Disney’s new/old CEO Bob Iger has no intention of selling to Apple
Returning Disney boss Bob Iger says any rumors about an Apple deal are "pure speculation"
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The idea of Disney owning the world is chilling, with actual Stormtroopers in Mickey Mouse ears marching through the classical Americana-inspired streets of Disneyfied cities in daily parades with mandatory attendance, followed by fireworks shows in which dissidents are exploded to the sounds of “Friend Like Me” or “Hakuna Matata.” But, at the same time, the idea of Apple owning the world has some appeal… everything is carved out of solid aluminum so it looks really clean and trendy, people are forced to wear identical sci-fi uniforms that you can pay extra to personalize a bit, and the government is replaced by a Genius Bar of experts who run a program called “planned obsolescence” that keeps the population in check.
Sadly, both of those options seem equally unlikely, with mega-corporation Disney indicating that it has no intention of selling itself off to mega-corporation Apple, which would create an even bigger and more omnipresent mega-corporation. New CEO Bob Iger, who replaced CEO Bob Chapek, who replaced CEO Bob Iger, said essentially that during a recent company-wide town hall, noting that any rumors about Apple buying Disney were “pure speculation” and that he has no current plans for major mergers or acquisitions (that comes from The Hollywood Reporter).
The origin of the “Apple is going to buy Disney” rumor is somewhat unclear, but Apple Insider pointed out—before Iger made his statement—that people have been saying it for years and that the only ones who ever seem to believe it are supposed tech insiders who refuse to accept that Apple buying Disney would be a hugely expensive risk for everyone involved. Basically, Disney has had some rough years, but that’s mostly because of COVID and it will probably bounce back (but if not, would those problems be worth taking on?), whereas Apple is flush with cash but doesn’t really do big acquisitions unless it’s specifically buying up some technology to improve Siri or Apple Music.
So Disney doesn’t want to be sold (assuming you trust anything a CEO says in a town hall meeting, and depending on your experience with CEOs, that might be a monumentally huge ask), and Apple probably doesn’t want to buy Disney, so… that seems to be that.
26 Comments
My favorite iteration of that rumor included the point “Apple doesn’t really want theme parks or cruise ships, so they’ll just sell those off”.For those of you in the audience without that particular strain of galaxy-brain: the theme parks and cruise ships make ALL OF DISNEY’S PROFITS. (Also, who exactly is going to look at “hey, these things are solely based on the IP we own, which is what makes them work because we can do whatever we want with our own stuff… but you won’t own the IP” and think “hey, neat deal”?)
Folks are dumb. Imho the parks alone are the reason why Apple wouldn’t wanna buy Disney anyway. Why would apple want to get into the theme park business? Makes zero sense.
Apple just wants Disney+ because the only thing investors like more than a streaming service losing a billion dollars a year is TWO streaming services losing a billion dollars a year.
Apple would love to own the theme parks, if only to make them exclusively use Apple Pay.
Meh, that’d be fine. I can never get the damn payment over MagicBand to actually work.
Seems like the only connection between Apple and Disney was Steve Jobs, and last time I checked he was still dead.
You regularly dig up his corpse to make sure he hadn’t come back as a flesh-eating ghoul as well? I thought I was the only one!
I bet you think Walt Disney is dead, too!
“Oh yes. And quite pungent too. The rest of their night is something I’d like to forget” – Mr Burns.
Jesus I didn’t even know this was a thing.
I’m happy to hear that this thing I didn’t know about isn’t happening.
Anyone who would want Disney and Apple to merge should be beaten with a wiffle bat until they recant.
It didn’t even seem possible. Disney is approximately the 55th biggest company on the planet (It was around 20th in spring of last year). It’s valued around $170 billion dollars. I knew Apple was also huge, but could even they swing that figure just to buy some roller coasters?It turns out that fuck yeah they could because the biggest company on Earth is valued at $2.3 trillion. Their revenue will be over $400 billion this year. That’s comparable to the GDP of the Philippines and makes them the 40th or so wealthiest country on Earth. Eat the rich.
But think of the potential! Power Pack and Pages could finally do a crossover event streaming miniseries.
iRon Man
Eh, I’d use an actual Louisville Slugger. It was a bad idea for Disney to buy out Marvel. It was a bad idea for Disney to buy Lucasfilm.Now that I’m thinking about it, karma is a bitch so maybe Apple should buy Disney so they can go to their respective rooms and contemplate all their bad choices in life.
wiffle bat? NO wooden bat with nails in it. Disney is alreay to dang big.
Disney-Apple sounds like an anti-trust investigation anyway. Disney, especially, owns so much of the entertainment market.
No video? It would have completed the age progression of square-headed white guy you started in the video section:
It’s like a really boring Animorphs cover.
Its Allenmorphs. Animorphs that can only animorph into the form of a middle manager nearing retirement named Allen
These videos are fucking insane. They take up most of the screen and it fucking sucks.
Heard a couple podcasts discussing possible Disney sales/mergers, and they brought up the possibility of a Disney/Netflix merger. The big question seemed to be, who would buy who? And I must say, the fact that there’s even a possibility that Netflix would be the one buying Disney seems impossible to me, like AOL buying Time Warner. And that worked out just great.
I’m surprised how none of them Apple or Disney tried to acquire a Japanese company, like Nintendo or Anime Studio. It could be the most hated acquisition of the history but Disney and Nintendo are basically a good match especially the legal team they are perfectly in sync
My partner did the Disney training thing in the early 90s.He told me about two weeks ago that the rumor was Apple might buy Disney. He thinks Iger came back to preside over something big, whatever that maybe. Otherwise, why would Iger come back…He just retired and has a fuckton of money?IDK, maybe Iger just cares about Disney. I’m not much of a Disney fan myself.
The idea of Apple owning the world certainly has some appeal vis-a-vis joining a grimy unshaven underground resistance conducting destructive guerrilla warfare.