After Disney’s epic corporate dust-up, can Bob Iger fix the House of Mouse?

Having successfully fended off hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz for now, the entertainment giant must reckon with its rapidly fading box office sparkle, writes James Moore

If Disney is to find a corporate happily ever after, it needs to find a new protagonist (Getty)

As corporate ding-dongs go, the battle for Disney’s soul was an epic worthy of one of the bigger movies produced by its dazzling array of creators.

The hero? That would be Disney boss Bob Iger because the heroes mostly win, and he did. This casts octogenarian activist hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz, angling for a seat on the entertainment giant’s board while using corporate Death Star zappers to attack the company’s strategy and the returns it has been providing investors, as the baddie. Oh, and he doesn’t much like “woke”.

We now know the result. After a combined $70m was spent on campaigning, Disney, Peltz and third-party Blackwells, which put up its own slate of directors to play spotter with the aim of keeping Peltz out, Iger cried: “Avengers Assemble!” and won the day.