Disney is dying (or already dead) and how to save it

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This is an interesting video.

Disney has almost "died" multiple times throughout its history and it always seems to bounce back.

During World War II, the studio was literally taken over by the U.S. Army and also struggled due to the closure of foreign markets. Things were so bad that by the time "Cinderella" (1950) was in production, Walt told his animators, "Boys, if 'Cinderella' doesn't make it, we're through." And "Cinderella" was a huge hit.

In 1984, there was an attempted hostile takeover by corporate raiders who wanted to split up the company and sell off the parts. This led Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney to usher in Michael Eisner and Frank Wells as the new heads of the company.

Shortly after they took over, Disney released "The Black Cauldron" (1985), which was such a flop, they almost considered shutting down the animation studio. Just 4 years later, they released "The Little Mermaid," which kicked off the Disney Renaissance.

In 1992, Disney opened Euro Disneyland (now Disneyland Paris). The park's initial financial failure had a ripple effect, slashing budgets throughout the company.

By the mid-2000s, Disney's in-house animated films like "Home on the Range" and "Chicken Little" were no longer capturing the popular zeitgeist. Their new "budget parks" like California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios Paris were also poorly received. DreamWorks Animation was now a major competitor with their "Shrek" franchise, built on Jeffrey Katzenberg's spite for Disney. And Eisner had alienated Disney's creative collaborators. Pixar was considering taking their popular films to a different distributor. This got far enough along that Disney set up a studio called Circle 7, whose purpose was to make sequels to the Pixar films that Disney already owned the rights to.

Eisner was kicked out and replaced with Robert Iger, who bought Pixar and put their "Brain Trust" in charge of all Disney animation. This eventually led to the Disney Revival, which arguably peaked in 2014 with "Frozen."

Besides the factors that the video discusses, one thing I find interesting about the current "death" of Disney is how the company spent years chasing a certain demographic, only to alienate them.

During Eisner's time, he was concerned that his teenage son, Breck, considered Disneyland "lame." So he partnered with George Lucas to bring in the sort of non-Disney properties that demographic would enjoy, creating popular attractions like Star Tours and Indiana Jones Adventure.

The film studio, meanwhile, had been unsuccessfully trying for years to make something that would capture the "Breck Eisner"-type teenage male demographic. Films like "The Black Hole" (1979), "Dick Tracy" (1990) and "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" (2001), to name a few, none of which brought in the numbers Disney was looking for. So eventually, Iger basically said, "Let's just buy what they already like," which led to wild success with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and "Force Awakens."

With more recent films, it feels like Disney said, "Well, we've got that demographic's money. We don't need to impress them anymore. Who else's money can we get?" And basically put all their efforts into targeting the "highly politically engaged college student that hates escapism" demographic. (I'm sure they have a more technical term for it.)

Meanwhile, the animation studio seems like they've eliminated or downplayed a lot of the elements that were always popular in their films. Romance, comic relief animal sidekicks and over-the-top villains, to name a few. We haven't had a proper Disney villain since, arguably, Mother Gothel in "Tangled" (2010).

Maybe make some original movies and concepts instead of making "live action" remakes of older films. Bring back traditional 2-D animation.

I say let it die. The mouse is a monopoly

Anaheim would likely end up looking like a third-world tourist site after a coup attempt on the local government.

Idk i don't know that it is...like pleanty of star wars fans did not like how the concluded the last three movies, and my brother was one of them. But I mentioned to him I was enjoying some of the shows and he said he was too, like he really liked the Mandalorian. He did not like the movies after disney took over and said he didnt get how they could mess up the movies like that but still make great spin off shows. That being said I liked the disney star wars movies just fine but to each their own.

So anyways idk that disney is dying now that they err own star wars and marvel and even national geographic...like I do not think they are going away any time soon. Plus they have a video game 'dreamlight valley' that is probably also drawing in money.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 01 Sep 2023, 2:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

I kind of agree with that, I'd love to see like a new 2-D animated films, I get CGI and 3d characters is what it's all about now but I miss the days of 2-D films. That being said I am curious about trying out some of the older 2-d disney movies on our 4k smart t.v to see how it will look, we did watch fantasia recently(sounded like a good idea when we were drunk so we put it on) and it looked clearer than we'd ever seen it on the older t.vs, like we could actually see the guy in between bits who'd try to describe what the animations were depicting...though me and my boyfriend could not get over the silly radio talk of the time accent he was using and kept laughing at that, but also noticed as kids when we watched it you never could actually see him clearly but now you can. But I am for sure on board with bringing back 2D at least sometimes.

Like come on Disney give us millenials something 2D to look at, not every animated movie has to be pixel animation.

Honestly, I'm with you on that. lol.

As much as I hate Disney the corporation, they've made some beautiful things, like the Disney Rennaissance and some bad things, like the racist one and Lightyear. I just feel like if they let the animators do what they wanted, and explored like Sony did, they could get their spark back.
When I'm older, I want to join Disney and put them back on the right track. (Here's hoping I don't get fired like Tim Burton for being too dark)

Also, the Live-action remakes make me sick. They can die for all I care.