Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Disney's Chief Executive Officer, Bob Chapek and Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board, Bob Iger.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Raleigh. It is great to be with all of you here. Raleigh, by the way, is home of one of our own television stations, ABC 11, WTVD. Our annual meeting is an event that we look forward to every year because it provides us the opportunity to update shareholders on our business and also show you some of the exciting new things that we have in store for Disney fans like yourselves.
However, given what's going on in the world, we're going to alter our presentation a bit this morning. I think it's fair to say that we're all sobered by the concern that we feel for everyone affected by this global crisis. These are challenging times for everyone. But it's also important to note that throughout our company's nearly century long history, Disney has been through a lot, including wars and economic downturns and natural disasters. And what we've demonstrated repeatedly over the years is that we are incredibly resilient.
Our future has always been bright and it remains so for good reason. In fact, when you think about the world today, what we create at the Walt Disney Company has never been more necessary or more important. Now I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity that I've had to lead this phenomenal company for the past 15 years as its 6th CEO. And now I would like to officially introduce all of you to our new CEO, Bob Chapek. Bob, welcome.
This is his first annual meeting too. You're going to enjoy it. Perfect. I hope. Now I can't think of a better person to succeed me in this role.
Bob is someone that we know very well and he certainly knows our company very well. He's had distinguished career at our company and is a talented leader during nearly 3 decades with Disney with extensive experience across a number of our businesses from studios to consumer products to Parks and Resorts. And we're certain he will do an outstanding job leading our company into its next century as its 7th CEO. Bob?
Thanks, Bob, and hello, everyone. It's a tremendous honor and a privilege for me to assume the role of CEO of what I truly believe is the greatest company on earth. And I'm indebted to Bob and to the Board for their confidence and their strong support. As a member of his senior management team now for over 15 years, I've watched Bob lead this company to amazing new heights and I've learned an enormous amount from that experience. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work closely with him during this transition.
Now I've also been a Disney fan my whole life. I have a deep love for this company and all that it stands for, and I look forward to building on its rich legacy. And I want to take an opportunity to thank all of you for your support as well because you are the reason we do what we do every day at
Disney. Now with respect to the agenda for today's meeting, our General Counsel, Alan Braverman, will conduct the business portion first. And then Bob and I will come back show you a few things and take your questions. But before we hand it over to Alan, I'd like to take a moment and acknowledge our Board of Directors starting with our independent Lead Director, Susan Arnold. In addition to Susan, we have Mary Barra, Safra Katz, Francis D'Souza, Michael Froman, Mel Laga Massino, Mark Parker and Derica Rice.
We're grateful for their hard work and their support. And now we'll turn it over to Alan for the business portion. Alan?
Good morning, everyone. This meeting has been duly called and is being conducted in conformity with the laws of Delaware and the company's charter and bylaws. If you've already voted by proxy, you don't need to vote again now. But if you haven't voted or you want to change your vote, you may do that now. Please raise your hand if you need a ballot to vote.
We'll have someone collect any ballots cast today at the end of the business portion of the meeting. Now, copies of the rules for the meeting were provided at the registration table, and I would ask that everyone please respect the rules. We have 5 items on the agenda today, including 1 shareholder proposal. I'll introduce each of the 4 items and a shareholder representative will present that proposal. Then the polls will close and we'll hear a preliminary report from the Solution as the Inspector of Elections for this meeting.
And I'd now like to introduce Belinda Massafra, a representative of Broadridge, and ask her to report on the number of shares of outstanding share votes present at today's meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Braverman. As of the close of business on January 13, 2020, the record date for this meeting, there were 1,805,000,000,259,000 396 shares of common stock outstanding, each of which is entitled to one vote. There are at least 1,000,000,000 495,000,898,862 shares of common stock represented by proxy at this meeting, which represents at least 82% of the total number of shares entitled to vote.
Thank you. Based on that report, I declare that a quorum is present, that this meeting is qualified to proceed and that the polls are now open. The first item is the election of 9 members of the Board of Directors. Each director holds office for a term of 1 year. Each of the current directors, all of whom Bob just introduced to you, is nominated for election at this meeting and the Board recommends a vote for the election of all of the nominees.
