Donald Glover: Disney’s New Leading Man
First off, let me say I’m drunk off of shitty wine.
Okay, not really. But starting off this piece with a Childish Gambino line just seemed right.
Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, has been on the rise over the past year and that star only continues to shoot up almost on a weekly basis. He’s an actor who also happens to rap. Some might say he’s uncool, but lyrically he’s a stone cold killer.
The top-4 items on Donald Glover’s current IMDb page look like a young actor’s wet dream. He created, starred, and wrote the hit FX series Atlanta (the best show of 2016 and I’ll fight anyone who says different). He also is going to be playing the Young Lando Calrissian in the Han Solo Anthology film due out in 2018, is going to be in Spider-Man: Homecoming in a still unidentified role (hoping for Miles Morales), and was most recently announced to be voicing Simba in Jon Favreau’s live-action Lion King movie.
Yeah, not bad, Troy. Not bad.
A question bares asking, though: what’s up with Donald and Disney? Three of those 4 listings have direct ties with the Mickey Mouse Co. Marvel, which is bringing Spider-Man to the big screen (again), is owned by Disney, as are the Star Wars properties. Obviously, The Lion King is also.
What’s Disney playing at? Are they trying to take another actor playing a dimwitted sitcom character and turn him into a superstar? Where did this partnership originate?
The answer, could be as simple as looking back a little further into Donald Glover’s filmography. Gambino had a small cameo in the first Muppets movie and also, had a small role in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Both of which, are Disney products that put Glover’s foot in the door with Disney’s people. That doesn’t guarantee anything, though, because Disney works with hundreds of marketable and viable talents.
So I went further down the deep rabbit hole to see if I could make some connections. These theories are ranked as either certifiably insane, almost believable, and the most likely scenario.
Grab your tin foil hats cause Conspiracy Jordan went really deep on this theory. It falls into the category of ‘certifiably insane,’ but it’s worth thinking about. Here it goes:
Don Glover is repped by WME, led by noted super-agent Ari Emanuel. Around September of 2015, WME was a lead backer of TheAudience which was co-founded by Oliver Luckett after he had left the Disney Company. According to the New York Times, TheAudience is a social media and publishing company that connects brands like McDonald’s and American Express to YouTube and Instagram stars.
This new type of ‘celebrity’ has been taken very seriously by the likes of Lionsgate and Universal Pictures and although the company has since been purchased by Dubai-based conglomerate, Al Alhi Holding Group, Luckett is still with the company. The ties to Disney as well as WME, along with Luckett’s ability to recognize online trends (Disney decided to move along with a Finding Dory movie after Luckett found that the character with the most Facebook page likes was Dory) could’ve been a window to realizing the star potential of Glover.
The oldest of Donald Glover fans remember him from Derrick Comedy where he was helping do video shorts with the likes of Dominic Dierkes and Bobby Moynihan. Derrick Comedy’s viral videos are posted all over YouTube. Derrick Comedy also has over 100 million views on YouTube. I did the math and discovered that that was a lot of views.
Social media notoriety via YouTube and remember #DonaldForSpiderMan?
The internet world knows Glover and is a wide and relatively new audience Disney could be trying to access. I know the connections were a stretch which happens sometimes (ain’t you read the fuckin’ book Things Fall Apart?), but the result of the theory actually seems viable.
Okay, time to step away from the cork board and yarn, remove the tin foil hats, and look at a more believable theory: Disney is looking for its next cross platform movie star.
Disney is well known for taking their teen stars and attempting to transform them into mega-stars. You have the popular ones like Selena Gomez, Zac Efron, and Demi Lovato. They come from a television show and cross over into pop music most times, but their best success comes from stars who aren’t grown from Disney’s farm system. There is one memorable instance in which an actor Disney loves working with came from an obscure background to achieve fame:
Dwayne Johnson.
As many know, Johnson got his fame from wrestling in the WWE and made the rare transition to bona fide movie star. Before he became box office Viagra, Johnson did a couple Disney movies that played off Johnson’s charisma: The Game Plan and Race to Witch Mountain. The Rock then drifted away from Disney, but came back to help land Disney over half a billion dollars worldwide with Moana and will be back partnering with them again for the upcoming Jungle Cruise.
Disney could be trying to double-down on multi-talented stars (Glover is an actor, singer, writer, and the only white rapper who’s allowed to say the N-word). But this time around, they’re keeping the talent close with big projects and hoping to receive the credit for when the rest of the world decides to notice that Donald is a superstar, not just the fans who’ve been here since he was rapping over Grizzly Bear.
Now to the most likely theory about why Donald Glover and Disney are working on so many projects together. I warn you, this theory isn’t as fun as the other ones, but it’s definitely the most likely scenario.
It’s mutually beneficial.
Glover is a multi-talented, Golden Globe winning, Grammy nominated, funny dude whose star is rising. Disney knows this.
Disney is the biggest brand in the world with arguably the best and most bankable properties to work with. Donald knows this.
Disney will make its money no matter what, but Donald already brings an audience with more dollars to follow. That audience will grow exponentially for Donald, too, if these movies are a hit. Which means more people tuning in to Atlanta when it comes back in 2018 *wipes tear*, and if Donald ever did a tour again? He could probably sell out The Garden on name alone.
Who knows what’s next for this partnership. A lead voice in a Pixar movie that will inevitably gross $1 billion? His own Marvel Superhero flick if his Homecoming character does turn out to be Morales? Guest spots on ESPN for hella promo-tours?
The future is certainly bright for the writer from 30 Rock.
C-H-I-L-D is the ish, man.
