Buzz About 'Once-Unthinkable' Disney Sale Grows After CEO's 'Signals'
One of the seminal lines from the largely derided “Star Wars: Episode I” comes from Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn after he and his crew are saved from a sea monster by a bigger sea monster:
“There’s always a bigger fish.”
For decades now, the Walt Disney Company has always been that “bigger fish,” gobbling up its competition due in no small part to its seemingly bottomless checkbook.
But that could be poised to change according to a seismic report from The Hollywood Reporter.
“Facing the staggering problems afflicting all legacy studios, is [Disney CEO] Bob Iger contemplating a once-unthinkable option? The signals he sent in Sun Valley suggest that it could happen,” is the way the report begins, and it’s as stunning as it sounds.
Speaking to an unnamed “veteran Hollywood executive,” the Reporter revealed that the “bigger fish” to Disney could end up being tech titan Apple.
“It’s an idea that keeps being discussed, even though many top executives have scoffed at it and many still do,” the Reporter notes. “Apple doesn’t want to buy a studio, they say, and there’s no way the feds would allow a huge deal like that to go through.”
Despite the outlet’s own reticence at the feasibility of this potentially massive deal, the veteran executive insisted that it’s not nearly as far-fetched as mystical knights with laser swords who can wield an invisible magic “force.”
“I don’t think [Apple] would buy the company as it presently exists,” the executive said. “But if you see [Disney CEO Bob Iger] start to divest things … that feels like he’s prepping for a sale. And there’s clearly no buyer like Apple.”
This speculative report comes on the heels of Iger publicly acknowledging that several major Disney assets could be on the chopping block — or, at the very least, didn’t deny those rumors.
In a July interview with CNBC, Iger said the company would be “open-minded and objective about the future of” businesses like ABC, FX and National Geographic.
Shortly after that interview, reports began surfacing that Disney had reached out to major sports leagues to inquire about potentially purchasing a stake in ESPN.
So yes, there are certainly some legs to this THR report, at least in terms of recent developments.
Further adding to this speculation is the simple math of it all:
“There clearly is no buyer like Apple, which is sitting on $62 billion in cash and cash equivalents and has a $2.8 trillion market cap,” the Reporter said.
In regards to Apple’s purported hesitance with making a splash by purchasing a studio?
“And while it may be very true that Apple doesn’t want to buy a studio, maybe it would want to buy this studio — the one that, despite the challenges of the moment, has a vault full of priceless IP and remains the most valuable brand in entertainment.”
It’s worth noting that those “challenges of the moment” include a three-pronged struggle for the House of Mouse:
- Park attendance is at an all-time low, perhaps most noticeable on the Fourth of July.
- Disney+ is struggling so badly that a $50 million show is worth more to the company as a tax write-off than an actual product on the streaming service.
- Much has already been made about how badly the collective Disney studios have been performing, with one financial expert predicting that the studio is on track to lose a billion dollars.
Turns out that struggling in all three main avenues of your business is not good for business, and has led to global layoffs at Disney.
But could those struggles and layoffs collectively portend an earth-shaking sale of Disney assets to Apple?
It still doesn’t seem likely — at all — but the mere fact that it’s being reported on means that this idea is out there and it’s not completely unfathomable.
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