The next item is ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered accountants for the current fiscal year as recommended by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors. David Johnson, a representative of PricewaterhouseCoopers is here today to respond to any questions. The Board recommends a vote for the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered accountants for fiscal 2020. The next item is the advisory vote on executive compensation. Here, we're seeking advisory shareholder approval of the compensation of our named executive officers and the Board recommends a vote for this proposal.
The next item is an amendment to the company's amended and restated 2011 stock incentive plan. The Board recommends a vote for this amendment to that plan. The next item is a shareholder proposal presented by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes. The full text of that proposal is set forth in the proxy statement.
I understand that Ebony Perkins, a representative of the shareholder, is here to present the proposal and I would like to invite her to do so now. I would ask that she limit the presentation to 5 minutes at
most. Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I am Ebony Perkins and I live here in Raleigh, North Carolina. On behalf of the Congregation of Sisters of St.
Agnes and 8 investor co followers, I hereby move Item 5, asking our company to report on its state and federal lobbying expenditures, including indirect funding of lobbying through trade associations. We believe transparency and accountability regarding corporate spending to influence public policy are in the best interest of Disney shareholders. How companies like Disney lobby and spend money to impact regulators and legislators should be public, not hidden. Unfortunately, Disney does not issue a comprehensive report about its own direct lobbying. That data is scattered among federal and state regulators and is difficult to obtain.
But we do know that since 2010, Disney has spent more than $37,600,000 on federal lobbying. Disney's lobbying, federal lobbying, has been described as so effective that the United States changed its copyright law twice, once in 1976 and again in 1998. But there is incomplete disclosure about spending at the state level, where our company also lobbies. Disney's lobbying in Florida has been described as the 800 pound mouse protecting its cheese in the back rooms of city hall and state government. Disney is required to report its lobbying and already has this information in house.
So it could easily provide this information to shareholders. Disney continues to argue that it has a high ranking in the CPA Zicklin Index, a report that measures political contributions disclosure. But this argument is misleading. Since the report looks at political contributions to affect elections, it has nothing to do with the lobbying disclosure. We are pleased that Disney has begun to disclose information about its trade associations.
Unfortunately, Disney shareholders still face a trade association blind spot as Disney fails to disclose the full amount for its largest trade association payments that are being used for lobbying. We don't know if such organizations receive 1,000,000 of dollars from Disney. It is simply not disclosed. As Disney's new disclosures notably leave out so called social welfare or 501c4 organizations, which can also lobby. Given Disney's lack of complete lobbying disclosure, shareholders remain concerned that company assets could be used for objectives that are contrary to Disney's long term mission and interest and could pose reputational risk and harm share value.
For example, Disney signed an agreement to work with United Nations Environment to combat and raise awareness around climate change. Yet the Chamber of Commerce undermined the Paris Climate Accord. Disney is a member of the National Restaurant Association, which has spent 1,000,000 on the state level and has worked with a controversial American Legislative Exchange Council to stop local measures to enact paid sick leave laws. Proxy advisor, ISS, supports this proposal. ISS notes that Disney's does not disclose how it reconciles reputational risk when its trade associations lobbying activities contradict the company's public positions and the portions of Disney's trade association payments used for lobbying are not clear.
We believe disclosure transparency is a safety mechanism for our company and its reputation. As what gets disclosed gets managed. Full disclosure of Disney's lobbying will ensure proper oversight of our company's lobbying and we urge shareholders to vote for this proposal. Thank you.
Thank you. The Board of Directors has recommended a vote against this proposal and for the reason set out in the proxy statement. Now if anyone has not yet voted and you're holding a ballot, please raise your hand. The polls will now close. And I would ask the Inspector of Election to give us her report based upon the proxies received at the opening of the polls at today's meeting.
Inspector May, we have your report.
Thank you, Mr. Braverman. For item 1, the election of directors, we have received proxies for each director representing at least 92% of the votes cast. Item 2, ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we have received proxies for 96% of shares voting to approve the appointment. For item 3, relating to executive compensation, we have received proxies for 53% of shares voting to approve the resolution, 46% voting against the resolution and less than 1% abstaining.
