Robert A. Iger
Analyst · Morgan Stanley
Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. Before we take your questions, I'd like to share some updates related to our strategic priorities, including a few exciting announcements. At a time of great change for our industry when a number of companies are contracting, we are operating from a position of strength and building across our company with a continued focus on quality and innovation. We are building on the creative success at our film studios, resulting in the continued emergence of popular new franchises at a level that is unparalleled in the industry. We are building on Disney's value proposition in streaming by combining Hulu into Disney+ to create a unified app experience featuring branded and general entertainment, news and sports, resulting in a one- of-a-kind entertainment destination for subscribers. We are building ESPN into the preeminent digital sports platform with our highly anticipated direct-to-consumer sports offering launching on August 21 and our just announced plans with the NFL that will expand ESPN's programming and content offerings for fans. We're building on our best-in-class Parks and Experiences businesses with more expansions underway around the world than at any other time in our history. I'd like to dive deeper into the steps we're taking to drive growth for our company, beginning with our film studios. Our renewed momentum continued in Q3, adding to our popular brands and franchises and further demonstrating their ability to generate ongoing long-term value across our businesses. The live-action Lilo & Stitch recently crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, making it Hollywood's first film to reach that milestone this year and Disney's fourth billion-dollar film in just over a year. Lilo & Stitch is on track to become the company's second largest consumer products merchandise franchise this year behind only Mickey Mouse with more than 70% revenue growth compared to last year. Meanwhile, Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps opened to rave reviews 2 weeks ago, successfully launching this important franchise into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And later in the calendar year, we will release more highly anticipated titles, including Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash. Turning to our streaming business. Today, we are announcing a major step forward in strengthening our streaming offering by fully integrating Hulu into Disney+. This will create an impressive package of entertainment pairing the highest caliber brands and franchises, great general entertainment, kids programming, news and industry-leading live sports content, all in a single app. By creating a differentiated streaming offering, we will be providing subscribers tremendous choice, convenience, quality and enhanced personalization, while at the same time, continuing to grow profitability and margins in our entertainment streaming business through expected higher engagement, lower churn, operational efficiencies and greater advertising revenue potential. As we detailed in our shareholder letter, Hulu will now become our global general entertainment brand. And in the fall, it will replace the Star tile on Disney+ internationally. Over the coming months, we will be implementing improvements within the Disney+ app, including exciting new features and a more personalized homepage, all of which will culminate with the unified Disney+ and Hulu streaming app experience that will be available to consumers next year. The other key component of our streaming strategy is sports. And on August 21, we will launch ESPN's direct-to-consumer offering, making ESPN's full suite of networks and services directly available to fans for the first time. The enhanced ESPN app will be a sports fans dream with key new features planned for launch such as multiview, enhanced personalization, integration of stats, betting, fantasy sports and commerce and a personalized sports center. And fans with subscriptions to the Disney+, Hulu and ESPN bundle will be able to watch ESPN content directly inside Disney+. In addition, yesterday, ESPN and the NFL announced plans for ESPN to acquire NFL Network and certain other media assets owned and controlled by the NFL. In exchange, the NFL will receive a 10% equity stake in ESPN. This announcement paves the way for the world's leading sports media brand and America's most popular sport to deliver an even more compelling experience for NFL fans in a way that only ESPN and Disney can. Separately, ESPN and the NFL reached an agreement, which includes expanded NFL highlight rights within multiple fan engagement platforms and more interactive features for ESPN's DTC offering and the ESPN app, including betting and fantasy. ESPN will also gain the ability to sell and bundle NFL+ Premium, which includes NFL RedZone to ESPN DTC subscribers, along with rights to additional nonexclusive preseason NFL games for its DTC offering, both starting in the 2025 season. And an additional agreement extends ESPN's NFL Draft rights with the ability to stream ESPN and ABC's draft coverage on ESPN DTC, Hulu and Disney+. We're also excited to announce that ESPN will be the exclusive home for WWE Premium Live Events, further expanding ESPN's rights portfolio, and we look forward to sharing more soon. Looking to our Experiences segment, expansion projects are underway across every one of our theme parks globally from a new World of Frozen land opening at Disneyland Paris in 2026 to the Villains and Cars-themed areas at Magic Kingdom to a Monsters, Inc. area at Disney's Hollywood Studios to an Avatar-themed destination at Disney California Adventure in addition to a new theme park coming to Abu Dhabi. And Disney Cruise Line continues to grow as we prepare for the launch of 2 new ships later this year, the Disney Destiny and the Disney Adventure, our largest ship ever and the first to be docked in Asia, bringing our fleet to a total of 8 cruise ships operating around the globe. Taken in their totality, our efforts across the entire company reinforce that Disney operates in a league of its own with a robust portfolio of growth businesses that work seamlessly together to generate value, supported by a deep library of beloved IP and enabled with cutting-edge technology. With ambitious plans ahead for all of our businesses, we're not done building, and we remain optimistic about the company's trajectory. And with that, Hugh and I would be happy to take your questions.