Variety 11/22/2022

CO - EDITORS - IN - CHIEF If Hollywood was expecting a quiet Thanksgiving week, Bob Iger didn’t get the memo. The 71-year-old executive made a shocking comeback on the evening of Nov. 20 with the news that Disney’s board had ousted Bob Chapek as CEO and rehired his predecessor. Yes, there have been other cases where CEOs returned to a struggling company — Steve Jobs at Apple comes to mind. But what’s so surprising about the Iger situation is how little time Chapek had to steer the ship: less than three years, with Iger hovering over him during his first 12 months in the role. Nevertheless, thousands of Disney employees were waving their jazz hands at the thought of Iger’s return. The board is clearly betting on him to…

TV editor Michael Schneider was attending Elton John’s farewell concert at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night when Disney execs’ phones started blowing up with news of Bob Iger’s return as CEO. Elton was great, by the way. TV business writer Jennifer Maas went to Waco, Texas, to interview Chip and Joanna Gaines. While exploring the Silos, Chip & Jo’s cluster of Magnolia-branded shops and eateries, she bought the cutest biscuit-and-butter Christmas ornaments. Variety digital design director Daniel Doperalski shot Jonathan and Drew Scott in front of a pegboard as a nod to their construction roots, and used a fog machine to add some Hollywood magic. “The brothers’ playful back-and-forth was a delight to capture,” he says. Austin-based cinematographer and photographer Sarah Wilson captured the Gaineses in Waco on Sept. 23,…

Is this a hoax? That was the reaction from many Disney employees on the evening of Nov. 20, as the stunning news spread that Bob Iger would return to Disney as CEO, ending the stormy tenure of his successor, Bob Chapek. The news was so unexpected that at first many Mouse House staffers were immediately skeptical that the press release in their inbox was really from company brass. The surest sign that nobody — probably least of all Chapek — had any idea that Disney’s board was poised to take such a dramatic step was the fact that top Mouse brass were scheduled to be out and about that night at two highly public L.A. events: Elton John’s farewell concert at Dodger Stadium, which aired as a livestream for Disney+,…

Bob Iger was always going to be a tough act to follow. But Bob Chapek’s tenure at the helm of Disney was also marked by unforced errors that ultimately made it impossible to escape Iger’s shadow. On Nov. 20, the Disney board announced that Chapek was out and Iger was back in, a little less than three years after Chapek succeeded Iger as CEO in February 2020. Chapek came to the top job from the Parks and Resorts division, and he had little experience dealing with A-list talent and high-pressure political situations (a particular strength of Iger, who made tough decisions with a velvet touch). What followed was a series of eye-popping blunders that included a public spat with an actor. “The Black Widow” debacle: In the summer of 2021,…

From the 1960s sitcom to the Barry Sonnenfeld films to MGM’s animated iterations, “The Addams Family” has been a ripe property for adaptation over the decades. But when preparing for “Wednesday,” Tim Burton’s live-action Netflix series that focuses on the family’s woeful teenage daughter, production designer Mark Scruton turned away from screens and referenced the original source material. “I deliberately didn’t watch the old movies, but I did go back to the original Chas Addams cartoons,” he says, referring to the single-panel drawings that began appearing in The New Yorker in 1938. “With Tim, visually, he’s very pared back,” Scruton explains. He acknowledges that Burton is known for grandiose and elaborate images, but emphasizes that in his films, “there’s nothing in the frame which isn’t meant to be there. And…

AWARDS CIRCUIT It’s not just about the best when it comes to the Oscars. It’s about the most watched. The voters are made up of working industry folks who don’t have the luxury of dedicating infinite hours to viewing hundreds of films in the calendar year. That’s where awards strategists come in: They help create and build upon narratives around the movies you “need” to see before filling out your ballot. This method has benefited studios with hefty marketing budgets and box office titans like “Top Gun: Maverick.” Each year, after conversations with voters throughout the season about which movies they are favoring, I’m surprised when they don’t mention the critically lauded or even high-profile projects pundits have been touting. One member of the actors branch has seen three movies…