For item 4, relating to amendment of the 2011 plan, we have received proxies for 91% of shares voting to approve the proposal, 8% voting against the proposal and less than 1% abstaining. For item 5, relating to lobbying disclosure, we have received proxies for 33% of shares voting to approve the proposal, 66% voting against the proposal and less than 1% abstaining. That concludes my report, Mr. Braverman.
Thank you. Based upon that report and subject to the counting of ballots presented at the meeting and final confirmation of voting results by the Inspector of Elections, I declare that all the nominees for election to the Board have been duly elected. The appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been duly ratified, that the advisory resolution on executive compensation is approved, that the amendment to the 2011 plan is approved and that the shareholder proposal was not adopted. That concludes the business portion of the meeting, which is now adjourned. We hope you enjoy the rest of today's presentation.
And with that, I'll turn it back over to Bob Iger and Bob Chapek for the remainder of the presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Alan. So before we take your questions, Bob and I would like to talk about a few things that we're particularly excited about. One of our company's greatest accomplishments this past year as many of you know was the successful launch of Disney plus and we're proud to say the response greatly exceeded our highest expectations. So take a look. As you just saw, we're getting ready to launch Disney plus in several other markets, including in Western Europe on March 24.
We've also got a broad array of new original content currently in development, including 3 new series being created by Marvel Studios. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision will debut later this year and Loki starring actor Tom Hiddleston will roll out in early 2021. And you're the first to see this clip from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It's pretty cool. Now as a company, the decision to pivot to our direct to consumer strategy was a critical one and it is a top priority.
And we're more confident than ever about the tremendous potential of our full collection of streaming services. ESPN plus is already off to a really good start and we're introducing new offerings on Hulu including FX on Hulu. And now I've got an exciting announcement for you. Last year, the famed director Peter Jackson started working on a documentary chronicling the recording of what would be the Beatles' final album. He has more than 55 hours of footage and 140 hours of recordings from the legendary band's studio sessions, most of it never before seen or heard.
Along with their final live performance as a group on the fame there was a famous concert that took place on the rooftop of Apple's then headquarters on Savile Row in London. The Beatles Get Back is a front row seat to the inner workings of those genius creators at what was a seminal moment in music history with spectacularly restored footage that looks like it was shot just yesterday. I've seen a lot of the footage and as a huge Beatles fan myself, I could not be happier that Disney will share this stunning documentary with audiences on September 4th.
Thanks, Bob. Now turning to Parks, we had another fantastic year highlighted by the opening of our new Star Wars lands at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Now these lands are incredibly popular and have exceeded our guests' wildest expectations, especially our newest and most technologically advanced attraction, Rise of the Resistance. Now for those of you who have not yet experienced it, it really is incredible. So let's take a look.
So last week, we opened up our newest attraction Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando. Now this ride uses state of the art technology and visual effects to transform the cartoon world into an incredible multi dimensional experience. Now looking ahead, one of the things we're really excited about is the upcoming opening of Avengers Campus at Disneyland Resort. Now the great storytelling and characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe are not only in our movies and on Disney Plus, they're also in our parks. We've got a special message for you from one of our fans' favorite superheroes who play a really big part in the groundbreaking Spider Man attraction.
Slider Roll. And that's not the only opportunity you're going to have to see Spider Man because he'll be swinging into action above Avengers Campus, thanks to our amazing stuntronics, the advanced robotic technology created by Walt Disney Imagineering. Now we can't wait for fans to experience all that this new land has to offer and I'm thrilled to announce that Avengers Campus will officially open on July 18th.
I'm excited. How many times have you ridden Rise of the Resistance? A number of times.
2 dozen. I've only been
to the California one, but we're leaving tonight to go to Orlando to check that one out.
And you'll love it just as much.
Cool. All right. Thanks, Bob. We get to go for free too.
Our studio delivered another historic performance this past year, shattering their own previous industry record of $7,600,000,000 and crossing 11,000,000,000 in global box office. Captain Marvel, Aladdin, Toy Story 4 and Lion King.
