The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy Disney as an animation studio, it has become one of the biggest Hollywood studios, and owner and licensor of eleven theme parks and several television networks, including ABC and ESPN. Disney's corporate headquarters and primary production facilities are located at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.
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Easton Press Disney books
The Swiss Family Robinson By Johann Wyss - 1963
The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling - 1980
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie - 1987
Robin Hood - 1991
Walt Disney; An American Original - 1997
Disney Family Story Collection, 150 Fables for Living, Loving and learning - 2 volumes - 1998
Disney's Christmas Storybook - 2000
Disney's Mickey Mouse - 2001
Peter Pan and Wendy - Library of Famous Editions - 2002
Disney's Winnie the Pooh Christmas Treasury - A. A. Milne - 2002
Disney's Winnie the Pooh Storybook Collection - A. A. Milne - 2003
The Art of Disney; From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdom - Christopher Finch - 2004
Disney’s Nursery Rhymes And Fairy Tales - 2005
Mary Poppins - 4 Volume Set by P. L. Travers - 2005
The Disney Treasures and The Disney Keepsakes - 2 volume set - 2006
Cinderella - 2007
Sleeping Beauty - 2007
Disney Bedtime Favorites - 2008
Pinocchio - The Story of a Puppet by Carlo Collodi Lorenzini - 2008
Walt Disney's Classic Storybook - 2009
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 2009
The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley - 2010
Beauty & The Beast - 2013
Bambi - A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten - 2017
The Disney Christmas Card - 2018
Beauty & The Beast - Signed Edition - 2020
Walt Disney
Walter E. Disney, born 1901, was an American cartoonist and producer of animated motion-picture cartoons, born in Chicago, and educated at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In 1923 he established, in Hollywood, Calif., the Disney Studio for the production of motion pictures. His first venture in this new enterprise was Alice in Cartoon land, a film which combined the movements of the living actress with those of animated cartoon figures. Disney followed this experiment with Oswald the Rabbit (1926), his first animated cartoon without living actors. In 1928 he began to produce Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons in sound. Several of the animal characters created for the Mickey Mouse series, particularly Donald Duck and the dog Pluto, became the subjects of other Disney comedies. In 1937 Disney produced his first full-length animated cartoon film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His later films of this type include Pinocchio (1939), Bambi (1942), Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953), and the Lady and the Tramp (1955). Among Disney's other full-length films are Fantasia (1940), an interpretative cartoon of classical music; Treasure Island (1950), an animated cartoon combined with live actors; The Sword and the Rose (1953), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Davy Crockett (1955), and The Absent Minded Professor (1961), live action films; The Living Desert (1953), The African Lion (1955), and Secrets of Life (1956), nature films; and Perri (1957), a live animal fantasy. He began to produce television films in 1954 and created several exhibits at the New York World's Fair of 1964-65. His many honors include Motion Pictures Academy Awards and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964). Disneyland Amusement Park, in Anaheim, Calif., opened in 1955 followed by parks in Florida and Europe.
Cinderella a History Cinderella is the heroine of a universally told fairy tale. The story centers about a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters. Through her fairy godmothers miraculous intervention, Cinderella attends a ball given by the prince of the realm, and for the occasion, her fairy godmother magically a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, lizards into footmen, a rat into a coachman, and rags into a glittering gown. Cinderella is warned however, to leave the ball by midnight lest all her fine things revert to their form. Leaving in haste at the stroke of midnight, she loses one of her small glass slippers. The prince, who has fallen in love with Cinderella, instigates a search throughout his realm for the maiden whose foot fits the glass slipper. Eventually he finds and marries Cinderella.
The English version of Cinderella is an adaptation of a story by the French writer Charles Perrault. In the original Cinderella tale the heroine wears a fur slipper (Fr. pantoufle en vair), but the English translator apparently mistook vair for verre ("glass"). The Cinderella story appears in German lore in the 16th century, and is among the fairy tales of the German mythologist Jacob and William Grimm. It is the subject of the opera La Cenerentola by the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini. The Russian composer Serge Prokofiev wrote the score for a ballet based on the fairy tale.
