In Warner Bros./HBO’s (WBD) “Succession,” Waystar-Royco chooses Tom Wambsgans, head of Parks & Cruises, to succeed Logan Roy as CEO. In real life, swap that for Disney (DIS) choosing Josh D’Amaro, head of Disney’s Experiences Unit (Parks, Cruises, Gaming & more), to succeed Bob Iger as CEO.
Life imitates art.
The true value here can be gleaned from examining why, as Matthew Belloni writes for Puck, Disney passed over Dana Walden, its head of talent and streaming, in favor of D’Amaro. The choice colors Monday’s Disney’s 2026 Q1 Earnings Report, telegraphing the company’s plan of attack for the coming year.
While outlets such as The Wall Street Journal have reported that D’Amaro’s selection is a vote of faith by Disney for its Parks and Cruises businesses, eschewing Disney+ and streaming, what others are missing is that it’s also a nod to Disney’s continued, intense focus on box office success in 2026.
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“Gone are the days of television, and especially ESPN, driving the Disney bus,” Belloni observes. “As the Times noted this weekend, D’Amaro’s unit now provides about 60 percent of Disney’s profit, and about 80 percent of its value.”
My take — with a particular eye on the box office vs. streaming shift — follows, including a look at the biggest blockbusters that will make or break D’Amaro’s first year.
Why Disney chose Parks over Streaming
The (financial) writing has been on the wall about Disney’s current strengths. For those who wanted to read it, that is.
The bald-faced truth is that Josh D’Amaro’s Experiences Unit (comprised of Parks, Cruises, Gaming & more), has overperformed to a degree that can’t be ignored. His leadership has kept audiences happy through thick and thin, boom and bust, cementing Experiences as Disney’s backbone.
When it comes to hard financials, this has been true for some time, with Experiences picking up slack when other Units fell on hard times. Look at how that broke down, percentage-wise, last year.
Disney business unit breakdown(operating income for Q3 2025):
- DisneyExperiences: Parks, Cruises, and consumer products (55%, 2.5 billion)
- Disney Entertainment: Film, TV, Streaming, and media (22%, 1 billion)
- ESPN: ESPN networks, ESPN+, and ABC (22%, 1 billion) Source: Walt Disney Q3 Earnings Report
The overperformance has only continued since then, with analysts expecting growing importance for Experiences well into the future. Consider Wells Fargo’s latest Disney assessment.
Further, and in my opinion, most essentially, D’Amaro’s Experiences Unit did the impossible: Its performance was convincing enough to win over Hollywood centrists.
Belloni explained how in his why-D’Amaro-over-Dana-Walden dissection, days before D’Amaro’s announcement as successor.
“In early 2026… the chatter around town became instantly and overwhelmingly that the job was Dana’s to lose,” Belloni wrote. “That was probably due to some combination of her own competence and cult of personality leading the TV units at Fox and then Disney; decades of relationships with creators, stars, and their representatives; the legacy dominance of television at the company; the lack of an L.A. profile for her rival, parks chief and inland Orange County jogger Josh D’Amaro; and the presumption of industry people that Disney — at its core a creative company — must have a creative executive at its helm.
“If it was ever a possibility. Disney’s first-quarter earnings report today evidences exactly why Gorman and the board almost certainly will endorse D’Amaro as Iger’s successor. Did you see those theme park numbers?”
Parks’ numbers stayed strong when D’Amaro’s execs announced controversial surge pricing. They persisted when a drastic shift came for Disneyland’s “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.” They ticked up for Bluey, despite Trump versus Canada (and Trump versus the world), and regardless of Universal Studios’ (CMCSA) new Orlando park.
All told, Parks outperformed throughout the entire D’Amaro tenure and into this last, convincing year, surging to an impressive finish with a first-ever $10 billion quarterly earning, per Disney’s 2026 Q1 Report.
Props to him; bad luck to Dana Walden. Walden, it should be noted, is far from gone; alongside D’Amaro’s bump to CEO, she was promoted to president and chief creative officer, The Times reported.
Disney emphasizes Film over Streaming in 2026
While the Experiences Unit keeps the Disney boat steady, the Entertainment Unit has big plans for its Films division in 2026.
As I’ve noted in previous reporting, 2026 is a crucial year for Disney at the box office, based on long-laid plans from Bob Iger. The holiday season in 2025 was meant to set Disney up for dominance in 2026. It delivered on this promise with massive success for both “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
Disney’s end goal for their slate of blockbusters in 2026? Some might call it a grand plan, others an evil scheme.
Bring back the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as the dominant intellectual property (IP) for theaters, on the back of “Spider Man: Brand New Day” and “Avengers: Doomsday.”
The Spider Man sequel has been thoughtfully aimed at the summer window, set to debut on July 31 in the U.S., whereas the box office-dominating “Avengers” will return to theaters during the holiday window on Dec. 18, 2026.
The return of the MCU to the top of the box office is a must for Disney because a series of recent flops have humbled the IP-rich superhero mega-franchise. Let me contrast where the MCU was, versus the depths to which it fell in 2025.
For reference, here are MCU’s all-time hits.
Top 5 Marvel films of all time, by global box office
- “Avengers: Endgame” (2019): $2,799,439,100
- “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018): $2,052,415,039
- “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021): $1,921,426,073
- “Black Panther” (2018): $1,349,926,083
- “Deadpool & Wolverine” (2024): $1,338,073,645 Source: Box Office Mojo
Compare that to 2025. “Disney’s Marvel Studios, responsible for some of the biggest hits of all time, have fallen flat in 2025 — and they don’t have another release before the end of the year to save them,” I wrote, heading into the holiday window.
So that’s the lay of the land. Much like Luke carrying on once Obi Wan anticlimactically fades to dissolve to Force dust (the movie is nearly 50 years old, I’m allowed), so too must D’Amaro carry on ol’ Bob Iger’s plan to make Disney the only movie studio that matters (at least in theaters) for 2026 and beyond.
The good thing for young Josh? He has his humming Parks and Cruises divisions carrying water in the background.
The bad thing? People will notice if he falls short of topping the ‘box. Big shoes.