By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The Walt Disney Company is playing hardball, as it deals with financial and political threats from opponents internally and externally.
The entertainment giant known for its lovable characters has put on its “angry eyes”—to quote the immortal line from Toy Story’s Mrs. Potato Head—as it hits back against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and ‘lays off’ Marvel Entertainment chairperson Isaac Perlmutter.
Disney Staves Off Takeover Of Disney World Theme Park
The move garnering the most headlines this week involves Disney’s four-dimensional chess move involving control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, where Disney World (pictured above) is located.
On Feb. 8, the day before the Florida House voted to put the governor in charge, Disney pushed through its own agreement with the Reedy Creek board, enacting restrictive covenants that greatly restrict the power of the Improvement district.
The development agreement bars the new, state-appointed board from regulating the heights of buildings, which will now be solely under the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration, and also gives Disney wide-ranging authority over its own buildings. It also says any exterior changes to the improvement district’s buildings must be approved by Disney to ensure consistent ‘theming’ with Disney World.
That latter move would, for example, prevent signage on improvement district buildings that run contrary to Disney’s inclusive messaging.
Disney also took care to ensure that the agreement between the Reedy Creek Improvement District and the company will last for decades, because it contains a rare condition known as the ‘royal lives clause’, which means it remains valid until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants” of the British monarch, King Charles III.
The move has the new board and DeSantis loyalists vowing revenge.
“From ignoring parents and allowing radicals to sexualize our children, to now ignoring Florida taxpayers by sneaking in a last minute sweetheart development agreement, Disney has once again overplayed their hand in Florida,” said new board member Bridget Ziegler.
Ziegler is a founder of the conservative education group Moms for Liberty, who also helped craft the Parental Rights in Education Act, now known as the Don’t Say Gay law.
“We won’t stand for this and we won’t back down,” Ziegler added. “If unlawful actions were taken, this development agreement will be nullified.”
The new Reedy Creek board has already hired outside legal counsel, and plans to take the Walt Disney Company to court.
But Disney says it has not done anything wrong by signing the agreement with the former board of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which held the necessary authority to sign that contract. “All agreements signed between Disney and the district were appropriate and were discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida’s Government in the Sunshine law,” the company said.
For context, DeSantis and his GOP allies in Florida originally retaliated against Disney after it issued a statement criticizing the state’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ act, and vowed to oppose the new law.
In response, DeSantis signed a bill that saw control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District being taken over by the state, and appointed five of his political allies to run Disney World’s land base.
DeSantis indicated through spokesperson Taryn Fenske that he will support the Reedy Creek board in its legal action against Disney. “The Executive Office of the Governor is aware of Disney’s last-ditch efforts to execute contracts just before ratifying the new law that transfers rights and authorities from the former Reedy Creek Improvement District to Disney,” Fenske said.
Disney World is the top tourism attraction in Florida, and is also among the largest employers, with roughly 75,000 employees.
Disney Absorbs Marvel Entertainment, Lays Off Its Chairperson
Disney also took action on another front, as it announced it would absorb the Marvel Entertainment division as a cost-cutting measure, and lay off chairperson Isaac Perlmutter.
The division is separate from Marvel Studios, which retains its own division within the Disney hierarchy.
In addition to Perlmutter, Marvel co-president Rob Steffens and chief counsel John Turitzin were also laid off, although current president Dan Buckley will remain and will report to Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige.
Perlmutter was the owner of Marvel when it was sold to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion. However, despite the success of Marvel under Disney, the relationship has not been smooth.
The removal of Perlmutter is notable for another reason, as he is a major shareholder and was at the centre of a months long battle between Disney and activist billionaire hedge fund owner Nelson Peltz, who threatened a proxy war against the Walt Disney Company.
The entertainment publication Variety reported in February that Perlmutter’s alliance with Peltz was due at least in part to CEO Bob Iger’s decision to sever Perlmutter’s control of Marvel Studios in 2015, which reduced Marvel Entertainment’s role to little more than consumer products and comic book publishing.
Iger recently returned as CEO, and it appears he has taken the opportunity of Disney’s overall restructuring to put an end to the divisions between Marvel Entertainment and the parent company.
Ironically, the cost reductions and the layoffs that resulted in Perlmutter’s termination came as a result of a deal in which Peltz ended his proxy battle in return for Disney reducing its costs by $5.5 billion.
It is likely Perlmutter did not expect he would be among the 7,000 people laid off as a result.
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