Walt Disney Essay

After the death of Walt Disney, The Walt Disney Company was not sure if it was going to survive. Walt Disney died from lung cancer on December 16, 1966. Roy Disney continued his brother’s legacy and became president of The Walt Disney Company. Roy’ s goal was to continue to establish and guide the company in the same way Disney did. Roy continued the plans for the construction of Disneyland Florida, which was Walt’s final project before his death. Roy named the theme park Walt Disney World in honor of his brother, and it opened in 1971. The majority of the park reflected Disney’s vision, yet there were extensions, such as EPCOT, that did not meet Walt’s vision. Walt had hoped that EPCOT, which opened in 1982, would be a town where thousands

During their first few years on the job over 400 employees on strike were fired, and stocks increased from $2 billion to $10 billion from 1983-1987. The new management adopted new policies including, updated characters for movies, higher prices at the theme parks, and developed new technology for animation. They also created four new strategies: to make corporate partnerships, limit exposure to new investments, add more global expansions, and develop corporate synergies, (currently ABC and ESPN). The Walt Disney Company also sold licenses for The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast to be turned into Broadway Musicals. Misfortune struck The Walt Disney Company in 1994 with the death of president Frank Wells, plus the absence of Michael Eisner due to a heart surgery to cure his cardiac disease. That year, Euro Disney suffered huge losses and there was fear of the company

The Walt Disney Company decided to change the way they made movies and stopped animation for a brief period during these hard times. In 1995 they had begun experimenting with live action movies, such as 101 Dalmatians. That same year The Walt Disney Company stunned Wall Street by purchasing Capital Cities/ ABC for $19 million. For a while, The Walt Disney Company was known as the largest media company in the U.S. and had an annual revenue of $16.5 billion. With this new source of income, the company was able to purchase the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway and land to build a resort in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Disneyland was finally finished in 2005, with seven different areas filled with rides. The next year, Disney purchased the film company Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in hope of rebuilding its animation division. In 2009 and 2012, The Walt Disney Company made two other film company purchases, including Marvel for $4 billion and Lucasfilm for $4 billion. These two purchases gave The Walt Disney Company ownership of all Marvel super heroes and the Star Wars films. All of these advancements and challenges that The Walt Disney Company faced helped it reach the current revenue that it has