There are Star Wars related actors and behind the scenes talent aplenty on this years THR 100 most powerful people in Hollywood list, with Bob Iger topping the tree at number one.
100: Taika Waititi
89: Lin-Manuel Miranda
86: David Benioff and D.B. Weiss
83: Donald Glover
71: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
64: Phil Lord and Chris Miller
52: Jon Favreau
49: Kathleen Kennedy
40: Steven Spielberg
28: Rupert Murdoch
19: J.J. Abrams
10: Alan Horn
9: Kevin Meyer
8: Peter Rice
5: Kevin Feige
1: Bob Iger
Not unlike Simba in The Lion King, nearly everything the light touches is Iger’s kingdom. The most powerful person in Hollywood (for the fourth year in a row) presides over the industry’s largest and most influential entertainment business, with a market cap of around $234 billion and an unrivaled collection of IP and brands. And in 2019, Disney got a lot bigger. The March addition of $71.3 billion worth of 21st Century Fox assets positions the Mouse House as a content behemoth for the Streaming Wars, which may begin in earnest with the Nov. 12 launch of Disney+, Iger’s bold bet on the future of the 96-year-old company. Iger, 68, has convinced Disney investors that forgoing billions in TV licensing dollars will pay off with a global direct-to-consumer business featuring Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and Disney Animation films, plus original series like The Mandalorian and all 30 seasons of The Simpsons for $7 per month. Disney+, he says, “is going to be a priority for the foreseeable future for the company.” In the meantime, Iger’s film studio has executed an unprecedented run at the box office: Disney has five of the year’s top 10 films and has brought in $8 billion in box office revenue, a new record, with Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still to come. But the year hasn’t been without challenges, including layoffs that resulted from the integration of Fox assets, soft initial attendance at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction, and a $353 million write-down on the company’s Vice investment. Still, in modern Hollywood, there’s no one who mixes business vision with creative chops quite like Iger. Oh, and last month he became a best-selling author with his memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime. Indeed.