Frozen, Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker, they each came in at over $1,000,000,000 Now the biggest movie of all time, Avengers: Endgame, exceeded $2,000,000,000 And when you add in the 20th Century Fox studio releases, total global box office exceeded $13,000,000,000 We've got a really great slate of films from our various studios for 2020. Now we obviously do not have time to highlight them all, but we've chosen just a few to share with you here today. First, we're looking forward to the upcoming release of Disney's highly anticipated live action remake of Mulan. This reimagining of the classic Chinese story about a fearless young woman warrior is both inspiring and visually stunning and you are the first to see a new upcoming spot. Our next up is Black Widow which comes out on May 1st.
This is the film that Marvel fans have been asking for ever since Natasha Romanoff first made her appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Iron Man 2. Featuring an all star cast that includes Oscar nominees Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, this highly anticipated action packed spy thriller is going to be absolutely fantastic. Just take a look at the new trailer. Following the huge success of Pirates of the Caribbean, we've taken another classic Disney adventure to the big screen and we know this film would be near and dear to Walt Disney himself. It's inspired by the famous ride that debuted when Disneyland opened in 1955.
Jungle Cruise is a hilarious adventure filled expedition starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Emily Blunt and it opens on July 24th. Here's a clip that we brought just for you. Finally, one of the most highly Finally, one of the most highly anticipated films of 2020 is famed director Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the classic Broadway musical West Side Story and it absolutely lives up to its hype. Set in the streets of 1957 New York, this uniquely American version of Romeo and Juliet features rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks battling for turf while star crossed lovers Tony and Maria strive to be together against all odds. West Side Story will be released in the U.
S. On December 18th and you are the first ever to see footage from this film. So enjoy.
At Disney, we're proud to be one of the most admired companies in the world, admired for the quality of our exceptional entertainment experiences and for the way that we conduct ourselves as responsible citizens. Now we just issued our CSR report which details everything from what we're doing for the environment through our Disney Conservation Fund which has directed more than $100,000,000 in grants over the last 25 years, to our longstanding partnership with Make A Wish and our $100,000,000 commitment to children's hospitals, as well as our support for veterans which dates way back to our company's earliest days. Now I'd like to take a moment to highlight 2 noteworthy programs. First, our ability to do good in the world starts with our cast members and our employees who create magic every day across our company. And our commitment to them will always be our top priority and that starts with providing them with real opportunities for advancement and the ability to achieve their career goals.
Now we do this in a variety of ways, most notably through our Disney Aspire program, the most comprehensive program of its kind, Disney Aspire gives employees the ability to pursue higher education free of charge, and in just a year and a half, more than 14,000 of our 94,000 plus eligible employees in the U. S. Have already enrolled in classes and nearly 600 have completed programs or graduated with degrees, and 1,000 more have expressed interest in taking advantage of this program. We're proud to be leaders in this space, giving our employees the opportunity to realize the futures that they imagine for themselves. So let's take a look at one cast member's inspiring story.
And there are so many others just like Megan with similar stories. We're also deeply committed to fostering a rich diversity of voices and experiences both on screen and amongst our cast members and employees. And this is a priority because it's the right thing to do and because diversity makes us stronger, makes us more creative, makes us more innovative, and better able to understand and meet the needs of our consumers. And here's a great clip that speaks to the value that we place on diversity. Of course, storytelling is at the heart of everything that we do as a company, and I believe we do it better than anyone.
And as you saw today, this is reflected in the quality of the content that we create, the experiences we provide our guests and the strong connection that we share with great folks like all of you around the world. Now Bob and I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. We really appreciate it and we thank you for joining us here today. And now, we'll be happy to take a few of your questions.
And before we get started, I just want to tell you all that we really do hear you when you ask questions. At our last annual meeting, it was suggested that a nice way to memorialize Disney legend Dave Smith, who was the founder of the Disney Archives was with a window at Disneyland. Now this is an honor that is reserved for very few. We thought it was a great idea and today I'm pleased to announce that on June 22nd Dave will get a window on Main Street USA at Disneyland.
