Farewell, Bob Iger. Disney's Bob Chapek era starts now

LOS ANGELES — For 22 months, Walt Disney Co. has been run by "the two Bobs": Bob Iger, the visionary leader who meticulously built an entertainment juggernaut; and Bob Chapek, his loyal lieutenant and successor as chief executive.

Internally, they were known as "Bob I." and Bob C."

Now, Chapek can finally drop the "C."

Iger's retirement this week,at age 70, leaves Chapek as the singular chief guiding the Burbank entertainment giant into an uncertain future.

The challenges are enormous: Disney is still recovering from a pandemic that closed theme parks and movie theaters and halted TV and film production, and the crisis may not be over as new COVID-19 variants rapidly spread.

And Chapek must simultaneously steer Disney through a cataclysmic transformation while keeping it the world's most powerful and recognizable entertainment company — despite incursions from powerful and deep-pocketed streaming competitors Netflix, Apple and Amazon.

Iger's selection of Chapek to succeed him, announced in February 2020, stunned many. Producers, talent agents, programming executives and Disney's competitors privately expressed skepticism that a guy who once managed mass distribution of videocassettes and Mickey Mouse merchandise had the creative chops to run Hollywood's most famous company.

Feeding that perception, Disney established an unusual power-sharing arrangement to allow Iger to stay on as the company's creative