Eric Caballero is moving from one of the wokest names in media to one of the most conservative.
On Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Caballero, a veteran of the Walt Disney Co., was joining The Daily Wire as chief marketing officer.
The move comes as the conservative outlet — best known as home to commentators such as Ben Shapiro, who co-founded the company, and Matt Walsh — seeks to solidify its move as an entertainment provider.
“Among other projects, Caballero will lead marketing for The Daily Wire+, the company’s streaming platform,” THR reported.
“While it includes politically focused content from The Daily Wire as well as some other conservative programming, the company is moving further into entertainment, committing $100 million to produce kids and family fare, and expanding into original movies (including a Gina Carano-led offering called ‘Terror on the Prairie’),” the report said.
In a statement to THR, Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing threw down the gauntlet at Disney and its woke propaganda.
“Companies like Disney have betrayed their family-friendly and pro-America audiences because of outsize influence from activist shareholders and employees, leaving money and opportunity on the table in the process,” Boering said. “But their loss is our gain — not just in audience, but in talent.
“After announcing our investment into kids’ entertainment, I have been fielding calls left and right from high-level talent at some of the biggest entertainment companies in the world who are seeking opportunities to come and work with us.
“We could not be more thrilled to have someone with Eric’s experience and expertise and are confident he will be an instrumental part of continuing our exponential growth.”
Caballero said he’d be using the Disney playbook to grow audiences in the conservative media sphere.
“I studied Disney’s traditions of customer obsession, of multi-generational franchise-building, and of broadening Hollywood’s best talent,” he said in a statement, according to THR.
“The Daily Wire is building on this blueprint successfully enough that storytellers and media executives are taking notice and signing on.”
What’s more, Caballero is the second Disney bigwig to sign on with the Daily Wire in August.
Last week, Chris Sonnenburg, the Emmy-winning showrunner on the Disney series “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure,” was announced as the Daily Wire’s senior vice president of animation development and production.
“It’s an incredible honor to join The Daily Wire platform,” Sonnenburg said in a statement, according to Hollywood publication Deadline.
“My goal is to gather the best artists and storytellers in the world for the singular purpose of producing beautifully animated programs,” he said. “I believe we can create timeless stories for our kids and their families for generations to come.”
The hires manage to provide both a connection and a contrast between the Daily Wire and Disney when it comes to streaming family fare.
In case you either forgot or haven’t been paying attention, the House of Mouse hasn’t been having the best 2022, at least when it comes to parents on the right side of the spectrum.
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The entertainment giant ended up lodging one of the loudest corporate protests against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation — labeled by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — which prohibits inculcating public school students in grades K-3 in sexual orientation or gender ideology.
The fallout from that stand didn’t just come from concerned parents who supported the legislation.
Video from a meeting of top executives in response to the bill was obtained by journalist Christopher Rufo; in it, an executive producer said the company had been accommodating when it came to her pushing her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” in Disney programming, and the company’s president pledged to greatly increase the number of gay characters.
SCOOP: I’ve obtained video from inside Disney’s all-hands meeting about the Florida parental rights bill, in which executive producer Latoya Raveneau says her team has implemented a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and is regularly “adding queerness” to children’s programming. pic.twitter.com/eJnZMpKIXT
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
SCOOP: Disney corporate president Karey Burke says, “as the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,” she supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities. pic.twitter.com/oFRUiuu9JG
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
Apparently, though, the “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” doesn’t pay at the box office.
The Disney/Pixar movie “Lightyear” — which included a lesbian kiss that had no plot relevance but sent confetti raining down from the woke cheering section — massively underperformed at the box office.
In the wake of the film fizzling, both the company and Hollywood pundits tried to find any plausible reason why the film failed aside from the fact it was blatant culture war bear-baiting.
Here’s the Oscar for Best Rationalization on Behalf of Disney, which goes to CNN Business’ Frank Pallotta:
“For starters, it may have been difficult for audiences to know what exactly the film was about. It’s not quite a ‘Toy Story’ movie since ‘Lightyear’ was marketed as a film about the man behind the toy rather than the toy itself. Ultimately, families might have been confused about the film and that could have steered them away.”
Right. Or maybe it was because of the lesbian kiss. Or maybe it was because the star of “Lightyear,” Chris Evans, called anyone who objected to LGBT issues being shoved in their kids’ faces “idiots.”
“The real truth is those people are idiots,” Evans said in an interview. “Every time there’s been social advancement as we wake up, the American story, the human story is one of constant social awakening and growth and that’s what makes us good. …
“There’s always going to be people who are afraid and unaware and trying to hold on to what was before. But those people die off like dinosaurs.”
Or they don’t buy tickets to “Lightyear” and choose a different streaming service — one that doesn’t share the values of Disney+ but still produces high-quality content.
If you’re having trouble finding one, just ask Eric Caballero for some advice.
