Bob Iger is a captain of industry in the entertainment business and in the world of business in general…and how he got there is one of those Horatio Algier stories.
In interviews with several media outlets, he mentioned starting off humbly as a weatherman in Ithaca, New York before latching onto the lowest rung of what is now the Walt Disney Company as a studio supervisor for the ABC network. He outworked his colleagues and ingratiated himself to as many people as he could in the name of opportunity. Sure enough, he rose through the ranks of ABC until he eventually sat atop the throne and led the charge to acquire iconic brands like Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar…and to launch the successful streaming service Disney+.
Fifteen years into his reign, Iger was inspired to write a book about the learned life lessons that paid off with incredible success and good fortune. Iger outlined 10 core principles that were/are foundational to his leadership style.
The one we’d like to focus on is TRUE INTEGRITY–a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong.
Simply put: Iger doesn’t practice what he preaches.
Why is this the case? Because Not Deadline thinks (just an opinion) that Iger lost all of his integrity in 2012 and thought that no one in a million years would figure out what he did…because if they had, he would have been forced to step down immediately in shame, would have never survived long enough to repeatedly re-insert himself as the CEO for replacement, and would have never been heard from again until his obituary was written.
What may have triggered his egregious disregard of right and wrong? Star Wars.
Iger had consolidated so much power by 2012 and was so eager to flex the relationships he’d brokered…that he figured the greatest way to show it all off would be to keep all things Star Wars a complete secret until October 2012 when it was announced that Disney had acquired Lucasfilm, and then again until the hiring of JJ Abrams announcement in January 2013. All along, no one knew.
How could Iger have pulled off this magical feat? Let’s say you want a 0.1% chance of anyone in the entertainment community or in the world uncovering or discovering anything about the status of STAR WARS as relates to Disney? Iger and his super legal team discussed what other soulless persons and companies would be willing to play ball with them. Answer: those like Iger who thought that abusing their power and cheating the system would be the coolest thing ever.
Accordingly, the below steps would have been undertaken in some form (particularly as relates to the hiring of talent).
STEP ONE: the phrase STAR WARS could not appear anywhere in writing in any form for anyone to intercept or leak to anyone in the world. To do this, they would reference a phrase/name or unrelated project (that was code for Star Wars) in any emails or paperwork or contracts.
STEP TWO: Iger wouldn’t want anything in writing directly traceable to Disney because if it was traced—someone could and would leak it. Iger would disguise it to not just puff his chest but to also avoid the inevitable bombardment of calls from everyone in town advocating for this person or that person because he already had his targets in sight.
STEP THREE: Iger would have identified the talent to be hired and identified Star Wars projects they would be hired for…and then find some unrelated projects the specific talent might be working on or could be enlisted to work on and disguise (double contract) the documents under everyone’s noses… BUT, those who were part of the negotiation would know the paramount reason for the supposed project would really be about STAR WARS
STEP FOUR: Iger would have reached out as daring and wide as he could go. He wouldn’t just recruit a major tv/film financing entity, but he would also enlist a major agency and law firms who would assist in facilitating and the talent of course. and then, the granddaddy of them all—a college/university willing to put its reputation at risk as a front for deal papering and Iger’s name.
STEP FIVE: Iger would not make any Star Wars related announcements related to talent until the deals were done for not just the first trilogy of films, but for the second trilogy as well. Dollars terms.
STEP SIX: Iger released an announcement to the world that JJ Abrams had committed to the first trilogy (much earlier than January 2013) and others not referenced in that announcement.
One cannot make this stuff up. It’s better than the most creative artist could ever imagine…and that’s what makes these ‘What If…’ articles so much fun to write.
In the future, we hope to breakdown in more detail how each step would have been taken with methodical precision.
Have a great week.