Studio Entertainment
Its Studio Entertainment unit, also known as The Walt Disney Studios, is headed by Chairman Dick Cook. It includes the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, a collection of movie studios including Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures. The Miramax Films and Dimension Films studios are also a part of the unit, but operate autonomously in New York. Disney's Buena Vista Music Group, which includes Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, and Hollywood Records, also falls under the umbrella of The Walt Disney Studios. The unit also includes Walt Disney Theatrical and Disney's distribution companies: Buena Vista International and Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
One of the company's most successful subsidiaries is its animation studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation, responsible for producing a number of successful and influential traditionally animated features. In the aftermath of the box office failures of some of its recent animated films and the stellar successes of computer-animated films from Pixar, Disney has shifted its production from "traditional" hand-drawn animated films (which in recent years have incorporated much work done on computer) to entirely computer-animated films. The last traditionally-animated film produced by Disney was Home on the Range. Its first computer-animated film will be Chicken Little. Disney has fallen under much criticism for this change in direction, especially from fans who see the strength of a movie as its plot and its characters and not as the technology used to make it.
Walt Disney Studios, the company's main film and television production facility and corporate headquarters located in Burbank, California, is the only major Hollywood film studio that has never offered tours to the public. A partial tour of the Orlando, Florida feature animation satellite studio was available to attendees of Disney-MGM Studios until 2003.
History
In 1923, Kansas City, Missouri animator Walt Disney created a short film entitled Alice's Wonderland, which featured child actress Virginia Davis interacting with animated characters. Film distributor Margaret J. Winkler contacted Disney with plans to distribute a whole series of Alice Comedies based upon Alice's Wonderland. The contract signed, Walt and his brother Roy Disney moved to Los Angeles, California and set up shop in their uncle Robert Disney's garage, marking the beginning of the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Within a few months, the company moved into the back of a realty office in downtown Los Angeles, where production continued on the Alice Comedies until 1927. In 1926, the studio moved to a newly constructed studio facility on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.
After the demise of the Alice comedies, Disney developed an all-cartoon series starring his first original character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which was distributed by Winkler Pictures through Universal Pictures. Disney only completed 26 Oswald shorts before losing the contract when Winkler's husband Charles Mintz, who had taken over their distribution company, hired away many of Disney's animators to start his own animation studio.
Having lost Oswald, Disney and his head animator Ub Iwerks, among the few who had refused Mintz's offers, came up with a cartoon mouse that Walt first named Mortimer Mouse before Walt's wife Lillian instead suggested Mickey. Disney, Iwerks, and a handful of other animators produced the first two silent Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, in mid-1928. Neither film made an impact when exhibited around Los Angeles in limited release, but Disney's third Mickey short, Steamboat Willie, was produced with synchronized sound and became a runaway success when it premiered in New York in late 1928.
Pat Powers, who provided Disney with his "Cinephone" sound synchronization system, became Disney's new distributor, and the Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons soon became a nationwide hit. In 1929, the studio changed its name to Walt Disney Productions.
Powers also initially distributed a second Disney series, Silly Symphonies, which featured one-shot cartoons based on music. The Skeleton Dance (1929) was the first entry in the Silly Symphonies series. Disney cut ties with Powers in 1930, which resulted in Disney switching to Columbia Pictures for distribution of Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies, and Powers signing Ub Iwerks away to start his own studio.
Disney switched distributors again in 1932 to United Artists, and shortly afterward acquired a two-year exclusive contract with Technicolor to use its new "three-strip" color film process. Disney's first Technicolor short, the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees (1932), won the inaugural Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) at the 5th Academy Awards. Future Technicolor Symphonies included Three Little Pigs (1933), whose main song struck a chord with the public during the Great Depression, and The Wise Little Hen, which would introduce another major Disney character, Donald Duck.
Deciding to push the boundaries of animation even further, Disney began production of his first feature-length animated film in 1934. Taking three years to complete, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based upon the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, premiered in December 1937 and became the highest-grossing film of that time by 1939. Snow White was released through RKO Radio Pictures, which had assumed distribution of Disney's product in July 1937, after United Artists attempted to attain future television rights to the Disney shorts.
