When the company was just starting its development, Walt Disney specifically identified for himself the direction in which he will develop his product – this is family entertainment. The artist invented his own secret of creativity: a cartoon must, first of all, be kind.
Today, The Walt Disney Company (Walt Disney Company) is a huge holding company operating in 173 countries, whose staff includes more than 195 thousand people around the world. The company owns 1,300 television channels broadcasting in various languages. The most famous of them are namely ABC, ESPN, and Disney Channel.
Capital Cities/ABC
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial TV network founded in 1943. In 1986, ABC had been sold to The Capital Cities for $3.5 billion. In 1996, Capital Cities / ABC was acquired by The Walt Disney Corporation and renamed the network to ABC Inc. The network has had a long history since the 50s. Disney also got one of the most successful sports networks in the world (History Channel and ESPN).
Pixar Animation Studios
If we hear of Pixar, we instantly picture a super-successful Steve Jobse’s company that produced animated masterpieces like Toy Story, Cars, WALL-E, and much more. Pixar hasn’t always been that popular. Pixar was created in 1979 by George Lucas (then called The Graphics Group and a Lucasfilm Computer division) after the successful launch of his Star Wars. In the 80s, George Lucas sold the business for nothing! Steve Jobs has acquired it for just $5 million! The company is estimated at tens of billions today and is part of the Disney conglomerate. The studio was acquired by Walt Disney Pictures for $7.4 billion in 2006 after lengthy and complicated negotiations, making Steve Jobs the biggest shareholder of Disney.
21st Century Fox (TFCF Corp.)
The famous multinational American media holding emerged in 2013 as a result of News Company media holding being reorganized. According to the Disney website, the Walt Disney Corporation has closed a deal to buy part of 21st Century Fox holding’s assets; the transaction value is around $71 billion. The company said the agreement came into effect on March 20, 2019, evening.
Disney, which already holds the Star Wars movie rights, will also get rights to the animated series The Simpsons and the Avatar movie. In reality, the deal would lead to the return of the Marvel, X-Men, and Avengers franchises, because Fox had rights to some of the characters in those universes when Disney purchased Marvel in 2009. Film and television studio Twentieth Century Fox and National Geographic television channel had also gone under Disney’s control.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
On October 30, 2012, it was announced that Disney became the owner of LucasFilm Ltd, which created six episodes of the popular science fiction franchise Star Wars. The sole owner of LucasFilm Ltd was its founder George Lucas. Among the company’s divisions are the prominent visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Skywalker Sound recording studio, and video game developer LucasArts. Disney acquired Lucas’s company for $4.05 billion, while at the same time getting rights to shoot sequels of its famous movies.
Marvel Entertainment
In the 1960s, Marvel Comics, along with DC Comics, became one of the two biggest American comic book companies. The company’s growth did not go unnoticed, and in 2009, The Walt Disney Corporation, recognizing the immense potential of superhero movies, acquired Marvel Entertainment for $4.6 billion and became a distributor of Marvel Studios films in 2012.