DIS Walt Disney Co

By Erich Schwartzel 

LOS ANGELES -- Walt Disney Co. said it is shuffling the executive ranks at its film operation, elevating studio President Alan Bergman to help oversee a division behind Hollywood's biggest hits.

Mr. Bergman, who has been president of Walt Disney Studios since 2005, will become co-chairman of the division alongside its current chairman, Alan Horn. Mr. Horn also assumed the role of chief creative officer of the division, which manages some of Hollywood's most lucrative brands, including Pixar Animation and Marvel Studios.

Together, Messrs. Horn and Bergman will oversee a film slate that is the envy of Hollywood, but the power-sharing arrangement is also a reflection of the challenges created by the ambitious bets the studio is making in the coming years.

Disney is about seven months away from launching a video-streaming service that requires the studio to produce even more movies under a separate distribution structure than traditional theatrical release. The company is also at work now integrating entertainment assets it acquired from 21st Century Fox in a $71.3 billion deal. Disney Studios is combining with Fox's film operations, which include Fox Searchlight and characters like Deadpool who don't necessarily fit the family-friendly Disney mold.

Mr. Bergman is currently helping oversee that Fox tie-up with Mr. Horn, and helped lead the integration of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, which produces the Star Wars series. He joined Disney in 1996 and was named chief financial officer of the studio in 2001. Mr. Bergman was named the division's president about four years later. He and Mr. Horn will both report to Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger.

The elevation of Mr. Bergman, 53 years old, also suggests a possible succession plan for when Mr. Horn, 76 years old, retires. Disney declined to comment on how long Mr. Horn's current contract runs.

Since Mr. Horn became chairman of Disney Studios in 2012, the company has dominated the box office on the strength of franchises like "Star Wars," "Frozen" and "Avengers," which saw its "Endgame" installment set a new opening-weekend record last week. "Endgame" has collected about $1.48 billion so far and is the No. 8 highest-grossing movie of all time after one week of release.

Mr. Horn's tenure at Disney was an unexpected second act after he'd spent several years as president and chief operating officer at rival Warner Bros. Entertainment before leaving in 2011. After joining Disney in 2012, Mr. Horn was charged with stabilizing the studio, which at the time was seen as an erratic performer.

By all accounts, he's done the job. Disney became the first studio in Hollywood history to collect more than $7 billion at the global box office in a single year in 2016, and then did it again in 2018.

The company's 2019 docket of films is considered by some analysts to be its biggest yet. In addition to the blockbuster performances already generated by "Captain Marvel" and "Avengers: Endgame," the studio is releasing a "Lion King" remake, sequels to "Toy Story," "Maleficent" and "Frozen" and the final installment of the Skywalker series of Star Wars films.

Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 01, 2019 14:14 ET (18:14 GMT)

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