The Walt Disney Company, which is popularly known as Disney, is arguably one of the most famous American entertainment companies which run the business of Media Networks, Parks, Television networks, and the radio industry. In late 2019, with Disney plus, they entered into OTT (Over the Top) industry to compete with giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Raya and the last dragon, movies like Toy story to Lion King, they always created magic moments through their pencil art. All this magic started with a great talented artist Mr. Walt Disney. Walt Disney and his brother Roy created ‘Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio’ in 1923 in Hollywood, LA. They started their work by producing a series of short live-action films collectively named the ALICE COMEDIES.
As of 2020, Disney has won a record number of academy awards with an impressive number of 127, but the start of their journey was not like this buttery smooth. Later in 1924-25, they lost the Copywrite of their famous character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The popularity was sooner decreasing, and the Disney brothers were trying to save The Disney bros cartoon Studio at any cost. Later in 1928, Walt Disney created probably the most loved cartoon character of all time ‘Mickey Mouse’. Though the character’s name was ‘Mortimer Mouse’, his wife soon suggested the name which makes his place in history. Though the first two series of Mickey Mouse couldn’t gain that much popularity but in 1928, with the mix of sound for the first time, ‘Steamboat Willi’ gained a massive response from the crowd.
After the success of Mickey Mouse, Disney started to concentrate on feature films and created ‘Snow white and seven dwarfs’ in 1937. From then, they never had to look back and started creating groundbreaking movies one after one. Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Mary Poppins (1964), Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994), Toy Story (1995), Tarzan (1999), Spirited Away (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), Up (2009), Frozen (2013), Pirates of the Caribbean movie series are some of their masterpiece movies.
Walt Disney is always dreaming of building ‘The Happiest Place On Earth’ and to materialize that dream, started to build their own amusement park ‘Disneyland’. Along with the ABC TV network, Walt Disney Company ended that project in 1955 in southern California.
Disneyland crossed 1 million visitor landmarks within only seven months. In 2019, before the COVID outbreak, more than 700 million visitors visited there. With the great success of Disneyland, Walt Disney company started building more amusement park like Disneyland. As of 2021 Disney own 12 theme park and 53 resorts around the world.
In 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer, and after his death, his brother Roy O Disney become the CEO of The Walt Disney company. Under new leadership, Disney wasn’t growing as expected, and soon Roy O Disney left the CEO position, and Donn Tatum, Card Walker, and Ron Miller became the company’s head. But things weren’t going well enough for Disney back then. In 1984 Michael Eisner became the new CEO of Walt Disney Company, and a new modern Disney day been started. Michael Eisner started to expand the business and stated to buy a share of potentially profitable ventures. In 1985 he purchased KHJ, an independent cable TV station in CA, which eventually led the company to make a strong position in TV shows. Later in 1989, he bought Jim Henson Productions, which owns a lot of famous cartoon characters. Later he acquired ABC television network, Anaheim Angels, Infoseek, Miramax, Fox family, and other companies. These diversified investments made a stable financial growth for Disney company.
In 2005 Eisner stepped down from CEO, and Bob Iger become the new CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Bob also followed Eisner and started to acquire potential studios. Some of the big names are Pixer Studio, Marvel Studio, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. All these big acquisitions eventually add more revenue for Walt Disney Company. Besides the movie studio, Bob also expands on the live stream and OTT platform. First, they bought a big stake of Hulu and later in 2019, launched their own subscription-based OTT platform Disney plus.
In 2021 the Walt Disney Company’s net worth is around $130 Billion with around 23000+ employees around the world. Once the company was facing bankruptcy is now dominating the world and listed as one of the biggest companies in the world. 13 of 20 top net grossing movies of all time are from Disney. In 2019 they collected around 40% of total box office income in the USA, where even their closest rival Warner Brothers earned only 16%. In addition to the movie market, they have earnings from other sources like Television channels, Radio, Park, resorts, OTT, and so on.
Despite of big losses, again and again, Disney never gave up and kept its head up. They will remain one of the biggest motivations for new companies and teaches if you are good at something, keep doing that; success will be at your feet sooner or later.
