne Hale ran LucasFilm’s PR department. She recently “retired” which is to say she was pushed out. It would have been her department that sent out that very slanderous tweet. She’s going to have to be very careful because Disney’s lawyers would love to be able to say, “It was that clod’s fault. We didn’t approve that horrible, horrible tweet that went out defaming poor Ms Carano. That was all on her! HER!”
Bear Grylls. Carano had shot an episode of Running Wild with him. This was the episode that Disney suppressed. That was Disney that decided that and not LucasFilm because Running Wild answers to Disney Entertainment and not LucasFilm. D+ had pulled the episode and then Grylls started yelling and throwing garbage cans so they had to put it back up. But Disney + erased all references to Gina Carano.
Kathleen Kennedy. This is where the fun begins. Being forced to testify at all will be deeply humiliating for her. She is arrogant enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if she perjured herself on the stand. Nothing will come of that but it does look awful to a jury. I have no idea what questions she will be asked but I am very much looking forward to finding out.
Bob Chapek. Oh. My. Yes. Iger probably doesn’t care about any of the rest because at the end of the day, the damage will be confined to LucasFilm. His worst-case scenario is shitcanning Kathleen Kennedy and I’m pretty sure he can live with being forced to terminate his worst studio head. But Chapek is another matter altogether. For those that are about to bring up Chapek’s non-disclosure agreement, there is no NDA in existence that negates a subpoena. He will have to answer fully and truthfully any questions that Disney’s lawyers can’t get shot down with objections. This will be testimony about life and attitudes at Disney’s C-Suite, and that will be devastating for the house that Iger built.
NEXT
Disney Parks
A strike is looking unlikely now. The union struck while the tears were wet and bent Cancer Rat over a barrel. The timing was perfect, Disney had to cave and they did.
That is the only good news for Disney Parks.
Lightening Lane Multi-pass is now replacing the hated Genie+ app for the parks and here’s a shock, it’s a disaster. Bob Iger’s fantasies about being a tech giant notwithstanding, Disney simply never gets these things right. The fundamental issue remains one of non-tech people making technical decisions.
Disney’s apps don’t work off of 5G. Disney insists on making them work on their own wifi system and that comes with a hell of a problem in surge capacity. Especially during the summer. However, that for once was the least of the problems.
The handoff happened at Midnight and people who stayed up to try and book their rides for the next day would have been better off getting more sleep. Complete failure. In the morning, the tech support people made it clear they hadn’t been trained. Among other things, they didn’t know that the customer had to book their first ride at their “home park” before they could book at another park. Also, they didn’t know what a “home park” was. It was virtually impossible for parkgoers to successfully book tier one and tier two rides. Going to the cast members might or might not help because the quality which five years ago was the highest in the industry is now in the toilet. By 8:00 am all the top tier rides were booked for the day.
They would frankly be better off going back to paper Fast Pass.
The worst news for Disney World dropped today. Here’s the new Wizarding World park at Epic Universe.
Just a reminder of the ticking time bomb that is about to go off across town at Universal. When Epic Universe opens Disney World becomes the number two theme park in Orlando.
LAST
Doctor Doom Rumors
Last week at SanDiego Comicon Marvel made the big reveal that Robert Downey Junior was returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Doctor Doom.
I had a rumor from a new source that I didn’t run with but now I’m hearing the same thing from WDWPro. The reason they had Downey in San Diego as Doctor Doom was that they had to make some kind of public statement about his return. You can’t have RDJ on the set for a major role and keep it secret. Maybe for a cameo but not for a whole movie.
The actual Doctor Doom according to my source and Pro’s is Vigo Mortenson. Who, truthfully is a much better choice for that role. Downey (aside from a few scenes as Doom) is going to be playing a multiverse version of Tony Stark.
Although, my source claimed that Chris Evans is returning to Captain America. Which makes sense to me, they didn’t sign Evans for a multi-film deal to keep playing Johnny Storm.
In short, death now means nothing in the MCU. There is no longer any dramatic tension to be found anywhere. It’s just going to be Feige’s explosions and action scenes.
The funny thing is that Hollywood is quietly seething at Feige for announcing RDJ’s return at Comicon. Rather than wait for D23. Deadpool & Wolverine is the first monster hit out of Marvel for years, and Feige very deliberately decided to take all the air out of the room with his Doctor Doom announcement. Ryan Reynolds was not allowed on the main Marvel Studios stage but was given a smaller venue. It was no secret that Feige didn’t want this picture made and now he’s demonstrated that Deadpool & Wolverine are now cobwebbed. While I thought it would be a terrible franchise long term there was some blood left in that stone. Well, there isn’t anymore.
Marvel is not making a comeback.
UPDATE: Insult is now added to injury. Disney has been unable to secure the theme park rights to Bluey.
