The Walt Disney Company
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| Disney
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Formerly
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- Disney Brothers Studio
(1923?1926)
- Walt Disney Studio
(1926?1929)
- Walt Disney Productions
(1929?1986)
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Company type
| Public
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Industry
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Predecessors
| Laugh-O-Gram Studio
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Founded
| October 16, 1923
; 100 years ago
(
1923-10-16
)
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Founders
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Headquarters
| Team Disney Building
,
Walt Disney Studios
,
,
U.S.
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Area served
| Worldwide
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Key people
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- Susan Arnold
(Chairwoman)
- Bob Iger
(CEO), John Nallen COO, Viet Dinh CLO, Steve Tomsic CFO, previously 20th Century Fox (now part of Disney) Stacey Snider CEO, John Gelke VP Global Operations, J Young SVP Growth, Gerard Devan Group Executive APAC, Stephanie Gruber Group Executive Television, Christopher Greavu Vice President of Sales.
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Products
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Services
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Revenue
| US$82.722 billion
(2022)
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| US$12.121 billion
(2022)
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| US$3.145 billion
(2022)
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Total assets
| US$203.631 billion
(2022)
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Total equity
| US$98.879 billion
(2022)
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Number of employees
| c.
220,000
(2022)
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Divisions
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Subsidiaries
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Website
| thewaltdisneycompany
.com
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Footnotes / references
[1]
[2]
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The Walt Disney Company
, commonly known as
Disney
, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was started on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as Disney Brothers Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing its name to The Walt Disney Company in 1986. Disney is known for
Mickey Mouse
, Donald Duck,
Winnie the Pooh
,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
,
Cinderella
,
The Little Mermaid
,
The Lion King
,
Mary Poppins
,
Frozen
, Beauty and the Beast, and Pinocchio.
Pixar
famous movies are
Toy Story
and Finding Nemo.
Marvel Comics
well known original comics for
Spider-Man
and
Hulk
. Lucasfilm media franchises such as
Star Wars
and
Indiana Jones
. Jim Henson original franchise like
The Muppets
.
In its early, the company established itself as a leader in the animation industry with the short film
Steamboat Willie
, which used synchronized sound to become the first post-produced sound cartoon and debuted the widely popular character Mickey Mouse, who would go on to become the company's mascot and corporate icon.
Leadership of the Walt Disney Company
The company's main units are
Studio
Entertainment,
Parks
and
Resorts
, Media
Networks
and
Consumer
Products.
This unit, also called the
Walt Disney Studios
, is headed by
Chairman
Dick Cook
. It consists of:
One of the Studios' largest assets lies in
Walt Disney Animation Studios
, which has made a successful string of
animated
movies for almost seven decades. Because of failures with most of their recent additions, it has changed its focus from traditional hand-drawn to
CGI
movies.
Pixar
, also owned by Disney, is one of the first studios to create CGI movies. Since 2009, Disney has bought three movie studios:
Marvel Comics
,
Lucasfilm
and
20th Century Studios
.
On March 20, 2019, The Walt Disney Company bought
21st Century Fox
for $52.4 billion
USD
.
[3]
Worldwide, Disney has eleven theme parks (as of May
2024
):
Disney once owned the
sports
teams, the
Angels
(
baseball
) and the
Mighty Ducks
(
ice hockey
), both based in
Anaheim, California
. These teams were later sold to other people.
Disney Enterprises Inc.
is a
subsidiary
of the company; the name is found in many of its
franchises
.
The
ABC
television
network, which Disney bought in 1995, serves as the center of this unit.
Cable television
channels within it include
Disney Channel
,
Disney XD
,
Freeform
,
ESPN
and
SOAPnet
. It also partly owns Lifetime, A&E and E!.
Buena Vista Television
, responsible for the
syndication
of many Disney series, produces some of its own as well:
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
,
Live with Regis and Kelly
, and
Ebert & Roeper
.
Merchandising
and
licensing
within the company are overseen in this division.
Disney Publishing Worldwide
, part of this unit, has Disney Press, Disney Editions and Hyperion Books as its
brands
.
It once owned the
Disney Store
shopping
chain until 2004, when it sold all the stores to
The Children's Place
.
