The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion — more than any film, album, or video game in history — making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment ever created.
Acquired
The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion — more than any film, album, or video game in history — making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment ever created.
TL;DR
Disney's transformation from a near-bankrupt animation studio in 1984 into the defining 21st-century media empire is the subject of this epic Acquired deep-dive. Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal trace the Eisner-Wells renaissance [1] — David Rosenthal "In 14 days in September 1984, Disney went from leaderless chaos to hiring arguably the greatest management duo in media history. Frank Well…" 11:33 , the accidental goldmine of ESPN [2] — David Rosenthal "Disney's decision to release its classics on VHS was heresy to the family — they expected it to cannibalize theatrical demand. Instead, it …" 39:32 , the Pixar acquisition that saved two companies [3] — David Rosenthal "Steve Jobs knew if Toy Story succeeded, Disney would try to renegotiate the Pixar deal from a position of power. The only way Pixar could n…" 2:06:00 , and the streaming pivot that cost billions but may have been the only viable path. The single most useful takeaway: the structural advantages that made Disney obscenely profitable — cable affiliate fees, home video, theatrical blockbusters — are largely gone, and the company must now earn every dollar the hard way.
Disney Part II covers the greatest turnaround in media history under Michael Eisner and Frank Wells — the Disney Renaissance, ESPN's acquisition, the Pixar deal, Marvel and Lucasfilm — through to the streaming pivot, COVID, Bob Chapek's tenure, and Iger's return, analyzing whether the company can thrive in the age of Netflix and YouTube.
Ben and David open with a rapid-fire litany of the Walt Disney Company's staggering scope: Mickey and Minnie, Ariel and Simba, the Avengers, ESPN, ABC, the Simpsons, Avatar, National Geographic, 10 Broadway musicals, Industrial Light and Magic, a private island in the Bahamas, and — for a time — an NHL team, a baseball team, and a 1936 British ocean liner. The catalog is simultaneously absurd and awe-inspiring. Against that backdrop, they lay out the central strategic tension Disney faces: a company that built its extraordinary profitability on cable affiliate fees, home video, and theatrical blockbusters is now watching all three of those structural advantages erode simultaneously, while trying to build a Netflix competitor from scratch. The episode promises to trace exactly how this sprawling empire came to be, and to answer whether the future can possibly match the past. Sponsors Sierra and Sentry are briefly introduced before the history begins.
Ben and David open with a rapid-fire litany of the Walt Disney Company's staggering scope: Mickey and Minnie, Ariel and Simba, the Avengers, ESPN, ABC, the Simpsons, Avatar, National Geographic, 10 Broadway musicals, Industrial Light and Magic, a private island in the Bahamas, and — for a time — an NHL team, a baseball team, and a 1936 British ocean liner. The catalog is simultaneously absurd and awe-inspiring. Against that backdrop, they lay out the central strategic tension Disney faces: a company that built its extraordinary profitability on cable affiliate fees, home video, and theatrical blockbusters is now watching all three of those structural advantages erode simultaneously, while trying to build a Netflix competitor from scratch. The episode promises to trace exactly how this sprawling empire came to be, and to answer whether the future can possibly match the past. Sponsors Sierra and Sentry are briefly introduced before the history begins.
The episode proper begins at ground zero: 1984, a year of compounding crises for the Walt Disney Company. Disney's stock had collapsed from $82 to $52, and by every financial measure the company was worth more dead than alive — corporate raiders held live offers to sell the film library (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) to MGM and the parks to hotel operators. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney worth more dead than alive: In 1984, Disney's stock dropped from $82 to $52 and the company was worth more if broken up and sold for…" 07:07 Internal family drama was rampant, with Roy E. Disney's son Roy E. having resigned from the board and scheming to oust Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller as CEO. The only defensive move management could execute was a dilutive deal with the Bass family of Fort Worth, Texas — oil and gas money managed by Richard Rainwater — granting them 25% of the company to serve as a pseudo-controlling shareholder bulwark against the raiders. Meanwhile, the creative core was effectively dead: in 1984, Disney generated $250 million in profit from parks and consumer products and a mere $2 million from film and TV. [2] — Ben Gilbert "$2M from film vs $250M from parks (1984): In 1984, Disney generated $250 million in profit from parks and consumer products but only $2 mil…" 08:13 The famous flywheel was completely broken. But in a small basement classroom at CalArts — the school Walt himself had funded in his will — John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Docter were being trained in animation, waiting for their moment.
