Ex Disney CEO on Hollywood Box Office Battles

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Patrick Bet-David (0:30)

I'm assuming Disney is a calendar based business, right? On the movie side.

Bob Chapek (0:34)

100 percent.

Patrick Bet-David (0:34)

So what are the do's and don'ts on the calendar? Like is there, don't touch October or don't mess with J-

Bob Chapek (0:42)

Well, I mean, if there's two big rules, it would be pick a high seasonality time period when people will come, right? And stay away from titles that are bigger than you.

Patrick Bet-David (0:53)

Stay away from titles that are bigger than you? What does that mean?

Bob Chapek (0:55)

Well, if you have a competitive title and it's expected to do $500 million in the box office and you think you're going to do $150 million, you might not want to compete with them because you'll lose.

Patrick Bet-David (1:06)

That makes sense.

Bob Chapek (1:06)

Your $150 million will be $100 million.

Patrick Bet-David (1:08)

So how did you guys get access to know what the competitors are coming up with next in the next two, three, four, five years?

Bob Chapek (1:14)

Oh, they go to industry conventions. Everybody knows. And they show their trailers. And coming next July, on July 22nd, and so everyone kind of sits there and says, they're July 22nd. What happens if we go July 4th? There's a whole group of people in theatrical distribution that that's...

Patrick Bet-David (1:30)

What are those guys called? What do you call them? Like a strategic... Theatrical distribution. But is there a specific title for them? The guys that are calendaring the whole thing out?

Bob Chapek (1:38)

Just basically theatrical distribution.

Patrick Bet-David (1:40)

Yeah, I mean, you've got to be strategic to be thinking about...

Bob Chapek (1:42)

You've got to be strategic to think about what your competitors are doing. And you take every bit of information you get, and you're like, you talk to exhibitors, and exhibitors say, wow, that Sony film is really looking great right now, or that Warner Brothers film is looking really strong.

Patrick Bet-David (1:56)

Did you ever change dates to demolish a competitor's movie that they were really banking on? Like, was it that competitive?

Bob Chapek (2:03)

It wasn't to demolish somebody else's to advantage your own film, right? Your decision was about advantageing your own, not demolishing a competitor's just to demolish a competitor, right? So I mean, the notion...

Patrick Bet-David (2:15)

You guys are the heavyweight, though. I'm sure people wanted to pick on you guys all the time. Or was it behind closed doors a bunch of friends?

Bob Chapek (2:21)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, there was no cooperation at all.

This was... It was a war, but you were really looking to advantage your title. And then sometimes, you know, they think they got the heavyweight, you think you got the heavyweight, and those titles go really close to each other. And then you find out who had the heavyweight.

Patrick Bet-David (2:40)

Tell me one of those where you guys are sitting there saying, guys, this could go... Because it's funny, because I'm not in your space. I don't know how to think about it, but it's kind of like, you know how sometimes you got Formula One, bro, I don't know if you go to Formula One races or not.

Bob Chapek (2:53)

I don't know. I'm not a huge fan.

Patrick Bet-David (2:55)

Are you a Kentucky Derby guy?

Bob Chapek (2:56)

A little bit.

Patrick Bet-David (2:57)

Okay, so they fight, they do it in the same weekend.

Bob Chapek (3:00)

Right.

Patrick Bet-David (3:01)

You know, Formula One and Kentucky Derby, same weekend. So sometimes you'll see fights, a boxing match at the same time as a UFC match. And it's just like, let me see who's gonna do better. What was one story that you guys have where two heavyweights went against each other and you guys won?

Bob Chapek (3:16)

This happened, basically, I can't give you one story because it happened every 4th of July, every Christmas and every Thanksgiving.

That's what happens, right? Everybody, that's right. So the rest of the weeks, there's jockeying. But when it's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, everybody puts their monsters out, and then you go toe to toe. If it's the week before Christmas, everybody puts their monsters out. You know, July 1st, everybody puts their monsters out. And so you would get those times where the seasonality, remember I said one of the things you look at is seasonality, where the seasonality is so big that no one's going to back down.