Using the profits from Snow White, Disney financed the construction of a new 51-acre studio complex in Burbank, California. The new Walt Disney Studios, in which the company is headquartered to this day, was completed and open for business by the end of 1939. The following year, Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering.
The studio continued releasing animated shorts and features, such as Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). With the onset of World War II, box-office profits began to dry up. When the United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many of Disney's animators were drafted into the armed forces, and the studio itself was temporarily commandeered by the U.S. military. The U.S. government commissioned the studio to produce training and propaganda films, which provided Disney with needed funds. Films such as the feature Victory Through Air Power and the short Education for Death (both 1943) were meant to galvanize public support for the war effort. Even the studio's characters joined the effort, as Donald Duck appeared in a number of comical propaganda shorts, including the Academy Award-winning Der Fuehrer's Face (1943).
With limited staff and little operating capital during and after the war, Disney's feature films during much of the 1940s were "package films," or collections of shorts, such as The Three Caballeros (1943) and Melody Time (1947), which performed poorly at the box-office. At the same time, the studio began producing live-action films and documentaries. Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1949) featured animated segments, while the True-Life Adventures series, which included such films as Seal Island (1948) and The Vanishing Prairie (1954), were also popular and won numerous awards.
The release of Cinderella in 1950 proved that feature-length animation could still succeed in the marketplace. Other releases of the period included Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953), both in production before the war began, and Disney's first all-live action feature, Treasure Island (1950). Other early all-live-action Disney films included The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952),The Sword and the Rose (1953), and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Disney ended its distribution contract with RKO in 1953, forming its own distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution.
In December 1950, Walt Disney Productions and The Coca-Cola Company teamed up for Disney's first venture into television, the NBC television network special An Hour in Wonderland. In October 1954, the ABC network launched Disney's first regular television series, Disneyland, which would go on to become one of the longest-running primetime series of all time. Disneyland allowed Disney a platform to introduce new projects and broadcast older ones, and ABC became Disney's partner in the financing and development of Disney's next venture, located in the middle of an orange grove near Anaheim, California.
In 1954, Walt Disney used his Disneyland series to unveil what would become Disneyland Park, an idea conceived out of a desire for a place where parents and children could both have fun at the same time. On July 17, 1955, Walt Disney opened Disneyland with a live television broadcast hosted by Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan. After a shaky start, Disneyland continued to grow and attract visitors from across the country and around the world. A major expansion in 1959 included the addition of America's first monorail system.
For the 1964 New York World's Fair, Disney prepared four separate attractions for various sponsors, each of which would find its way to Disneyland in one form or another. During this time, Walt Disney was also secretly scouting out new sites for a second Disney theme park. In November 1965, "Disney World" was announced, with plans for theme parks, hotels, and even a model city on thousands of acres of land purchased outside of Orlando, Florida.
Disney continued to focus its talents on television throughout the 1950s. Its weekday afternoon children's program The Mickey Mouse Club, featuring its roster of young "Mouseketeers", premiered in 1955 to great success, as did the Davy Crockett miniseries, starring Fess Parker and broadcast on the Disneyland anthology show. Two years later, the Zorro series would prove just as popular, running for two seasons on ABC, as well as separate episodes on the Disneyland series. Despite such success, Walt Disney Productions invested little into television ventures in the 1960s, with the exception of the long-running anthology series, later known as The Wonderful World of Disney.
Disney's film studios stayed busy as well, averaging five to six releases per year during this period. While the production of shorts slowed significantly during the 1950s and 1960s, the studio released a number of popular animated features, like Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), which introduced a new xerography process to transfer the drawings to animation cels. Disney's live-action releases were spread across a number of genres, including historical fiction (Johnny Tremain, 1957), adaptations of children's books (Pollyanna, 1960) and modern-day comedies (The Shaggy Dog 1959). Disney's most successful film of the 1960s was a live action/animated musical adaptation of Mary Poppins, which received won five Academy Awards, including Best Actress Julie Andrews.
The deaths of Walt and Roy Disney and Walt Disney World
On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer, and Roy Disney took over as chairman, CEO, and president of the company. One of his first acts was to rename Disney World as "Walt Disney World," in honor of his brother and his vision.