The boardroom coup of September 7th, 1984 forced out Ron Miller, but Disney was now leaderless in double crisis. Within 14 days, they executed one of the most consequential hirings in corporate history: Frank Wells, the recently retired president of Warner Brothers, and Michael Eisner, the hottest studio executive in Hollywood who had just been passed over for the top job at Paramount. [1] — David Rosenthal "In 14 days in September 1984, Disney went from leaderless chaos to hiring arguably the greatest management duo in media history. Frank Well…" 11:33 Their deal structure was elegant — Eisner as chairman, Wells as president, both reporting separately to the board — reflecting Frank's extraordinary selflessness and setting up a partnership that would hold for a decade. Jeffrey Katzenberg was quickly brought over from Paramount to run the studios. Eisner's 'singles and doubles' philosophy — keep production costs low, avoid A-list stars, prioritize script quality — had already produced Indiana Jones, Grease, and Saturday Night Fever at Paramount. Codified in a deliberately leaked memo ('we have no obligation to make art, but to make money'), it quickly generated Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Three Men and a Baby, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, and Pretty Woman for Disney. [2] — David Rosenthal "27 of first 33 movies profitable: Under Eisner's singles-and-doubles strategy, 27 of the first 33 movies Disney made under his tenure were …" 23:13 The results were immediate: 27 of their first 33 films were profitable, a hit rate David compares to losing money on only 6 out of 33 venture capital investments. Meanwhile, Eisner and Wells raised parking fees at Disney World from $1, generating instant cash flow that would fund the next decade's investments.
The animation turnaround that defined the 'Disney Renaissance' is the product of several converging forces: Roy E. Disney's insistence that animation be protected, Peter Schneider's fearless examination of every broken process, and most crucially, Howard Ashman's unique insight that animated Disney films could be Broadway musicals. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Howard Ashman had one insight nobody else had: animated Disney films should be Broadway musicals. The third song of every great musical is …" 28:48 Ashman observed that in every great musical, the third song has the leading character sitting alone explaining their desire to the audience — 'Part of Your World' is Ariel doing exactly that. Combined with Alan Menken's compositions, this formula produced The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast ($330M on a $25M budget), Aladdin ($500M on $28M), and The Lion King ($750M on $45M) [2] — David Rosenthal "Aladdin: 30M VHS tapes = $900M: Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross merchandise sales…" 41:57 — the latter becoming the most successful traditionally hand-drawn animated film in history. CAPS (Computer Animated Production System), a $10M software investment developed with Pixar, eliminated the physical inking and painting process and replaced the physical multiplane camera with unlimited virtual planes — enabling richer visuals at lower cost. The Lion King was brought back to the Burbank lot in triumph, and Michael Eisner announced a new animation building on the very land originally intended for Disneyland.
With Disney Animation back in full flourish, Eisner and Wells spent the late 1980s and early 1990s extending the flywheel in ways Walt had never imagined. Home video was the most contentious: the Disney family viewed releasing classics on VHS as heresy — a permanent devaluation of the vault. Eisner had to convene the entire family to approve Pinocchio as a test on a limited 1.7-million-unit run at $29.95. It sold out instantly. Cinderella followed with 6 million units and $200 million in gross revenue. Then the Renaissance films hit: Aladdin sold 30 million tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in sales, with Disney keeping $17-20 in profit per tape. The Lion King sold 32 million units — the best-selling VHS of all time — at roughly $1 billion in gross sales. [2] — David Rosenthal "Aladdin: 30M VHS tapes = $900M: Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross merchandise sales…" 41:57 Home video quickly became a billion-dollar profit center, second only to the parks. Disney retail stores — over 750 in malls across America — turned Saturday mall trips into branded Disney experiences. And then there was Broadway: The Lion King musical, directed with extraordinary artistry, has been running for 30 years and has grossed over $11 billion across Broadway, London, and touring companies — more than any film, album, or video game ever made. [1] — David Rosenthal "The Lion King musical has been running for 30 years across Broadway, London's West End, and global touring companies. It has grossed over $…" 45:10 It averages $350 million in revenue for Disney every single year.
