It’s fitting to close out 2022 with one final look at how the Walt Disney Co. performed during the year.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t good.
Disney, as The Free Press has reported, became embroiled in a major culture skirmish against Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The company criticized DeSantis and GOP lawmakers in the Legislature for the Parental Rights in Education law. The law bans school districts and classroom teachers from implementing lesson plans based on gender ideology and sexual orientation in grades K-3.
Disney wisely stayed above the political fray early on. Then, under pressure from its LGBTQ staff and activists, it denounced the law. Former CEO Bob Chapek said the law should never have been passed and vowed to have it repealed in the Legislature or overturned in the courts.
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As it turned out, DeSantis crushed Democrat Charlie Crist by 20 points in the November election, and Chapek was fired, replaced by former Disney CEO Bob Iger.
But that wasn’t all.
DeSantis and GOP lawmakers stripped Disney of its special tax district that allowed the company to self-govern its property. The loss of that autonomy, after roughly 50 years, has sparked a lawsuit by an investor, who, as The Free Press reported, maintained the company’s fight with DeSantis hurt stockholders.
He has a point.
On Friday, Disney’s stock closed at about $87 a share. That was 45% lower than when the year began.
As Breitbart reported on Friday, Disney’s market value plunged $123 billion in 2022.
“Disney’s abysmal 2022 represents its worst year since 1974 when the company’s stock dropped 54 percent, according to Dow Jones Market Data,” Breitbart added. “For 2022, Disney’s stock was the second-worst performing among the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after Salesforce.com, whose stock fell 48 percent.”
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But some of Disney’s highest-profile projects utterly bombed in 2022 because of the embrace of wokeness.
Both “Lightyear” and “Strange World,” each an animated feature with a heavy dose of LGTBQ content, were box office duds. “Lightyear” cost $200 million to make and came in $20 million under its opening weekend projections. The movie made just $118 million in the U.S. “Strange World,” a $180 million venture, made just $36 million in domestic theaters.
In one final push against Disney, GOP Reps. Greg Steube of Sarasota, Byron Donalds of Naples and Kat Cammack of Gainesville were among 19 House Republicans who notified Disney that they would no longer support the special copyright protection that allow Disney to retain rights over Mickey Mouse.
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