All right. With that, we're going to start questions. Let's go to Station 1 first.
Hi, good morning. I'm Justin Danhof with the National Center For Public Policy Research. I want to talk about some potential reforms for ABC News. A study published in January found that the broadcast networks, including ABC, continue to run overwhelmingly negative stories about President Trump. In fact, from last September to January 1, stories about the President were negative 93% of the time.
That's not objective. Meanwhile, the leading Democratic presidential candidates received net positive coverage over that same time period. I think a lot of folks here know a few weeks ago Project Veritas exposed to Vidigo in which ABC News correspondent David Wright admitted that the network bosses regularly spiked positive stories about President Trump. He stated, we also don't give Trump credit for the things that he does do. I feel terrible about it.
I feel that the truth suffers. The voters are poorly informed. Our bosses don't see an upside in doing the job we're supposed to do. Wright isn't a Green journalist and he's no conservative and he's not a fan of Trump. He has degrees from Oxford and Harvard and he identifies himself as a socialist.
And who can forget when Project Veritas released a video last fall of acclaimed journalist Amy Robach clearly implying that ABC bosses spiked her story on accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein because of Epstein's close relationships with Prince Andrew and the Clintons. While she tried to walk back her comments, we all heard the truth. Mr. Chapic, I've been coming to this meeting for years, imploring Mr. Iger to address the extreme anti conservative bias that runs deep at ABC.
I'm asking you to be bold today, take on this challenge. The public's trust in the mainstream media has just hit another all time low. And when leaked videos show that your own reporters are frustrated because they're unable to tell the truth on the air, that speaks to a systemic problem at ABC. What steps can you take to return objectivity to ABC News and when can we expect to see balanced coverage once again on your airwaves?
So interestingly enough, the very first trip I took after I got the new job was to ABC News in New York and I must say I was overwhelmed by their professionalism and their commitment to objectivity. In terms of Mr. Wright, he said some things that made us question his objectivity. And obviously, when you're reporting the news, that's no place for somebody who's got a heavy subjective opinion. So internally, we dealt with that situation.
But I think that ABC News has a stellar track record of being objective in reporting the news and it will continue in the future.
Hi, my name is Ava Arthur. I'm from Raleigh and my favorite movie is Mulan. And I can't wait to see the new Mulan remake. And my question is, if I was the next, next CEO of Disney, what advice would you give me?
When you become the next CEO of Disney, I will tell you that, the same thing that I learned from Bob Iger, and that is storytelling is at the heart of everything you do. When you get the stories right, everything else flows from that. So pay most attention to the creative product and just make sure we tell stories that reflect the entire diversity of the audiences that we speak to.
Number 1?
My name is Caroline Farrow and I'm from an organization called CitizenGo. Now as you may be aware, almost 700,000 people have signed a petition asking Disney to reconsider the way in which you currently promote LGBT ideology in many of your products for children. Now the numbers of people signing this petition are rising. We've heard a lot about diversity, which is important. And Disney is a company that represents communities all around the world.
Now there are families like mine. We grew up with Disney. We love Disney. We want to introduce our families to Disney's product. We want to trust your brand, but we no longer feel safe.
At a time when your stock is down by 20%, is it perhaps time to reconsider what you can do to make Disney more family friendly, to make it safe for people around the world, not just one particular minority? And also, what would you say to those 700,000 people who signed our petition saying, please, let's not have the gay pride in the Disneyland Parks?
Well, thank you for
your question. At Disney, we strongly believe that we should reflect in our creative content the diversity that we find in our fan base and with our audience. And I believe that that will continue with an increased commitment as we move forward. We want to represent our audience. We believe we want to tell stories that our audience wants to hear that reflects their lives.
Secondly, in terms of the stock price, I think there's a lot of reasons why the stock price might be down 20% and has nothing to do with the issue that you raised might have more to do with coronavirus and the worldwide pandemic that we're facing. But thank you for your question.
Thank you very much for having us speak. My name is Rick Vandermossen. I'm just a single shareholder. Mr. Iger, I thank you for I've been a Chairman's shareholder in 2007, but I have three concerns.
