Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, said there will be sequels to Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia. He also discussed how the company plans to turn its streaming business around.
Mr. Iger said that the animation studio at Disney is working on sequels.
The company also reported its first drop in the number of subscribers since its Disney+ streaming service began in 2019.
And Mr. Iger said that he was going to get rid of 7,000 jobs as part of a big change at the entertainment giant.
In a call to investors, Mr. Iger discussed how he planned to make money from some of the company’s most popular franchises.
He said he would talk more about this production soon, but he also said this was a great example of how Disney is focusing more on its unbeatable brands and franchises.
The newest movies are the third in the Frozen series and the second in the Zootopia series. There have already been four Toy Story movies, plus the spin-off Lightyear, which came out last year.
About 3.6% of Disney’s employees worldwide will lose their jobs. This is part of a plan to save $5.5 billion (£4.5 billion) and make its Disney+ streaming service profitable. However, Mr. Iger said that he did not make this choice easily.
The changes came with its latest quarterly numbers, which were his first since he went back in November.
Mr. Iger said that the changes would “put us in a better position to handle future disruptions and challenges to the global economy.”
Between October and December of last year, Disney’s sales went up 8% to $23.5 billion. Profits went up by 11% as well, to $1.3bn.
But Disney+ lost $1.5 billion, and the number of people who signed up for it dropped by about 2.4 million, to 161.8 million.
Disney heads in a new direction
Under the plan, the company will be split into three parts: entertainment, which will include film, TV, and streaming; ESPN, which will focus on sports; and Disney parks, experiences, and products.
In a conference call with analysts, Mr. Iger said that the proposed reorganization would make Disney’s operations more coordinated and cost-effective.
He also said that the streaming service was still the company’s top priority.
After hours of trading after the news came out, Disney’s stock price went up by more than 5%.
In the last few years, the company has not been as successful as it might have liked in making new animated franchises.
Its first big movie after Covid, Strange World, didn’t do well at the box office. Even though the movie did much better on Disney+, it’s likely that more people who were already paying for the service watched and enjoyed it than people who were thinking about signing up.
So it’s not a huge shock that these sequels are being planned. When Bob Iger was in charge of the company before, one of his main goals was to make the most of the company’s existing popular properties.
Zootopia and the last Toy Story and Frozen movies both made more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office (Zootropolis in the UK). So it was inevitable that it would return to them at some point.
Even though we don’t know when they’re likely to come out, announcing them all at the same time sends a clear message to investors and fans that the streamer will continue to invest in areas that have done well for it in the past, even as it cuts jobs and looks for ways to save money.
The streaming giant hopes well-known titles like this will help bring more people to Disney+ and do well at the traditional box office.
Freddy Colquhoun, the investment director at JM Finn, told the BBC that the company has been having a lot of trouble over the last year, especially trying to make its streaming business profitable.
But he said the results were “actually very reassuring” and better than expected.
The changes fix some of the problems that billionaire activist Nelson Peltz has had with Disney in recent months. Peltz said that Disney was spending too much on its streaming business.
In an interview with the business news show CNBC on Thursday, Mr. Peltz said he would no longer try to get on the board to push for change.
Mr. Iger surprised everyone by returning to Disney as CEO less than a year after leaving the company.
After the company’s share price dropped and Disney+ lost money, he was brought back to lead the company through these rough times.
Bob Chapek, who will take over as CEO in February 2020, replaced Mr. Iger, who had been in charge of Disney for 15 years.
After Disney’s streaming business lost $1.5 billion in a quarter, Chapek was fired.
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Less than 24 hours after coming back, Mr. Iger said he had big plans for the company.
At the time, he said he had asked a group of executives to develop “a new structure that puts more decision-making back in the hands of our creative teams and rationalizes costs.”
