00:01:24.620It's no secret that Disney isn't doing well lately.
00:01:27.840They just laid off nearly 15% of the workforce at Pixar, their movie studio that used to produce guaranteed hits.
00:01:33.500But Pixar's recent films, Elemental and Lightyear, were bombs.
00:01:37.520And the division hasn't turned a profit in more than two years.
00:01:40.420People just didn't go for the strained interracial immigrant metaphor in Elemental or the same-sex kiss in Lightyear.
00:01:46.760Or the kind of rehashed, stale vibe of both projects.
00:01:49.820Additionally, Disney's much-touted fully immersive Star Wars hotel called the Galactic Star Cruiser shut down late last year after operating for less than two years.
00:01:59.480Disney had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, apparently on the theory that people cared so much about the Star Wars brand
00:02:04.440that they'd be willing to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of staying two nights in a windowless concrete building posing as a spaceship.
00:02:12.900Apparently, people aren't excited to stay in a hotel where the experience is seemingly designed to be as aggressively unpleasant as possible.
00:02:19.880That same quarter, Disney's streaming service, Disney Plus, reported a loss of more than a million subscribers.
00:02:25.260That's not even getting into Disney's decision to get involved in Florida politics on the side of activist teachers
00:02:30.800who want to talk to kindergartners about gender identity and sexual orientation.
00:02:35.240Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options.
00:02:38.700One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism,
00:02:44.040which is what Disney used to do when it was a universally beloved and much more financially successful company.
00:02:49.480They could get back to their roots, in other words.
00:02:51.760And not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films
00:02:57.080that capture a real sense of wonder and imagination.
00:03:00.180But the other option was to keep doing exactly what they've been doing and continue to shove the same agenda,
00:03:06.640the equity, representation, LGBTQ approach that they've been pushing for years now.
00:03:12.240Well, eight months ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger publicly pledged to pursue the first option.
00:03:16.900He declared that Disney would refocus its efforts on entertainment, not political messaging.
00:03:20.740That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public.