1, I am also a Formula 1 fan. This is kind of point of personal privilege. I'm a Formula 1 fan and since ESPN took over, Formula 1, they haven't failed to disappoint. I don't get to watch, they show the races, they show this, but they don't when the talking starts at the end, you get a mother's commercial and then you get a show highlighting a basketball team from 20 years ago. Can ESPN show the entire Sky broadcast?
That's personal privilege. I worry about the stock price in that climbing back out of the hole that it's in on two main issues. Creativity, I worry about Pixar, the products that seem to be coming out of Pixar, I worry about. My kids grew up on Pixar, they loved all the stuff that came out in the 90s in Pixar and I just don't see that sort of Toy Story 4 was good, but it's another remake, The new creativity, I'm worried about the new creativity and, what it's doing. Star Wars, 16 years old in 1977, been a Star Wars fan my entire life.
I worry about that too, going forward. And the other thing I worry about that affects our stock price, the parks, maintenance, imagination at the park, the creativity, Toy Story Land, what was initially proposed versus what was built. The Star Wars Land, I haven't been there, but it looks fantastic. Toy Story land looks, I'm worried like maintenance. Take the monorails for instance.
They should have been replaced 5 or 6 years ago and now they're a constant maintenance headache, costing tons of money. I worry about creativity, I worry about cost. The company was built on Walt's creativity and Roy's practicality. And I'm worried that a little too much these days is Roy, not enough Walt. So, but I really do appreciate what you're doing.
I just thank you for letting me get that off my chest and thank you very much.
Okay. So, we have Formula 1, Pixar, Star Wars, Parks and Resorts. I'll let you go first. All right. I'll help you if you like.
I'll leave you with Formula 1. As you might suspect, most of our energy and now almost franchises as powerful as possible. And I think when you manage the creative process, you want to make sure that you give enough degrees of freedom to creatives to do what you pay them to do. And what they do best is to be creative. And sometimes we hit it out of the park and sometimes we hit a double.
And I think our goal is obviously to increase the number of times that we hit it out of the park. But I can tell you that the creative engine at Pixar is alive and well. I could tell you that the creative engine at Lucas is alive and well. Now as it pertains to the parks and the Walt Roy, as you said, I thought that that was great in terms of the balance. We're always striving to tell great story telling in a very physical way in our parks and resorts.
And I think it's unprecedented the amount of investment that we've made over the last 5 years. Matter of fact, it's almost double what it was the previous 5 years in terms of capital investment, things that we're spending in our parks. And when we do that, once again, we have to reflect the totality of our audience. Toy Story is different than Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. Toy Story is targeted towards a very young audience because we have to make sure that our very youngest guests are pleased as well.
And it might not have all the whizbang elements of Star Wars, but Star Wars is there for their fans and Toy Story is there for their fans. So we try to balance it out and take the money that the Board of Directors have allocated for us to try to take our experiences and make them better and better every year. So we leave you with those magical memories that last a lifetime.
We also we never tell our teams to build something cheap. We tell them to make it great. And we ask them what's going to cost to do so. And of course, we always manage the bottom line at our company. We've been doing that forever.
But the number one goal is to make something that is going to wow audiences time and time again. And I think we've done that. On one more thing on the creative side, we'll pass by the way, we'll pass your comments along to ESPN on Formula 1. I haven't watched their coverage lately, so I can't really comment. But Pixar has always been a blend of making original.
We're telling original stories and doing sequels. And they've made some great original stories. I can think of Inside Out and Up, just to name a few. Actually, they were all original at one point. We're also proud of a lot of the sequels that we've done including Toy Story 4, which won the Academy Award for the Best Animated Film.
And we've got 2 originals this year, Onward, which just came out, which I thought was a pretty good film and Soul, which comes out this summer that Pete Docter directed. So there will always be a blend. And as Bob said, we always aimed at a home run. Sometimes we hit doubles. But overall, the quality of the creativity at the company, I think, is exceptional.
You just look at the things that we showed this morning, which is just one small part of everything that's being made in the company across all of our businesses. I don't think there's another company in the world actually that creates as much greatness as we do.
