All of Disney‘s senior executives are sacrificing their own salaries to help pay employees of the company who are being affected by the various shutdowns and economic disturbances caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Disney’s current CEO Bob Iger will reportedly give up 100% of his salary, while his incoming replacement, Bob Chapek, has claimed he’ll take a 50% reduction in his own. Meanwhile, VPs will see their salaries reduced by 20%, SVPs by 25%, and EVPs and higher by 30%. It’s being labeled a “temporary action” that will remain in effect for the foreseeable future as the company fights to keep its employees and financial stability afloat.
New Disney measures: Iger foregoing 100 percent salary, Chapek reducing salary by 50 percent until “substantive recovery” in Disney business. pic.twitter.com/055wOHaDsi
— Julia Alexander (@loudmouthjulia) March 30, 2020
Disney is one of thousands of companies being affected by the novel coronavirus, with most analysts believing it’s seeing losses of millions of dollars per day. The company’s theme parks were originally scheduled to reopen at the beginning of April, but they’re currently remaining closed indefinitely as the virus only worsens globally.
Meanwhile, with nearly every theater closed, Disney is losing substantial amounts of money during a season where they had a lot of films scheduled for release. There are rumors that their live-action Mulan remake may go straight to streaming platforms, and Black Widow may not be far behind. Other upcoming Disney films like The New Mutants and Antlers, however, were pulled from the release schedule and may not release at all this year as the company weighs its options in the midst of the outbreak.
COVID-19 has now infected 740,000 people across the globe and killed over 35,000. Things don’t seem to be slowing down, either, so it looks like Disney will be joining the rest of us as we all wait out the outbreak and hope for the best. Keep it tuned here for more as the situation unfolds.