In 1967, the last two films Walt actively followed were released: the animated feature The Jungle Book and the musical The Happiest Millionaire. The studio released a number of comedies in the late 1960s, including The Love Bug (1968) and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), which starred another young Disney discovery, Kurt Russell. The 1970s opened with the release of Disney's first "post-Walt" animated feature, The Aristocats, followed by a return to fantasy musicals in 1971's Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
On October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World opened to the public, with Roy Disney dedicating the facility in person later that month. Two months later, on December 20, 1971, Roy Disney died of a stroke, leaving the company under control of Donn Tatum, Card Walker, and Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller, each trained by Walt and Roy.
While Walt Disney Productions continued releasing family-friendly films throughout the 1970s, such as Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and Freaky Friday (1976), the films did not fare as well at the box office as earlier material. The animation studio, however, saw success with Robin Hood (1973), The Rescuers (1977), and The Fox and the Hound (1981).
Inspired by the popularity of Star Wars, the Disney studio produced the science-fiction adventure The Black Hole in 1979.The Black Hole was one of the first Disney releases to carry a PG rating, the first being Take Down, also released in 1979. The releases of these and other PG-rated Disney films such as Tron (1982) led Disney CEO Ron Miller to create Touchstone Pictures as a brand for Disney to release more adult-oriented material. Touchstone's first release was the comedy Splash (1984), which was a box office success.
With The Wonderful World of Disney remaining a prime-time staple, Disney returned to television in the 1970s with syndicated programing such as the anthology series The Mouse Factory and a brief revival of the Mickey Mouse Club. In 1980, Disney launched Walt Disney Home Video to take advantage of the newly-emerging videocassette market. On April 18, 1983, The Disney Channel debuted as a subscription-level channel on cable systems nationwide, featuring its large library of classic films and TV series, along with original programming and family-friendly third-party offerings.
Walt Disney World received much of the company's attention through the 1970s and into the 1980s. In 1978, Disney executives announced plans for the second Walt Disney World theme park, EPCOT Center, which would open in October 1982. Inspired by Walt Disney's dream of a futuristic model city, EPCOT Center was built as a "permanent World's Fair", complete with exhibits sponsored by major American corporations, as well as pavilions based on the cultures of other nations. In Japan, the Oriental Land Company partnered with Walt Disney Productions to build the first Disney theme park outside of the United States, Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in April 1983.
Despite the success of the Disney Channel and its new theme park creations, Walt Disney Productions was financially vulnerable. Its film library was valuable, but offered few current successes, and its leadership team was unable to keep up with other studios, particularly the works of Don Bluth, who defected from Disney in 1979. In 1984, financier Saul Steinberg launched a hostile takeover bid for Walt Disney Productions, with the intent of selling off its various assets. Disney successfully fought off the bid with the help of friendly investors, and Sid Bass and Roy Disney's son Roy Edward Disney brought in Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg from Paramount Pictures and Frank Wells from Warner Bros. Pictures to head up the company.
With the Sid Bass family purchase of 18.7 percent of Disney, Bass and the board brought in Michael Eisner as CEO from Paramount Pictures and Frank Wells from Warner Bros. as president. Eisner emphasized Touchstone Films with Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1985) to start leading to increased output with Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), Pretty Woman (1990) and additional hits. Eisner used expanding cable and home video markets to sign deals using Disney shows and films with a long-term deal with Showtime Networks for Disney/Touchstone releases through 1996 and entering television with syndication and distribution for TV series as The Golden Girls and Home Improvement. Disney began limited releases of its previous films on video tapes in the late 1980s. Eisner's Disney purchased KHJ, an independent Los Angeles TV station.
Organized in 1985, Silver Screen Partners II, LP financed films for Disney with $193 million. In January 1987, Silver Screen III began financing movies for Disney with $300 million raised, the largest amount raised for a film financing limited partnership by E.F. Hutton. Silver Screen IV was also set up to finance Disney's studios.
Beginning with Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, Disney's flagship animation studio enjoyed a series of commercial and critical successes with such films as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). In addition, the company successfully entered the field of television animation with a number of lavishly budgeted and acclaimed series such as Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Duck Tales and Gargoyles. Disney moved to first place in box office receipts by 1988 and had increased revenues by 20% every year.
