Disney Fires Peter Rice, Its Top TV Content Executive

Jun 10, 2022
Disney Fires Peter Rice, Its Top TV Content Executive

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Mr. Chapek supplied nothing extra about Mr. Rice, eschewing the glowing platitudes that Hollywood often turns to in these moments. Nor did Disney give Mr. Rice a parachute within the type of a manufacturing deal. (“I do know all of us want Peter the perfect,” Mr. Chapek mentioned in an inner e-mail that introduced Ms. Walden’s ascent.)

Ms. Walden mentioned in an announcement that it was “an unbelievable honor” to be promoted and praised the workforce assembled by Mr. Rice as “really the very best in each respect.” The group contains Kimberly Godwin at ABC Information and Ayo Davis at Disney Branded Tv.

Mr. Rice’s sudden departure ruptures a strong trio that Disney inherited from twenty first Century Fox, which it agreed to buy from Rupert Murdoch in 2017. Mr. Rice, Ms. Walden and the FX Networks chairman John Landgraf labored intently collectively at Fox for many years.

Mr. Rice, affable but typically inscrutable to those that labored with him, began his leisure profession in 1987, when he was a summer season intern at Mr. Murdoch’s film studio. Over the following three many years, he would grow to be near Mr. Murdoch, in the end rising to grow to be president of twenty first Century Fox. Alongside the way in which, Mr. Rice turned Fox Searchlight into an Oscar and box-office superpower, delivering idiosyncratic hits like “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Sideways” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

The Disney shake-up got here as a shock to each Mr. Rice and Ms. Walden, the folks briefed on the matter mentioned. As lately as three weeks in the past, Disney dispatched Mr. Rice to its upfront stage, the corporate’s annual showcase for the promoting business. A distinguished upfront look usually signifies that an government’s standing is powerful at an organization.

Mr. Rice, who was launched onstage by Steve Martin, Martin Quick and Selena Gomez, the celebs of “Solely Murders within the Constructing,” talked up Disney’s sturdy market place, mentioning that it was the “solely firm that hasn’t been purchased or bought during the last 100 years.”

The Disney TV division has been having a great run. Along with “Solely Murders within the Constructing,” Hulu lately aired “The Dropout,” a critically beloved restricted collection concerning the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The highest exhibits for ABC Information, “Good Morning America” and “World Information Tonight,” stay the No. 1 most watched morning and night newscasts.

As with Mr. Rice, Ms. Walden’s relationships in Hollywood run deep. Jay Sures, a co-president on the United Expertise Company, referred to as Ms. Walden “arguably the perfect inventive government within the TV enterprise,” including that “she is beloved by expertise.”

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Supply- nytimes