The year 1994 marked the peak of Disney's financial triumph — The Lion King was the most successful animated film in history — and simultaneously the beginning of its unraveling. On Easter Sunday, Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter crash while heliskiing, robbing Disney of its operational conscience and peacekeeping force. Three months later, Michael Eisner required emergency quadruple bypass surgery, leaving the company leaderless during a period of maximum complexity. In the middle of this, Jeffrey Katzenberg — who believed Eisner had promised him the number-2 role — departed, convinced that Disney would not honor that commitment. He didn't just leave quietly: he sued Disney for bonuses reportedly settled at $280 million and co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, setting up operations in Glendale directly adjacent to Disney and beginning to poach Disney's animators. Howard Ashman had already died from AIDS, leaving the musical innovation engine of the Renaissance with no architect. Disney Animation, from this point forward, would produce Pocahontas, Hunchback, Hercules, and eventually Treasure Planet and Chicken Little — films that drew a generation blank. Michael Eisner consolidated his position by becoming his own number-2, declaring himself both chairman and effective COO, before making what both hosts call a catastrophic hire in bringing Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz in as president — a role that lasted just over a year before ending in a $140 million severance.
The deal happened the way many of the best ones do: a chance encounter at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in 1995, where Eisner ran into Warren Buffett (Berkshire's largest holding was ABC Cap Cities) and Tom Murphy, the CEO. Within days they had a $19 billion deal — at the time the second-largest acquisition in US history. The stated rationale was smart: the FCC had just repealed rules preventing networks from owning their programming, opening the door for vertical integration. Disney had ABC, a broadcast network, to distribute its content in the same way Walt Disney had originally partnered with ABC in the 1950s to promote Disneyland. But what nobody realized at the time — including Roy E. Disney, who later admitted nobody would have called ESPN 'the weightlifter of the group' — was that buried inside ABC was a cable asset unlike anything in existence. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Nobody would have told you when that deal, the ABC deal, was being made that ESPN was going to turn out to be the weightlifter of the group…" 1:11:04 ESPN had invented the affiliate fee model: charging cable operators per subscriber rather than taking carriage money from them. Starting under a dollar per subscriber, ESPN grew its leverage by acquiring long-term sports rights and threatening to pull them in carriage disputes — causing subscribers to riot at their cable operators' doors. By 2015, ESPN's affiliate fee was $9.42 per subscriber per month. Between 2008 and 2011, ESPN alone generated 60% of Disney's entire operating income, over $5 billion annually. [2] — Ben Gilbert "ESPN = 60% of Disney operating income (2008–11): Between 2008 and 2011, Disney's cable networks segment — roughly three-quarters of which w…" 1:24:14 It funded Pixar. It funded Marvel. It funded Lucasfilm. The cash from ESPN was the structural engine that allowed Disney to make every other good decision it made over the next 25 years.
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a study in strategic drift. Eisner made shrewd moves (declining AOL's merger overtures before the dot-com implosion wiped out Time Warner) and disastrous ones (acquiring Infoseek and creating a Disney Internet assets tracking stock at the peak of dot-com mania). Disney Animation continued its descent, releasing films so forgettable that an entire generation — anyone born after about 1990 — has no Disney film from their childhood like Aladdin or The Lion King. September 11th, 2001 brought an immediate crisis: parks business went to near-zero, consumer spending cratered, and the Bass family — Disney's largest shareholders and Eisner's strongest supporters — faced margin calls on other investments and sold a $2 billion block of Disney shares in a single transaction. Overnight, Eisner's shareholder support vanished. The stock had already been declining for years. Then Roy E. Disney, keeper of the Disney spirit, resigned from the board in November 2003 and launched Savedisney.com — a first-of-its-kind public grassroots shareholder campaign — calling on Eisner to resign. His resignation letter cited seven specific failures including the creative brain drain, micromanagement, destruction of the Pixar relationship, and lack of a succession plan. At Disney's March 2004 annual shareholder meeting — held, hilariously, in Philadelphia, Comcast's headquarters — 43% of shareholders withheld support from Eisner.
