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Mufasa: The Lion King grossed approximately $717 million globally on a reported $200 million budget. By most measures it is a modest commercial success. By the standard Disney sets for the Lion King franchise, it is something closer to a question mark.
Disney hired Barry Jenkins to direct a photoreal prequel to a remake of an animated film. The economic logic is intelligible. The artistic logic is not. A year on, the question is what Jenkins was doing there.
A year on from Short n' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter is the first pop star of her generation who has successfully metabolised the Disney-pipeline training into something that is not, finally, Disney.
Disney announced that former Morgan Stanley chief James Gorman will become chairman in January, stepping up from the board's succession committee. The move aims to professionalise the Iger handoff.
Marvel Studios has quietly restructured its multi-year slate for the third time in two years. The rate of revision itself is the story.
Bob Iger's return to Disney was supposed to be a two-year fix. It has turned into something more complicated. A progress report on fifteen months of the restoration.