In 1989, Disney signed an agreement-in-principle to acquire The Jim Henson Company (then known as Henson Associates) from its founder, Muppet creator Jim Henson. The deal included Henson's programming library and Muppet characters (excluding the Muppets created for Sesame Street), as well as Jim Henson's personal creative services. However, in May 1990, before the deal was completed, Jim Henson passed away, and the two companies broke off merger negotiations the following December.
Named the "Disney Decade" by the company, the executive talent attempted to move the company to new heights in the 1990s with huge changes and accomplishments. In September 1990, The Disney Company arranged for financing up to $200 million by a unit of Nomura Securities for Interscope films made for Disney. On October 23, Disney formed Touchwood Pacific Partners I which would supplant the Silver Screen Partnership series as their movie studios' primary source of funding.
In 1991, hotels, home video distribution, and Disney merchandising became 28 percent of total company revenues with international revenues contributed 22 percent of revenues. The company committed its studios in the first quarter of 1991 to produce 25 films in 1992. However, 1991 saw net income drop by 23% and had no growth for the year, but saw the release of Beauty and the Beast, winner of 2 Academy Awards and top grossing film in the genre. Disney next moved into publishing with Hyperion Press and adult music with Hollywood Records while Disney Imagineering was laying off 400 employees.
Disney also broadened its adult offerings in film when then Disney Studio Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg acquired Miramax Films in 1993. That same year Disney created the NHL team the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, named after the 1992 hit film of the same name. Disney purchased a minority stake in the Anaheim Angels baseball team around the same time.
Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994. Shortly thereafter, Katzenberg resigned and formed DreamWorks SKG because Eisner would not appoint Katzenberg to Wells' now-available post plus Katzenberg sued over the terms of his contract. Instead, Eisner recruited his friend Michael Ovitz, one of the founders of the Creative Artists Agency, to be President, with minimal involvement from Disney's board of directors (which at the time included Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, the CEO of Hilton Hotels Corporation Stephen Bollenbach, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, Yale dean Robert A. M. Stern, and Eisner's predecessors Raymond Watson and Card Walker). Ovitz lasted only 14 months and left Disney in December 1996 via a "no fault termination" with a severance package of $38 million in cash and 3 million stock options worth roughly $100 million at the time of Ovitz's departure. The Ovitz episode engendered a long running derivative suit, which finally concluded in June 2006, almost 10 years later. Chancellor William B. Chandler, III of the Delaware Court of Chancery, despite describing Eisner's behavior as falling "far short of what shareholders expect and demand from those entrusted with a fiduciary position..." found in favor of Eisner and the rest of the Disney board because they hadn't violated the letter of the law (namely, the duty of care owed by a corporation's officers and board to its shareholders).
Eisner attempted in 1994 to purchase NBC from GE, but the deal failed due to GE wanting to keep 51% ownership of the network. Disney acquired many other media sources during the decade, including a merger with Capital Cities/ABC in 1995 which brought broadcast network ABC and its assets, including the A&E Television Networks and ESPN networks, into the Disney fold. Eisner felt that the purchase of ABC was an important investment to keep Disney surviving and allowing it to compete with international multimedia conglomerates.
Disney lost a $10.4 million lawsuit in September 1997 to Marsu B.V. over Disney's failure to produce as contracted 13 half-hour Marsupilami cartoon shows. Instead Disney felt other internal "hot properties" deserved the company's attention.
Disney took control of the Anaheim Angels in 1996, and purchased a majority stake in the team in 1998. That same year, Disney began a move into the internet field with the purchase of Starwave and 43 percent of Infoseek. In 1999, Disney purchased the remaining shares of Infoseek and launch the Go Network portal in January. Disney also launched its cruise line with the christening of Disney Magic and a sister ship, Disney Wonder.
As the Katzenberg case dragged on as his contract included a portion of the film revenue from ancillary markets forever. Katzenberg had offered $100 to settle the case but Eisner felt the original claim amount of about half a billion too much, but then the ancillary market clause was found. Disney lawyers tried to indicate a decline situation which reveal the some of the problems in the company. ABC had declining rating and increasing costs while the film segment had two film failures. While neither party revealed the settlement amount, it is estimated at $200 million.