The February 2004 Investor Day was supposed to be a moment of stabilization — Pirates of the Caribbean had succeeded, revenue was up 19% for the quarter, and management would shore up support for Eisner ahead of the March shareholder vote. Instead, the team woke up to news that Comcast had launched a $54 billion all-stock hostile takeover bid. The timing was almost comic: a cable company — the most hated category of corporation in America, thanks in large part to ESPN's carriage wars — was attempting to seize control of the Walt Disney Company. Comcast's real motivation was clear: acquiring ESPN would eliminate their most powerful and expensive supplier in a single stroke. Disney's board met in emergency session and removed Eisner as chairman while allowing him to remain CEO; the stock jumped in response; Comcast's stock had fallen enough that they formally withdrew the bid weeks later. But Roy and Stanley Gold's Save Disney campaign wasn't satisfied. Eisner ultimately announced he would depart when his contract expired in 2006. The board launched a high-profile CEO search promising external candidates — and one internal candidate, Bob Iger, who insisted the press release name him specifically to prevent a corporate power vacuum.
Bob Iger's path to the CEO job was improbable: he was the number-two to an unpopular, outgoing incumbent, which ordinarily disqualifies a candidate. His solution was to hire a political campaign consultant and reframe the competition entirely around the future. [1] — David Rosenthal "Bob Iger won the Disney CEO job against an exhaustive external search because he completely reframed the contest. He didn't defend the Eisn…" 1:42:31 His three pillars were precisely calibrated: prioritize the creation of high-quality branded content (acknowledging that Disney Animation needed saving); embrace technology fully rather than fighting it (while every other studio was suing YouTube, Iger was promising to use digital distribution as an asset); and expand global reach into China and India (home to a third of the world's population and almost no Disney presence). The board — which had expected an external candidate to win — voted for Iger in March 2005, and his tenure was accelerated to begin in September of that year. His first call on confirmation day was to Steve Jobs at Pixar, who answered with characteristic skepticism ('I don't see how things will be any different') — but the door was open. That phone call would lead to the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition and the revival of Disney's creative core.
The Pixar story is one of the great collision-of-trajectories narratives in business history. Ed Catmull wanted to do animation but didn't trust his artistic chops, so he built computer graphics tools instead — at Utah, alongside future luminaries Alan Kay, Jim Clark, John Warnock, and Nolan Bushnell — before joining Lucasfilm to push computer graphics for filmmaking. John Lasseter had dreamed of being a Disney animator his entire life, attended CalArts, got hired by Disney, and was fired the same day he pitched using computer animation for his directing debut — a 'faster and cheaper' question he couldn't answer. [1] — Ben Gilbert "George Lucas needed cash for his divorce and didn't want to give his ex-wife equity in Lucasfilm, so he sold the graphics group. John Lasse…" 1:44:57 The two met on the Queen Mary at an industry conference; Lasseter was available, Catmull needed a storyteller. George Lucas, meanwhile, needed cash for his divorce and didn't want to give his ex-wife equity in Lucasfilm, so he sold the graphics division. Steve Jobs — simultaneously being pushed out of Apple — bought it for $5 million, named it Pixar, and owned 70% from day one. Over nine years he pumped in $54 million in operating cash to keep it alive. The early years were spent making short films to demonstrate the technology, selling hardware to hospitals for MRI rendering, and developing RenderMan software. The first check to Pixar Inc. came from Disney — to build the CAPS system for 2D animation — making Disney the unwitting patron of its greatest future competitor and then savior.
The Toy Story story reels famously crashed at a December 1993 Disney screening — Katzenberg hated it, the characters were too mean — and Pixar had two to three weeks to rebuild from scratch or lose the production funding entirely. The rebuilt version was good enough. Over 1994, the film took shape. By 1995, Steve Jobs had concluded that if Toy Story succeeded, Eisner would understand that Pixar had just become Disney's greatest nightmare — a genuine animation competitor — and would move to lock them up. The solution: go public the week after Toy Story opens. It worked. Toy Story grossed nearly $400 million — the highest-grossing film of 1995, period [1] — David Rosenthal "Steve Jobs knew if Toy Story succeeded, Disney would try to renegotiate the Pixar deal from a position of power. The only way Pixar could n…" 2:06:00 — and on November 29th, one week after opening, Pixar closed its IPO day at a $1.5 billion market cap. Jobs' 78% stake was worth approximately $1.2 billion. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Steve Jobs bought Pixar for $5M, sold for $1.2B stake: Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for $5 million in 1986, ultimately pumped …" 2:07:21 The Toy Story IPO, not Apple, made Steve Jobs a billionaire. The subsequent five-picture renegotiation worked briefly — Disney went 50/50 on production budgets — but began to fracture over sequels (Toy Story 2 grossed $500 million), Eisner's congressional testimony attacking Apple's 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' campaign, and a leaked Eisner board memo calling the Finding Nemo reel 'a bad movie' that would give Disney negotiating leverage. In January 2004, Pixar pulled the plug on negotiations and issued a Steve-written press release: 'It's a shame that Disney won't be participating in Pixar's future successes.'
