Disney president and chief creative officer Dana Walden says she’s working on it. Millions of people are watching, on demand, parts of that show. That is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show, so we’re trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership.
We have a great friendship. He’s close to a number of the people at Disney, and again, we’re trying to work through it and make sense of both. What’s the right thing to do, and what’s the right thing for our business?” Page Six reported in September that Kimmel would step back from late-night after his contract expires in May 2027, marking 24 years on the air.
ABC, Kimmel’s home network, denied the claims, telling multiple outlets that news of the host’s departure is “inaccurate” and “any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.” Kimmel and his show have become symbols of free speech and resistance during President Donald Trump’s unprecedented term-two media crackdown. It all started about a year ago when ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air “indefinitely” after one of the biggest TV station owners in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it would pre-empt airings of the talk show due to on-air jokes Kimmel made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Around the same time, FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened to take action against ABC over Kimmel’s remarks.
He said during an appearance on Benny Johnson’s podcast, “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” More recently, in April, the FCC ordered ABC to submit its license renewal applications early. The move came just days after Trump called for Kimmel to be fired for a joke about First Lady Melania Trump. Then, in early September, Kimmel revealed during an opening monologue that “Live!” was moving an interview with Texas state Rep.
James Talarico to YouTube, fearing retaliation from Carr’s FCC. Elsewhere in the interview, Walden addressed the poor box office performance of the live-action “Moana,” which hit theaters in July. She blamed the outcome on the film’s closeness to the animated “Moana 2,” which came out in November 2024.
I would say our live-action ‘Moana,’ which is excellent, I think it was hurt by the proximity to our second animated version of ‘Moana,’ which came together under unusual circumstances, but premiered about 18 months before this one. So perhaps there was not enough time to create a lot of pent-up demand for another film.” The original 2016 “Moana” was a hit $643 million worldwide. But “Moana 2,” which was cobbled together using a scrapped “Moana” TV show, blew expectations out of the water, reaching just over $1 billion by the end of its run.
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