Eisner's controlling style inhibited efficiency and progress according to some critics, while other industry experts indicated that "age compression" theory led to a decline in the company's target market due to youth copying teenage behavior earlier.
2000 brought an increase in revenue of 9% and net income of 39% with ABC and ESPN leading the way and Parks and Resorts marking its sixth consecutive year of growth. However the September 11 attacks led to a complete halt of vacation travel and led to a recession. The recession led to a decrease in ABC revenue. Plus, Eisner had the company make an expensive purchase of Fox Family Worldwide. 2001 was a year of cost cutting laying off 4,000 employees, Disney parks operations decreased, slashing annual live-action film investment, and minimizing Internet operations. While 2002 revenue had a small decrease from 2001 with the cost cutting, net income rose to $1.2 billion with two creative film releases. In 2003, the Studio became the first studio to record over $3 billion in worldwide box office receipts.
Eisner did not want the board to renominate Roy E. Disney, the son of Disney co-founder Roy O. Disney, as a board director citing his age of 72 as a required retirement age. Stanley Gold responded by resigning from the board and requesting the other board members oust Eisner. In 2003, Disney resigned from his positions as the company's vice chairman and chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation, accusing Eisner of micromanagement, flops with the ABC television network, timidity in the theme park business, turning the Walt Disney Company into a "rapacious, soul-less" company, and refusing to establish a clear succession plan, as well as a string of box-office movie flops starting in the year 2000.
On May 15, 2003, Disney sold their stake in the Anaheim Angels baseball team to Arte Moreno. Disney purchased the rights to The Muppets and the Bear in the Big Blue House franchises from The Jim Henson Company on February 17, 2004. The two brands were placed under control of the Muppets Holding Company, LLC, a division of Disney Consumer Products.
In 2004, Pixar Animation Studios began looking for another distributor after its 12-year contract with Disney ended, due to its strained relationship over issues of control and money with Eisner. Also that year, Comcast Corporation made an unsolicited $54 billion bid to acquire Disney. A couple of high budget movies flopped at the box office. With these difficulties and with some board directors dissatisfied, Eisner ceded the board chairmanship.
On March 3, 2004, at Disney's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising and unprecedented 45% of Disney's shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, withheld their proxies to re-elect Eisner to the board. Disney's board then gave the chairmanship position to Mitchell. However, the board did not immediately remove Eisner as chief executive.
In 2005, Disney sold the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team to Henry and Susan Samueli.
On March 13, 2005, Robert Iger was announced as Eisner successor as CEO. On September 30, Eisner resigned both as an executive and as a member of the board of directors.
On July 8, 2005, Walt Disney's nephew, Roy E. Disney returned to The Walt Disney Company as a consultant and with the new title of Non Voting Director, Emeritus. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts celebrated the 50th anniversary of Disneyland Park on July 17, and opened Hong Kong Disneyland on September 12. Walt Disney Feature Animation released Chicken Little, the company's first film using 3-D animation. On October 1, Bob Iger replaced Michael Eisner as CEO. Miramax co-founders Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein also departed the company to form their own studio. On July 25, 2005, Disney announced that it was closing DisneyToon Studios Australia in October 2006, after 17 years of existence.
In 2006, Disney acquired Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney’s pre-Mickey silent animation star. Aware that Disney's relationship with Pixar was wearing thin, President and CEO Robert Iger began negotiations with leadership of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull, regarding possible merger. On January 23, 2006, it was announced that Disney would purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. The deal was finalized on May 5; and among noteworthy results was the transition of Pixar's CEO and 50.1% shareholder, Steve Jobs, becoming Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7% and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. Ed Catmull took over as President of Pixar Animation Studios. Former Executive Vice-President of Pixar, John Lasseter, became Chief Creative Officer of both Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, as well assuming the role of Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering.
