Rushfield: Disney's C-Suite Shuffles, Again

➕ My Movies Mid-Year Report (SOS indies)

Richard Rushfield

Jun 16

**BOWING OUT** Christine McCarthy is relinquishing her role as CFO of Disney, a position she has held since 2015. (Michael Kovac/Getty Images)

Welcome to my periodic weekly collection of quick takes and flashpoints from the news around town. Today: box office on a roll, but who’s left out, execs making busy work, sadness on Southwest, and shake-up at Mouseville.

Shake-Up at Disney

Just as we were going to press, news came through that Christine McCarthy is stepping down as Disney CFO for "family medical leave". And given that it’s about a woman who has battled cancer twice, and a husband who the Wall Street Journal reports is “ailing”, that's not an explanation to be just shrugged off. Sincere best wishes to her and hers.

The fact that she's remaining in an advisory role suggests that this isn't an ouster along the lines of say... calling an employee on their way to an Elton John concert to tell him to not go on stage.

With this torch passing, the tiny number of women in heartbeat-away-from-the chair-positions grows one smaller. (Her interim replacement, Kevin Lansberry, is not known to be a woman.) The number of studio heads themselves who are women, holds steady at zero. Congratulations, Hollywood.

Obviously in the eyes of Iger loyalists, the steely McCarthy did the world a great service in ridding the world of the Chapek interregnum as has been reported, by going to the board. (A service that Iger himself had, of course, absolutely nothing to do with.)

Of course, Disney being Disney, there is always palace intrigue. In December last year, CNBC’s Alex Sherman predicted McCarthy — discussed as a CEO successor to Iger — would not make it to the finish line.

Meanwhile, with budget cuts, layoffs, delayed releases and shows being removed from its streaming services, Disney employees weathering the assorted storms of the moment are hoping for the restoration miracle to kick in.

In a statement, McCarthy said that she will "always be rooting for the success of my extended Disney family."

The Box Office at Mid-Year

Look at us! Movies made it halfway through a year with no major shutdown or new paradigm interruption. Participation trophies all around! Just please don't turn the page to look at where this leads us in 2024, especially if the strike stretches into the fall.

But for now... the first half of the year was definitely more than just okay. It's the kind of results that make you say, "What was the idea of throwing this entire business out the window for a new sector that shows little hope of ever being profitable?" You know, questions like that!

**BOX OFFICE BONANZA** Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination, and Jack Black at a screening of *The Super Mario Bros. Movie*. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

But heartening as the comeback has been, fortune is not distributed equally in this life. There are the greats, the good, and the just okays. And a few who didn't even make it to that. So let's have a look at some takeaways from the six months that shook the box office and pick some winners and some losers. After all, Gore Vidal's maxim, "It's not enough to succeed. Others must fail," might as well be the founding principle of Hollywood. Our E pluribus unum.

Take it away, takeaways:

The first thing that jumps out from this year's charts, (using domestic for simplicity’s sake but below-mentioned trends generally apply) as we characteristically look for dark clouds — is the absence of indie, or even specialty divisions from anywhere in the upper or even middle rankings. You've got to go down the chart to #31 before any of them make an appearance. And that appearance is Book Club 2 from Focus, so adjust your "indie" parameters accordingly.
The true indies (Neon, Bleecker Street, IFC and Oscar juggernaut A24)… the only thing from them that broke the $10 million ceiling is holdover, The Whale. And boy, you've got a lot of films from the indie labels and divisions hovering in the $1-3 million range. I know its not Oscar season and the fall is the natural hunting grounds for these films, but half the year is a pretty big swath to sit out.
So is this the permanent damage of the Streaming Wars? I still believe these specialty audiences can be lured back but if for half the year no one is doing that, you start to wonder.
That said, a lot of the big studio releases look a lot like what we would have called "indie" films a few years ago and are doing alright. Cocaine Bear isn't Night and Fog, but could definitely see it under an indie banner. Pretty much the entire Lionsgate catalog except John Wick (and maybe including John Wick) could be classed as indie. Take away the Spider-Verse and Sony looks a lot like an indie. I don't know where you classify Man Called Otto. It's IP — as is everything — but not BIG IP, and one of the only things you can call an "adult drama" above the $10 million mark. Point being, maybe much of indie has been kicked upstairs to the grown-up table.
Speaking of Sony, take out Spider-Verse and Man from Otto at #17 is its biggest grosser. But the Spider-Verse they got and that's no small victory. To release a film as aesthetically adventurous as Spider-Verse takes no small amount of guts, even if it is a sequel to an only slightly less adventurous film. And the fact that a movie that is this original and visually untraditional to blockbuster audiences could make hundreds of millions is pretty heartening for where audiences are willing to go.
Jesus Revolution made $50 million? Apparently with no one in media noticing, seeing it or talking about it? That seems like a pretty big story.
The big news of the summer to this point is so far the multi-vehicle pile-up train-wreck hasn't materialized. So far, despite a packed release schedule, there's been room for everyone to make money. The weekends just ahead will test how high the ceiling can rise.
Animation is the big story of the year. And so far that story belongs to Universal and now to Sony, with one big company missing from that story. Disney is of course well represented in the top charts with other films but its absence from the animation stratosphere is striking. Much has been written about the Illumination v. Disney animation comparisons, but it's pretty amazing to ponder how Super Mario now holds the animation crown. As no less an authority than Robert Iger wrote in his memoir, recounting how he convinced the Disney board to buy Pixar:
In so many respects, Disney Animation was the brand. It was the fuel that powered many of our other businesses, including consumer products, television, and theme parks. and over the last ten years, the brand had suffered a lot… As Disney Animation goes, so goes the company.
So, no pressure, Elemental!
Which I've seen and will only say — respecting the embargo — if you look to a bunch of middle-aged international festival critics cranky on their final day in France for the correct opinions on animated features for children, don't be shocked when your kids grow up to hate you.
Coming up next: Journalists, pre-write now your trend pieces "Return of the R-Rated Comedy. (And keep your "Final Nail in the R-Rated Comedy Coffin" piece ready in your desk drawer, just in case.) Or to make it easier, box office writers can just retract every piece they wrote after Bros last year.) We have three major, very funny-looking hard-R comedies coming our way, something that hasn't happened in a pack since... the 90's? No Hard Feelings, Strays, and Joy Ride all look to have break-out potential. Theater Camp which is sort of a hard PG-13 I can attest is also hilarious. If we could revive this genre from the dead, now that would be a new paradigm.
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We're So Busy. Really!

Hollywood may not be doing much, but it’s busier than ever.

At any given time during even normalcy, the greatest brainpower of Hollywood executives is devoted to the task of… demonstrating as loudly as possible that they are doing important things. Every year a huge swath of Hollywood's time goes to writing unneeded notes, taking pointless meetings and starting group email chains in the service of this goal.

But this year, on top of it being June (and it being Hollywood), there is also an industry-wide strike, when no deals can be made or projects put into place, and production is going is in mothballs. And that leaves many in the industry with a very intense scramble to prove their jobs exist for a reason. The sword of Damocles of massive cuts and downsizing doesn't make that task any less urgent.

I've heard this week from people across the industry that while there's never been less to do, they have never been busier, as seemingly every person at every company seems to be anxiously taking this opportunity to schedule needless meetings on Zooms, in person, department-wide, with outside vendors — you name it. With no writers present, the script notes and development meetings are burning white hot, as the desperation to prove one’s value become a general panic.

At this rate, the writers are going to come back from the strike someday and fine a shockingly tired group of executives, agents and apparatchiks barely holding on.

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The Unfriendly Skies

For those who came of age in Imperial Hollywood, its taken some adjustment to acclimate to this new world of belt-tightening, cutbacks, layoffs, quarterly earnings and disposable stars.

But having lived through all of that, one sentence in yesterday's Variety profile of Warner Film bosses Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy, brought home exactly how far we've fallen.

Variety reporter Matt Donnelly captured this potent and heartbreaking moment at the Las Vegas Airport

I spotted Abdy in the Southwest Airlines queue headed to Las Vegas from L.A., pulling her own carry-on.

And thus, an empire dies.

There was a time not too long ago when every marketing assistant expected a seat in business class, across the aisle from her assistant. But no more.

Can you have a business built on glamour when the most prominent executives have to push their way to the front of their boarding group to try and get an aisle seat? We'll find out.

Or perhaps once the writers strike is settled we should put together a Patreon to raise money make sure all our top executives are upgraded to no less than Comfort Plus-level whenever they travel.

ICYMI

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Rushfield: Invasion of the Globey Snatchers Penske's giant squid strangles the HFPA in a swirl of for-profit fast-talking mumbo jumbo
🎧 The Agency Titans Showdown Blood was drawn this week in the decades-old grudge match between Bryan Lourd and Ari Emanuel (transcript here)

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