Number 1.
Good morning, Bob and Bob.
Yes, easy. We did this so that you could easily remember our names.
My name is Matthew Hanson. I'm a shareholder from Salt Lake City. At last year's meeting, you, Mr. Iger mentioned that Disney plus would eventually have, the entire Walt Disney Studios library. Currently, there are a lot of absences from the catalog ranging from various short films to Victory Through Air Power, to Follow Me Boys and many more.
What is the plan or time line for the full catalog to be added to Disney plus Also, are there plans to add content such as Michael Eisner's Disney Sunday movie intros? And along with that, many have wondered after your comments if when you said entire library, does that include Song of the South? And if not, why can't it be included with a similar disclaimer about containing outdated cultural depictions that currently accompanies many other titles on Disney plus I also thought that your book, The Rite of a Lifetime, was fantastic and wondered if you'd sign my copy.
That's the easy one to answer. Yes, I'm glad to sign your copy. I think when I said the whole library, one of the things that we realized is that a lot of what was made in the past is not of the quality just in terms of the quality of the film initially when it's digitized and we're working through some of that. We also had to prioritize because there's so much that had to be digitized, so we couldn't get everything on. So I think in the end even with a disclaimer, it was just not appropriate in today's world.
Even with a disclaimer was just not appropriate in today's world. That's actually true with some of the other things that we've made as well. It's just hard to, given the depictions in some of those films to bring them out today without in some form or another offending people. So we've decided not to do that.
Thank you.
And I'll sign your book. You can just we'll figure out how.
Number 2?
Good morning. My name is Kathy Rowan. I'm with Trinity Health, Disney shareholder. We're also members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. And I want to thank the company for meeting with us over the years on the issue of removing tobacco depictions from youth rated films.
I know the company takes this seriously, as Disney has an industry leading policy to not depict tobacco smoking in youth rated Disney, Pixar, Lucas and Marvel movies. My colleagues and I look forward to a call later this spring with Disney representatives to discuss how this policy will move forward and ask Disney to bring 20th Century Studios and Searchlight under its Tobacco Depictions policy. My question, I'd like to know how Disney plans to go to market responsibly all legacy movies and TV shows that have smoking on Disney Plus and Hulu and ask that the company please put plain language timely warnings on its streaming channels for this kind of content?
Thank you.
Well, you'll be glad to know that the same policy that we implement across Marvel, Lucas and Disney will be implemented across the 20th century product as well. Any product that's youth oriented that is PG-thirteen or below will be free of smoking.
Fantastic.
And we'll take a look. I think your suggestion, Fantastic. And we'll take a look. I think your suggestion, I know you have a dialogue with our company. We'll take a look at everything that's on Disney plus in that regard too.
There are a number of disclaimers just to make sure in the case of smoking that we've called all of them.
Right. And just to make sure that they're easy to see for parents to see right before the program begins.
It's a good idea. Thank you.
Hello. My name is Chris O'Horo and I was I'm a 31 year old a 31 year cast member of Disney. I opened up the Disney Hollywood Studios and the Indiana Jones Show there. I want to thank you for the great celebration you gave for us cast May 1 last year. It was wonderful to be recognized by people.
Sorry that Bob and Bob weren't there, but we met a lot of great management people and I just want to thank you for that also. And I'm also an aspire. I'm not trying to get my degree. I'm just learning the Java language. It's really great to have that opportunity.
And there's also like other programs you have where you can just like take one class to learn new certificate programs. And that's really cool to take as well. I mean, thank you guys for that too. My question is that I saw an old video about EPCOT, Walt's stream of EPCOT. And I was just wondering if the Board has ever discussed any ideas about building a city for cast members to live in again.
I know the political stuff, but like with SpaceX and Boeing, building space stations and things like that, we got the people in the state of Florida is also looking for new simply located capital. I was wondering if you guys have ever talked about doing anything like that, trying to build something for the cash flow to live in affordable housing because Central Florida is just getting ridiculous?
