“If they can get you to come all the way down here, they can get you to do just about anything,” joked Jimmy Kimmel to attendees at ABC parent company Disney’s upfront being held at New York City’s Pier 36. It’s a 12 minute walk from the nearest subway line as I can personally attest.
But that wasn’t the only funny line in the late-night host’s always-anticipated standup routine. Yet the most ironic thing was that Kimmel himself had to do his act remotely from a few blocks away because he had tested positive – for the second time—for COVID-19.
While Kimmel is a pro at upfronts, it was the first time for Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who kicked off the two-hour presentation talking about the company’s 100 years of telling iconic stories that have shaped global culture – and redefined the entertainment landscape through bigger and better canvases, as he put it.
One of the biggest these days is streamer Disney+ with 138 million subscribers, and counting.
Disney is now the corporate umbrella for not only ABC and ESPN, but Hulu, National Geographic and of course, Marvel, whose MCU is coming close to world domination with the massive success of “Dr. Strange” and “Loki.”
Kevin Feige came out on stage and bragged that “Loki” was the most-watched TV program of the new season and then, after admonishing the crowd not to take any photographs, showed rough clips from new shows “Secret Invasion” featuring Samuel L Jackson as “Echo,” and “She-Hulk: Attorney-At-Law” starring Tatiana Maslany.
A parade of other stars graced the stage, starting with Martin Short, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin, who joked, “What’s the opposite of the Met Gala? The Disney upfront.”
The trio was there to tout the success of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” for which a second season is in the making.
“Everything we do starts with a story,” said Peter Rice, chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content, who touted some 1,000 award nominations for Disney shows and shouted out the most recently memorable—“Summer of Soul’s” win as best documentary at the Oscars–although at the time and in the moment it was overshadowed by the infamous slap of Chris Rock that immediately preceded its presentation.
Other high-profile appearances came from Kerry Washington, soon to be starring in “Reasonable Doubt,” Claire Danes, set to appear in “Fleishman Is in Trouble” alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Lizzy Caplan, some of the Kardashian clan including Chris Jenner–oh, snap, that was Amy Schumer portraying one of the Ks– and ESPN’s Monday Night Football folks.
