> The 71-year old executive also said that the hiring freeze his pink slipped predecessor Bob Chapek announced on November 11 is still in place. Offering his perspective from being outside the company the past year after decades at Disney, Iger told staffers additionally that rumors of a merger or deal with Apple were just that – rumors. The man who bought Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox for Disney during his last stint as CEO also noted that the House of Mouse wasn’t looking to make anymore big ticket acquisitions any time soon.

> Coming just over a week after Iger was returned to his perch at the House of Mouse and Chapek was unceremoniously shown the door, the once and current CEO’s attempt to rally the Disney troops comes at a precarious time for the media giant. On one hand, Disney has the top movie in the world with Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever. However, this past weekend also saw the company take a more than $100 million thump with the box office crash and burn of animated feature Strange World. In that context, the December 16 release of James Cameron’s much anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water poses potentially more big screen success and financial stress for the studio.

> Quickly purging the upper ranks of Disney of the short-lived Chapek’s top lieutenants in the hours after being renamed CEO unexpectedly on November 20, the notoriously successor-uncongenial Iger also has a 24 month deadline to leave the company in stable hands – an effort that floundered from almost the get-go with Chapek.

> Somewhat anti-climatic, according to one source, the 40-minute town hall today found Iger sidestepping Florida’s discrimatory “Don’t Say Gay” law that tripped up a flip-flopping Chapek earlier this year. Essentially, noting you can’t please all the people all the time, Iger said the matter shouldn’t be a political issues, we hear.