Welcome back to a St. Patrick’s Day edition of What I’m Hearing, slightly abbreviated today because I picked up a little cold in Florida.

Programming note: The Times ran a nice piece on Puck and other media outlets finding success without relying on commodity news for the masses. On The Town, Julia Alexander suggested Netflix do pre-shows on YouTube for live events to help bring audiences over, and litigator Jeremiah Reynolds explained what screenwriters can do if their scripts have been ripped off. Subscribe here and here.

Was this email forwarded to you? Click here to become a Puck member. Got a news tip or an idea for me? Just reply to this email.

Discussed in this issue: Bob Iger, Michael Kassan, Bill Maher, George Cheeks, Pete Distad, Bryan Lourd, Dana Walden, Jeremy Zimmer, Jimmy Pitaro, Alan Bergman, Nelson Peltz, Michael Nathanson… and the squatters of Beverly Hills.

But first…

Runner-up: Timothée Chalamet, for Dune: Part Two passing $500 million worldwide, meaning that with Wonka, he has now starred in two movies in less than four months that crossed $200 million domestic. When was the last time that happened?

Now for an update on the Disney succession sweepstakes…

Not far from Iger, as the Oscars and the Spanish ham were passed around, was Dana Walden, Disney’s TV chief, whose ABC network aired the awards show, and Alan Bergman, its film leader, whose Searchlight division delivered Poor Things, the latest in a pretty incredible run of Oscar winners over the past 15 years. The Disney crew also included Josh D’Amaro, its parks chief. All of Iger’s direct reports are invited to attend the Oscars, but it was hard not to notice that three of the four internal candidates to become C.E.O. (ESPN’s Jimmy Pitaro was on the East Coast) were circling him in a proud moment for the company’s creative engine—especially amid a run when those moments have been few and far between.

This week, Bloomberg confirmed what’s been clear for a while now: The special committee of the Disney board is looking at only those four internal candidates as possible successors when Iger steps down, as he’s supposed to do at the end of 2026. (At this point, you’re allowed to spit take and howl in laughter whenever an Iger retirement date is mentioned.) An outside candidate is still a possibility too, I’m told, but Iger and the committee, now led by chairman and former Nike C.E.O. Mark Parker, would prefer an insider. To that end, Iger has been spending extra time showing the four wannabes what they don’t know, and an executive coach is helping to polish them, lest they someday refer publicly to Disneyland maintenance staff as janitors and not “cast members.”

I won’t rehash the pros and cons of each candidate, except to emphasize the whole problem here: None of them is ideal. Bergman came up on the finance side of the content business and manages the major franchise generators; D’Amaro runs the company’s most profitable unit and is a celebrity among hard-core Disney parks fans; Pitaro has found himself in the guts of Disney’s linear-to-streaming transition; and Walden has great taste and relationships, and her purview includes TV studios, networks, and now streamers. Nobody has the full package, and each has experienced challenges lately, especially as the content side at Disney has stumbled. But that’s what a bake-off is for. Let’s see what they cook up.

I know the lack of experience knock is frustrating, and it’s probably overstated in the media—all good executives learn and grow into their roles, and there’s still a ton of time before the end of ’26. But given what happened when Bob Chapek—primarily a back office-style parks and products guy—ran the whole company, it’s understandable that the decision-makers would fear asking too much of someone again. Plus, most observers believe the company’s future will rest on its ability to escape the cratering cable TV business and turn streaming into something remotely comparable. All the candidates except D’Amaro have been charged with tackling that problem in various ways, but none is a digital native or even a specialist, and that’s kind of a red flag. “We continue to believe prioritizing D.T.C. profitability will be a key driver for the next leg of Disney share price upside,” the influential analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in a recent note to clients. Who is best to lead that transformational push?

That last part is key. Now that the bake-off is somewhat set, the last thing Disney wants is one person to get the nod and the others to bail in disgust. That’s essentially what happened, with slightly lower stakes, at Warner Bros., where Time Warner C.E.O. Jeff Bewkes oversaw a sweepstakes between digital chief Kevin Tsujihara, film leader Jeff Robinov, and TV head Bruce Rosenblum. When Tsujihara was named C.E.O. in 2013, the other two left, and when Kevin was forced out amid a sex scandal six years later, there wasn’t an obvious internal person to replace him.

