The Pros And Cons Of Walt Disney

The Walt Disney Company or as it is more commonly referred to ‘Disney’ was co-founded by Walter Elias Disney an American entrepreneur and animator and his brother Roy in California in 1923. Since its founding Disney has been established as one of the greatest and most successful media and entertainment companies to date. In its Early days Disney was recognised for the creation of the trademark character Mickey Mouse, for the creation of the first feature length film animation in the year 1934, for launching ‘Disneyland’ the longest running primetime series in multimedia history and of course one does not mention Disney without thinking of the magical world that is Disneyland. By the 1960’s Disney was the clear leader in the entertainment industry

His main aim as President was to get Disney’s animation scene back to where it once was. Iger began negotiations with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull of Pixar Animation Studios regarding their future together. Iger and Jobs began with striking a deal which allowed Disneys and ABC networks shows to be sold over the internet through iTunes. This was in favour of both Steve Jobs as it allowed him to integrate his business further into the entertainment industry and Disney allowing their hugely popular shows such as ‘Desperate Housewives and lost to be streamed online. The success of this deal brought about talks of merger and in 2006 the deal was made allowing Steve Jobs to become largest Shareholder of Disney with over 6 percent of the company and allowing Jobs to pocket over $3.5 billion from the sale and Pixar’s John Lasseter also became chief creative officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Lasseter was a huge asset to Disney having Directed huge movies such as ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Monsters Inc.’

But perhaps the one reason why the merger of Disney and Pixar occurred was due to Robert Iger’s willingness to succeed. He bought into Pixars visions and understood that it was a tricky situation to mix to groups of staff and two completely different systems. He agreed to a list of conditions which allowed Pixar to protect their creative culture, even stating that the Pixar sign on the front gate would be left unchanged. Robert Igers

Not only did owning Pixar give them the opportunity to produce world class films but it also gave them access to Pixar’s characters and animations which could be used as another marketing technique in its theme parks.

Disney was the last to jump on the bandwagon with regards to the animation scene so they needed a major advancement to restore their reputation and collaborating with Pixar gave them the opportunity to compete with rivals such as DreamWorks.

Lastly by purchasing Pixar, Disney gained an added benefit from an increase in market shares. This allowed Disney to have greater control of the market and thus increase their profits.

9 years later it seems Disney are now setting out on their own ventures without Pixar and these films such as ‘Tangled’ which grossed over $600 million at worldwide box office and the renowned ‘Frozen’ are becoming consistently stronger. ‘They are back in a big way’ editor in chief of box-office Phil Contrino says yet of course this wouldn’t be occurring if Disney never merged with Pixar back in