- 1923: Disney is founded
- 1925: First appearance of
Pegleg Pete
cartoon,
Alice Solves the Puzzle
- 1928: First
Mickey Mouse
cartoon,
Plane
Crazy
- 1928: First appearance of
Minnie Mouse
cartoon,
Plane Crazy
- 1928: First official Mickey Mouse cartoon,
Steamboat Willie
- 1929: Start of the
Silly Symphonies
:
The
Skeleton
Dance
- 1929: First Silly Symphony episode,
The Skeleton Dance
- 1930: First appearance of
Pluto
cartoon,
The Chain Gang
- 1932: First appearance of
Goofy
cartoon,
Mickey's Revue
(
Columbia Pictures
Studios)
- 1932: First full-colour cartoon,
Flowers and Trees
- 1933: First appearance of
Fifi the Peke
cartoons,
Puppy Love
- 1933: First Donald Duck Theme Music #1,
The Steeplechase
- 1933: First
Pluto's Devil
cartoons,
Mickey's Pal Pluto
- 1933: First
Pluto's Angel
cartoons,
Mickey's Pal Pluto
- 1934: First Walt Disney segment,
The Hot Choco-Late Soldiers
- 1934: First
Donald Duck
cartoon,
The Wise Little
Hen
- 1937: First
Daisy Duck
cartoon,
Don Donald
- 1937: First
Pluto, Jr.
cartoons.
Pluto's Quin-Puplets
- 1937: First full-length animated movie,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- 1938: First
Huey, Dewey and Louie
cartoons,
Donald's Nephews
- 1939: First Goofy episode,
Goofy and Wilbur
- 1939: First Mickey Mouse Theme #1,
The Standard Parade
- 1940: First Disney movie failed at the box office,
Pinocchio
- 1940: First Pluto episode,
Bone Trouble
- 1940: First Donald Duck Theme #2,
Window Cleaners
- 1940: First Goofy Theme #1,
Goofy's Glider
- 1940: First Pluto #1,
Private Parate
- 1940: Studio moves to
Burbank, California
- 1940: Fantasia's debut
- 1941: Dumbo's debut
- 1942: Bambi's debut
- 1942: First
P.J.
cartoons,
Bellboy Donald
- 1943: First
Scrooge McDuck
cartoons,
The Spirit of '43
- 1943: First
Chip 'n' Dale
cartoons,
Private Pluto
- 1944: First Pluto Theme #2,
Springtime for Pluto
- 1945: First
Dutch
cartoons,
Canine Casanova
- 1946:
Song of the South
'
s
debut
- 1947: First Pluto Theme #3,
Pluto's Housewarming
- 1947: First Donald Duck Theme #3,
Donald's Dilemma
- 1947: First Mickey Mouse #2,
Mickey's Delayed Date
- 1950: Cinderella's debut
- 1950: First Goofy Theme #2,
Motor Mania
- 1954:
Walt Disney anthology series
starts
- 1955:
Disneyland
opens in
Anaheim, California
- 1955: First
widescreen
cartoon,
Lady and the Tramp
- 1964: Mary Poppins becomes the first Disney movie to be nominated for
Best Picture
- 1966:
Walt Disney
dies; his brother
Roy
takes over the studio
- 1967: Last animated movie from producer Walt Disney,
The Jungle Book
- 1971:
Walt Disney World
opens in
Orlando, Florida
- 1979:
Don Bluth
and friends leave the studio
- 1979:
The Black Hole
, Disney's first
PG
movie, is a failure with
critics
.
- 1981: Disney's last movie that has any of the Nine Old Men as the animators:
The Fox and the Hound
- 1983:
Disney Channel
is launched
- 1984:
Touchstone Pictures
starts with
Splash
- 1984: Michael Eisner became the CEO of Disney
- 1984:
Disney Television Animation
is founded
- 1985: Disney's first animated movie that was rated PG:
The Black Cauldron
- 1985: Disney's first two animated series for television
The Adventures of the Gummi Bears
and
The Wuzzles
premiere on NBC and CBS’ Saturday Morning lineups.