In the meantime, keeping investor Nelson Peltz and former C.F.O. Jay Rasulo off the board and out of that process is the immediate priority. Iger & Co. have done a pretty good job articulating to shareholders that Peltz is more trouble than he’s worth. And Disney stock is now up 23 percent in 2024—nowhere near pandemic heights, but a positive trajectory that at least temporarily validates Iger’s rejection of outside help. (Let’s see what tomorrow’s inevitable press release says about the first weekend viewing of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on Disney+; I’m betting it’s huge.) Speaking at the Morgan Stanley conference a couple weeks ago, Iger said that Disney is pacing ahead of its free cash flow guidance of $8 billion for 2024. That’s due mostly to spending less and making fewer movies and shows, exactly what Peltz says he would advise if let inside the Mouse House. Nathanson, in a separate note, forecasted Disney spending 30 percent less on non-sports content in 2024 than the company did just two years ago. That’s a cut of more than $6 billion—a lot of Santa Clause shows and Hocus Pocus 2’s that just aren’t happening.

Peltz probably thought sitting down for a big profile with James B. Stewart, the Times columnist who wrote Disney War, the epic tome about the last big corporate upheaval at Disney, would burnish his image and help him win over shareholders. But… no. We do learn that Peltz once wanted to be a ski instructor, and he belongs to a slightly less elite Palm Beach country club than you’d expect. But we also learn that few top executives would even talk to the Times about him, “even people he counts as friends and admirers, some of whom he recommended The Times interview for this article.” Yikes. Oh, and it was Donald Trump who first introduced Peltz to Ike Perlmutter, now his partner in terrorizing Disney.

Peltz, according to Stewart and co-writer Lauren Hirsch, really just wants to be loved and respected. He’s spent a career as an activist, buyout operator, and corporate raider, but he “hates being mentioned in the same company as a rogues’ gallery of activists, buyout operators and corporate raiders.” Okay… rather, “he thinks he should be compared to someone he admires and tries to emulate: Warren E. Buffett.”

Really. While there is ample evidence that Peltz’s presence at a company can increase share price performance, and he tries hard to argue that C.E.O.s end up loving him when he forces himself onto their boards, this graph might be the most damning in the Times piece:

Several executives who have faced Mr. Peltz’s attention said they saw a common theme: He accelerated existing recovery plans, and then reaped credit for the success. Chief executives who get along with him have to swallow their egos — something that might prove difficult for someone as prominent as Mr. Iger, especially given all the recent vitriol.

No one The Times interviewed could recall Mr. Peltz’s arriving on a board with bold ideas that no one else at the company had ever thought of.

CBS, one of the last bastions of scripted series on broadcast, is looking at more 90-minute reality shows for next season, says its leader, George Cheeks, in a long interview with Joe Adalian. [Vulture]

Plus for Pete Distad, a long-suffering Apple and Hulu executive: He gets to run something. Minus: That something is the “Spulu” sports TV joint venture that some don’t think will even launch. [NY Times]

All those new private equity-backed soundstages and production facilities are under construction just as demand is scaling way back. Geniuses! [Bloomberg]

Dylan Byers has everything you want to know about Don Lemon’s firing by Elon Musk but are afraid to admit you care about, plus the current options for defenestrated TV news hosts (Piers Morgan is generating $500,000 a month on YouTube?!?). [Puck]

“Disastrous,” “ill-fated,” “debacle:” A few of the words that appeared in the headlines of obituaries for Jerry Levin, architect of the AOL-Time Warner merger. [NY Times]

If you won’t click on an article called “The Squatters of Beverly Hills,” I can’t help you. [Curbed]

“Thank you for the most entertaining read of the year. I can’t help but wonder if any of these agencies had female leadership, maybe they could avoid such emotional fights.” —A (female) executive

“Zimmer vs. Kassan reminds me of when Iran and Iraq were at war.” —A producer

“You should know that many of us thought this was a bad idea. The outcome was predicted by me and others.” —A UTA employee

“[Kassan is] smooth as silk, exquisite taste, and immense people skills, but a fraud nonetheless. He totally hoodwinked UTA, and after taking millions and continuing to support his lifestyle, he’s going to be able to start a new ‘ad business dating service’ with minimal outlay (relatively speaking). Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. Typical entertainment.” —Another executive

“Hard to feel bad for UTA. They knew what they were buying, and if they didn’t, they were negligent and should replace their leadership.” —An investor

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a reliable 15-2 upset pick for my bracket? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.