With HBO’s Succession, British playwright and show-runner Jesse Armstrong has created a sexy Shakespearian drama set against a modern-media backdrop. Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is the aging emperor—and Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are his children vying for the throne. Each Sunday, the inter-family plotting, backstabbing, and deception increase to match the growing monstrousness of Logan—so much so that Connor Roy (Alan Ruck), the dim, bohemian son who opted out of the family business to live in the desert with a paid-escort girlfriend, begins to seem like the smartest of the lot. And Sunday’s episode of Succession, “Which Side Are You On?,” is the finest episode of the series thus far—showcasing the boldest power-grab yet, and building so much suspense that it would have been satisfying as a season finale.
During a phone call last week, Armstrong revealed that while Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, and other media moguls have inspired other elements of the HBO drama, Sunday’s vote of no confidence was partly inspired by Disney’s unprecedented shareholder revolt in 2004, which stripped Michael Eisner of the chairman title he had held for nearly 20 years. The Wall Street Journal likened the shocking vote to “a near-deafening howl from a broad base of Disney shareholders . . . [who were] unhappy with a range of issues, including Mr. Eisner’s leadership, the company’s corporate governance practices, and its lagging financial performance and stock price over most of the last seven years.”
“What happened with Disney was very pertinent to that [scene],”explained Armstrong, even though there are key differences between that shakeup and the one on Succession.
If you time travel back to 2004’s Disney shareholder meeting, it was, in some ways, just as climactic as the Logan family standoff—on a larger stage full of surreal contrasts. The meeting, at the Philadelphia Convention Center, came complete with some of the whimsical touches the brand is famous for. Characters like Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Cinderella were on hand to greet the approximately 3,000 shareholders in attendance; dozens of six-foot-tall Mickey Mouse statues were transported from the Walt Disney World Resort specially for the event; and classic Disney cartoons played before the presentation.
Cheery characters aside, the meeting was a battlefield that Eisner had been up until 2 A.M. the previous evening preparing for. He was well aware of stockholder dissatisfaction going into the meeting; under his leadership, a sizable deal with Pixar had lapsed, and an unsolicited takeover bid by Comcast Corp. had been made. “Further damaging his stature have been recent revelations,” reported Ad Age at the time, “about his hiring and quick firing of his former friend, Michael Ovitz. Shareholders have long been critical of Mr. Ovitz’s hiring, done without board approval, and his firing, which cost the company upwards of $100 million in severance perks.” Shareholders Roy E. Disney, nephew of company founder Walt Disney, and Stanley Gold had mounted a campaign to oust Eisner from the company—zig-zagging across the country to shore up support and launching a “SaveDisney” Web site.
Weeks ahead of the meeting, anticipating the revolt, “takeover defense lawyer Marty Lipton suggested splitting the positions of chairman and chief executive,” according to James B. Stewart’s Disneywar: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom. Both of the positions had been held by Eisner, and revoking his chairman status would show that the company was taking shareholder sentiment seriously even as it kept Eisner in power, so that the company was not as susceptible to a Comcast takeover.
Gold, one of Eisner’s chief detractors, was granted 15 minutes during the meeting to share his own argument for ousting Eisner entirely.
“Roy Disney and I have been on a mission,” Gold told shareholders. “A mission not to promote ourselves but to save our company.” Gold rattled off company shortcomings and failures on Eisner’s watch before continuing, “Let me be clear. No half measures, no excuses, no amount of spinning will be tolerated. Michael Eisner must leave now.” Gold then turned to Eisner and addressed him directly with a final blow: “You have compromised your soul and lost your integrity.”
In response, Eisner defended his team: “The criticisms you have just heard are fundamentally wrong,” Eisner told the audience. “I believe you have just heard rhetoric from our critics that frankly replaces reason. It’s a disservice to cast members as well as shareholders.”
When the vote came, 771 million of the 1.8 billion eligible company shares [were withheld] from Mr. Eisner. “Though the unopposed Eisner retained his seat on the board, the shareholder action was effectively a vote of no confidence in the man who has led Disney for nearly 20 years and was once lauded as the company’s savior,” explained the Chicago Tribune. “Normally, corporate executives receive nearly unanimous support at annual meetings.” The meeting stung even more because the board members who helped revoke Eisner’s chairman authority had all been handpicked by him.
Eisner would not step down from Disney completely for another year—when he handed off his responsibilities to Bob Iger, the company’s current chairman who recently put in a $71.3 billion bid for 21st Century Fox.
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