- 1987: Disney animated television series
DuckTales
- 1988: Who framed Roger Rabbit's debut
- 1988: DisneyToons Studios opens
- 1989:
The Little Mermaid
brings new life in the
animation
division as well as the genre; studio gets its first
Oscar
in eighteen years for this movie
- 1990:
Hollywood Pictures
starts with
Arachnophobia
- 1991:
Beauty and the Beast
becomes the first animated movie to be nominated for
Best Picture
- 1992: Disney releases
Aladdin
- 1993: The Nightmare Before Christmas's debut
- 1993: Disney buys the
Miramax
movie studio.
- 1994: Studio president Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter crash
- 1994:
The Lion King
is released. It becomes the highest grossing hand drawn animated movie of all time.
- 1994: Jeffrey Katzenberg resigns from Disney.
- 1995: Disney acquires
American Broadcasting Company
(ABC) and
ESPN
- 1995: First
Pixar
movie,
Toy Story
- 2001: Disney Channel television series
Lizzie McGuire
- 2001: First
Pixar
movie that was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Monsters Inc.
- 2003: First
Pixar
movie that won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, Finding Nemo
- 2003:
Pirates of the Caribbean
becomes studio's first family movie with a rating of
PG-13
- 2004:
Home on the Range
is Disney's last traditionally animated movie to use CAPS
- 2004: First
Pixar
movie that is rated PG, The Incredibles
- 2005: Disneyland celebrates fiftieth
birthday
- 2005: Michael Eisner resigns from Disney. He was replaced by Bob Iger.
- 2005:The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe's debut
- 2005: First self-made
CGI
movie,
Chicken Little
- 2009: Up becomes the first Pixar animated feature to be nominated for
Best Picture
- 2009: Disney buys comic book publisher
Marvel Comics
for 4 billion US dollars.
- 2010: Disney sells one of its movie studios,
Miramax Films
, to Filmyard Holdings.
- 2012: Disney buys movie studio
Lucasfilm
for 4 billion US dollars.
- 2013: Disney releases
Frozen
, which becomes the studio's first non-Pixar movie to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
- 2017: Disney agrees to buy most of Fox’s assets for 52 billion US dollars.
- 2018: DisneyToon Studios was closed down
- 2018: John Lasseter left Disney
- 2018:
Touchstone Pictures
was closed down
- 2019: Disney completes its purchase of
21st Century Fox
and
its assets
.
- 2019: Ed Catmull retires
- 2019: Disney creates their own streaming service,
Disney+
(including
Pixar
,
Marvel Comics
and
Star Wars
) in November 2019.
- 2020: Disney renames 20th Century Fox to "20th Century Studios", to avoid confusion with
Fox Corporation
.
- 2020: Bob Iger resigns as the CEO of Disney. He was replaced by Bob Chapek as CEO.
- 2021: Disney closes its radio station,
Radio Disney
.
- 2021:
Disney+
creates
the Star hub
outside of the US, which has movies and television programs for adults.
- 2021: The Walt Disney Company Latin America rebrands all the channels with the Fox name in Latin America, to Star.
- 2022: The Walt Disney Company Latin America closes Star Premium in January 31st, 2022.
- 2022: Bob Chapek got fired, and Bob Iger returned as a CEO of Disney.
- On November 12, 2019, Disney launched their own streaming service,
Disney+
. The platform features almost all of their cartoons, short movies, movies and TV shows along with those made by properties bought by Disney, such as Disney,
The Muppets
,
Pixar
,
Lucasfilm
, and
Marvel
. It also features original content, such as several
Marvel
and
Star Wars
programs.
R rated
movies and shows appear on
Hulu
and
the international Star hub
, and movies, cartoons, and TV shows that feature
smoking
,
swear words
,
violence
, and stereotypical depictions of
African Americans
,
Native Americans
,
Asians
, and other
minorities
come with a warning.
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Production
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Distribution
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Disney Music Group
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Disney Theatrical Group
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- Disney on Ice
- Disney Theatrical Productions
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Studio Production Services
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Former units
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Key people
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Related
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- El Capitan Theatre
- Feld Entertainment
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Majors
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Mini-majors
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Horizontal
production/
distribution
companies
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Slate
partners
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Production/
distribution
companies
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