Outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger was supposed to turn around the company's stock price. Here's what got in the way.

• Disney stock underperformed the S&P 500 during Bob Iger's most recent stint as CEO.
• During Iger's first run as top exec, the stock significantly outperformed the broader market.
• Streaming and a changing media landscape were factors that stood between Iger and market-beating gains.

Bob Iger is retiring, and the two-time Disney CEO leaves behind a complicated legacy with Wall Street investors.

Iger, who will be succeeded by Josh D'Amaro, has led Disney as CEO for nearly two decades, but the company's stock performance during his tenure has been mixed.

The Disney veteran held the CEO title from 2005 to 2020, then reclaimed the role in 2022. Iger returned as CEO after Disney stock tanked 13% in a day after its quarterly results showed operating losses more than doubled from the prior year.

Iger took over from Bob Chapek. The C-suite shake-up was largely seen as a positive by investors, given that Iger presided over a stellar performance in his first term as CEO.

During the 15 years of Iger's first run as CEO, Disney stock gained 438%. In comparison, the S&P 500 more than doubled in that time, gaining 155%.

Unfortunately, Iger 2.0 didn't recapture the CEO's first-term magic.

Since Iger returned as CEO in 2022, Disney stock has gained 9% while the S&P 500 has surged 70%.

Iger's second stint as top brass has been characterized by a changing media landscape and a brutal streaming arms race that created headwinds for the stock. Here's some of what Iger dealt with in recent years.

Disney+ streaming woes

Disney+ struggled to find its footing in a space dominated by Netflix.

The company's streaming businesses, Disney+ and Hulu, saw record high profits in the most recent quarter, with operating income sitting at $450 million. By comparison, Netflix's operating income was nearly $3 billion in the latest quarter. Iger himself has called Netflix the "gold standard in streaming," praising the streaming juggernaut's password sharing crackdown as aspirational.

Challenging environment for movie makers

It feels like remakes and sequels have become central to studios' film slates in recent years. Disney is no exception, but their recent releases have had a mixed reception with audiences.

Disney's 2025 Snow White remake flopped, with box office debut falling short of expectations with little fanfare.

While movies like the live action remake of Lilo and Stitch and Pixar's Inside Out 2 demonstrated Disney does still have some box office power, the releases paled in comparison to some of the company's biggest successes like the Avengers franchise and Frozen.

Beyond Disney, other movie studios have faced slowdowns in recent years as the media industry consolidates.

Theme park price hikes

Disney theme parks have been hit by the impacts on foreign travelers skipping the US, and the company reported a decline in international visitors in its latest earnings.

The company's parks segment could be hit if a fears about the state of the economy weigh on consumer spending, especially as the cost of a Disney vacation rises. Iger has said before that the company has been "too aggressive" with price hikes in the past.

Disney in the AI era

Under Iger's lead, Disney inked a deal with OpenAI to license the company's characters and other intellectual properties on Sora, the ChatGPT maker's AI video platform.

The deal marked a major divergence from Disney's generally protectionist attitude toward its IP. The company is still against the use of its IP in non-Sora AI-generated content.

Ultimately, it was met with mixed sentiment from investors and commentators, and didn't move the needle for Disney stock.