In April 2007, the Muppets Holding Company, LLC was renamed The Muppets Studio and placed under new leadership in an effort by Iger to re-brand the division. The re-branding was completed in September 2008, when control of The Muppets Studio was transferred from Disney Consumer Products to the Walt Disney Studios.
After a long time working in the company as a senior executive and large shareholder, Director Emeritus Roy E. Disney died from stomach cancer on December 16, 2009. At the time of his death, he owned roughly 1% of all of Disney which amounted to 16 million shares. He is seen to be the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the running of the company and working in the company altogether.
On August 31, 2009, Disney announced a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.24 billion. The deal was finalized on December 31, 2009 in which Disney acquired full ownership on the company. Disney has stated that their acquisition of Marvel Entertainment will not affect Marvel's products, neither will the nature of any Marvel characters be transformed.
In October 2009, Disney Channel president Rich Ross, hired by Iger, replaced Dick Cook as chairman of the company and, in November, began restructuring the company to focus more on family friendly products. Later in January 2010, Disney decided to shut down Miramax after downsizing Touchstone, but one month later, they instead began selling the Miramax brand and its 700-title film library to Filmyard Holdings. On March 12, ImageMovers Digital, Robert Zemeckis's company which Disney had bought in 2007, was shut down. In April 2010, Lyric Street, Disney's country music label in Nashville, was shut down. In May 2010, the company sold the Power Rangers brand, as well as its 700-episode library, back to Haim Saban. In June, the company canceled Jerry Bruckheimer's film project Killing Rommel. In January 2011, Disney Interactive Studios was downsized. In November, two ABC stations were sold. With the release of Tangled in 2010, Ed Catmull said that the "princess" genre of films was taking a hiatus until "someone has a fresh take on it … but we don't have any other musicals or fairytales lined up." He explained that they were looking to get away from the princess era due to the changes in audience composition and preference. However in the Facebook page, Ed Catmull stated that this was just a rumor.
In April 2011, Disney broke ground on Shanghai Disney Resort. Costing $4.4 billion, the resort is slated to open in 2015. Later, in August 2011, Bob Iger stated on a conference call that after the success of the Pixar and Marvel purchases, he and the Walt Disney Company are looking to "buy either new characters or businesses that are capable of creating great characters and great stories." Later, in early February 2012, Disney completed its acquisition of UTV Software Communications, expanding their market further into India and Asia.
On October 30, 2012, Disney announced plans to acquire Lucasfilm and release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. On December 4, 2012, the Disney-Lucasfilm merger was approved by the Federal Trade Commission, allowing the acquisition to be finalized without dealing with antitrust problems. On December 21, 2012, the deal was completed with the acquisition value amounting to approximately $4.06 billion, and thus Lucasfilm became a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney (which coincidentally reunited Lucasfilm under the same corporate umbrella with its former spin-off and new sibling, Pixar).
On May 29, 2013, Disney set release dates for eight currently untitled animated films through 2018, including four from Disney Animation and four from Pixar Animation.
On March 24, 2014, Disney bought Maker Studios, a YouTube company generating billions of views each year, for over $500 million in order to advertise to viewers in the crucial teenage/young adult demographics.
On May 9, 2014, Disney announced they have reached an agreement with Japan's TV Asahi Corporation to air an English dub of the Doraemon anime series on Disney XD.
On February 5, 2015, it was announced that Tom Staggs had been promoted to COO. On April 4, 2016, Disney announced that Staggs and the company had mutually agreed to part ways, effective May 2016, ending his 26-year career with the company. In August 2016, Disney acquired a 33% stake in BAMTech, a streaming media provider spun out from Major League Baseball's media division. The company announced plans to eventually use its infrastructure for an ESPN over-the-top service. On March 23, 2017, Disney announced that Iger had agreed to a one-year extension of his term as CEO through July 2, 2019, and had agreed to remain with the company as a consultant for three years after stepping down. In August 2017, Disney announced that it had exercised an option to increase its stake in BAMTech to 75%, and would launch a subscription video-on-demand service featuring its entertainment content in 2019, which will replace Netflix as the subscription VOD rightsholder of all Disney theatrical film releases.