Affordable housing, thank you for your question. Affordable housing is a big issue, not only in Florida but really across the country. But it's hit particularly hard in Central Florida. And as part of our policies, we look across all opportunities to try to make our cast members' lives better. Matter of fact, that's how Aspire got started.
And so conversations like you're suggesting are ones that we frankly have often. And we have the luxury of having some land in Central Florida, but we'll take your comments and your thoughts back. There are things that frankly are discussed quite a bit and accentuated with your comments, but appreciate it. Thank you.
Hello, Mr. Iger. I'm single shareholder. My name is Matthew. I'm actually from Salisbury, so it was a quite a long trip up here.
First of all, I just want to say congratulations on becoming the new CEO of Disney. How excited are you to lead Disney to the future?
Well, in terms of me, I'm thrilled to be able to even attempt to try to fill the shoes, the enormous shoes of Bob Iger and continue his legacy. I feel that there are so many opportunities on the horizon. As successful as this company has been over almost 100 years right now, I think the best years are ahead of us because we've been put in a position where we've got those creative engines, so many great creative engines that tell stories and we have the storytellers to do it as well. And now we've got a distribution system to be able to take that great content and take it directly to all of you without necessarily having to go through a 3rd party that somewhat limits what we can do. So I've never been more excited, maybe that's to be expected, but I do understand the gravity of trying to fill this gentleman's shoes, but I'm ready for it and to some great years ahead.
So thank you.
Hi, Janice Galakas, I'm a shareholder from Boston, Missouri. And I wanted to talk about Disney plus a little bit. While we enjoy the content itself, the problem we have is with technology. Like the Lorax, I want to talk about people that are in the black holes of the country. We're on satellite Internet and our bandwidth is limited.
While other applications like Netflix allow us to change the resolution of the content we see, The Disney plus application on the television does not allow that. So we really can't enjoy the content on our television. We can enjoy it obviously on a phone or a pad, which is a small screen, but we would like to be able to use it on the TV. And also, I do have your book also, but you could get it signed.
Thank
you. I can relate to your issue. I've lived in an area that hasn't had the greatest service as well and understand how a lower resolution could actually help you stream that product. And so we'll take those comments back to our engineers and see what we can do in order to accommodate people like you that live in areas that don't necessarily have the best broadband.
Thank you.
At the end, just bring the book right down here. I'd be glad to sign. Thank you. Okay. Couple more, Bob.
Yes. Good afternoon. I'm Tommy from Virginia Beach. We've been stockholders over 16 years. My question is with the acquisition of Fox and the smaller Blue Sky Studios, would that now mean that the Peanuts characters and Charlie Brown would be part of the Disney family?
I think you guys would do a fantastic job with it.
I don't think we don't have the rights. The rights to that. We didn't get the rights to Charlie Brown or Peanuts in that acquisition,
right? That would have been fantastic. Yes.
Yes. Thank you. We like Charlie Brown, but no.
Okay, last question.
Hi, my name is Benjamin. I'm a single shareholder from Durham, North Carolina. And I was wondering if you could enlighten myself and other shareholders on Disney's future plans to get involved in the video game industry.
Okay. We have a video game unit that releases titles that support our intellectual property. It's largely done through a licensing model where we partner with some great game makers, the best in the world. And we try to tell the same types of stories on video games that we would necessarily try to tell with our intellectual property in other formats, other media. So, we'll continue to do that.
We realize that that's a huge market and it's growing, so we have a lot of ambition there. And we just look forward to taking things like Kingdom Hearts that we do so well and some of the Lucas stories and extend that to even more of our intellectual property. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right. So that concludes our shareholder meeting this year. I want to reiterate what we said at the beginning. These are obviously really challenging times. Stay healthy, please.
As I said at the beginning, while clearly all companies, particularly companies like Disney are affected by what's going on, we are confident long term in our prospects and the resiliency of the company has been demonstrated time and time again over the almost 100 years it has been in existence and I know we will do that as well. And thank you very much for your patience for being a good audience this morning. We wish you all a lot of luck. Thank you. Thank you.
And one more thing.
I feel that there beyond those trees are right behind these waterfalls.
Turn my mic back on. Let's give our new CEO a round of applause. Thanks.