In November 2017, Lasseter announced that he was taking a six-month leave of absence from Pixar and Disney Animation after acknowledging "missteps" in his behavior with employees. According to various news outlets, Lasseter had a history of alleged sexual misconduct towards employees. In June 2018, Disney announced that Lasseter would be leaving the company permanently by the end of the year, but would take on a consulting role until then.
On November 6, 2017, it was reported by CNBC that Disney had been in negotiations with 21st Century Fox to merge the two companies. The negotiations had reportedly resumed around Disney acquiring several of Fox's key media assets. Rumors of a nearing deal continued on December 5, 2017, with additional reports suggesting that the FSN regional sports networks would be included in the resulting new company (assets that would likely be aligned with Disney's ESPN division).
On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced its intention to acquire a large majority of 21st Century Fox in a deal worth more than $52 billion in stock. The merger largely includes Fox's entertainment assets, including filmed entertainment, cable entertainment, and direct broadcast satellite divisions in the UK, Europe and Asia, but excludes divisions such as the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations, the Fox News Channel, the Fox Business Network, and Fox Sports 1 and 2, Big Ten Network, all of which will be spun off into an independent company.
However, the deal must still be approved by the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, which had already threatened to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner early in the year. This operation, which would be studied for 12 to 18 months, has been subject to widespread criticism among critics, consumers, and businesses alike due to antitrust concerns, as it would reduce the numbers of film and sports competitors and can lead to a lack of competition. On the other hand, it may also be argued that the operation still leaves many competitors around, and that with its new properties Disney may compete with Netflix in the online streaming market in equal conditions.
On March 14, 2018, a strategic reorganization of the company saw the creation of two business segments, Walt Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products and Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International. Parks and Consumer Products was primarily a merger of Parks and Resorts and Consumer Products and Interactive Media. While Direct-to-Consumer and International took over for Disney International and global sales, distribution and streaming units from Disney-ABC TV Group and Studios Entertainment plus Disney Digital Network. Given that CEO Iger described it as “strategically positioning our businesses for the future”, the New York Times considered the reorganization done in expectation of the 21st Century Fox purchase.
On March 15, 2018, the British network Sky plc entered into a confidentiality agreement with both 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company to assess and obtain certain antitrust plus other regulatory approvals, if necessary.
On April 3, 2018, 21st Century Fox made a proposal to sell Sky News to The Walt Disney Company and to separate it from Sky plc.
On April 12, 2018, Peter Rice revealed that the merger is expected to close by the summer of 2019.
On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice granted Disney approval to acquire assets of 21st Century Fox on the condition that they divest Fox’s 22 regional sports networks.
On February 25, 2020, Disney named Bob Chapek as CEO to succeed Iger, effective immediately. Iger assumed the role of Executive Chairman, under which he would oversee the creative side of the company, while also continuing to serve as Chairman of the Board during the transition period through 2021.
In April 2020, Iger resumed operational duties of the company as executive chairman to help the company during the COVID-19 pandemic and Chapek was appointed to the board of directors. Also in the month, the company announced that it would suspend pay to more than 100,000 employees ("cast members") at Disney Parks, Experiences and Products in response to the COVID-19 recession—reportedly amounting to monthly savings of $500 million for the company—while continuing to provide full healthcare benefits. Reportedly, staff in the United States and France were affected and were encouraged to apply for government support.
Due to the closure of Disney parks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney experienced a 63 percent drop in earnings for the fiscal second quarter of 2020, resulting in a loss of $1.4 billion for the company. Additionally, the Parks, Experiences, and Products division experienced a loss of $1 billion in revenue. In September 2020, the company announced that it will be laying off 28,000 employees in Florida and California. According to Disney's park chairman, Josh D'Amaro, "We initially hoped that this situation would be shortlived and that we would recover quickly and return to normal. Seven months later, we find that has not been the case." According to D’Amaro, two-thirds of the employees reported to be laid off were part-time workers. Then in November, Disney planned to cut 4000 jobs more than announced until the end of March 2021.
In December 2020, Disney named Alan Bergman as chairman of its Disney Studios Content division to oversee its film studios. In March 2021, Disney announced a new division, 20th Television Animation, that would focus on adult animation.
Source and additional information: The Walt Disney Company