Bob Iger had watched the opening parade at Hong Kong Disneyland's launch in 2005 and realized there were no Disney-generated characters in the parade from the last decade — only Pixar characters. The path was clear: Pixar needed to take over Disney Animation, not just be owned by it. His call to Steve Jobs opened surprisingly quickly into deal discussions. [1] — David Rosenthal "The morning Disney was about to announce the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition, Steve Jobs took Bob Iger on a private walk around the Emeryvil…" 2:34:05 The terms: $7.4 billion in Disney stock, making Jobs the largest individual shareholder at ~7.7%, and Lasseter and Catmull would commute to Burbank two days a week to run Disney Animation while keeping Pixar intact in Emeryville with its own culture, email addresses, and creative autonomy. Both Lasseter and Catmull had been given the option to simply shut down Disney Animation — and chose instead to try to save it. On the morning of the acquisition announcement in January 2006, Jobs walked Iger around the Pixar campus privately and disclosed that his cancer had returned and he didn't know how long he had to live, offering Iger the option to back out. [2] — David Rosenthal "Pixar acquired for $7.4B; Steve Jobs gets 7.7% of Disney: Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in Disney stock in 2006, making Steve Jobs…" 2:37:17 Iger chose to proceed. Jobs would live another five and a half years. The acquisition proved definitively correct: Frozen, Tangled, Zootopia, Moana, Inside Out, and Up followed. During one of their last dinners before Jobs died, he raised a glass: 'Look what we did. We saved two companies.' Pixar couldn't have survived independently without Jobs. Disney couldn't have survived without Pixar reviving its creative core.
After Pixar, the Disney board was effectively sold: find great IP franchises with running room and acquire them. Marvel came in 2009 for $4 billion — widely derided as paying too much for a comic book company whose best characters (Spider-Man, X-Men) were already licensed to Sony and Fox. What remained were 'leftover' characters like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. But Kevin Feige and Disney's creative team built something unprecedented: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a meticulously planned interconnected franchise machine that over three phases of films culminated in Avengers: Endgame grossing $2.8 billion — the second-highest-grossing film in history. By 2025, the MCU had generated nearly $32 billion at the global box office. [1] — Ben Gilbert "ESPN paid for Pixar, Marvel & Lucasfilm combined: ESPN's cable profits funded all three of Disney's landmark acquisitions — Pixar at $7.4B,…" 2:57:37 Lucasfilm followed in 2012 for another $4 billion, acquiring George Lucas's mythological masterwork in Star Wars. Both acquisitions are smaller price tags than Pixar but generate comparably complex ROI debates. Ben Gilbert's observation cuts to the core: all three acquisitions combined — $7.4B plus $4B plus $4B, roughly $15.4 billion — represent approximately four years of ESPN's then-operating profit.[2] ESPN, the accidental acquisition nobody called 'the weightlifter,' funded the deliberate strategic acquisitions that defined Disney's 21st-century identity. Disney's market cap hit $200 billion under Iger's first decade, up 4x from the $50 billion he inherited.
August 4, 2015 is the precise moment the golden age of traditional media ended. For years, everyone had been talking about cord cutting — Netflix was already a $50 billion market cap company — but the affiliate fee revenue numbers kept going up, masking the structural deterioration. Then Eisner's great accidental purchase began to crack. Bob Iger mentioned 'modest ESPN subscriber losses due to cord cutting' in Disney's Q3 2015 earnings call — a careful, almost euphemistic phrase — and the market reacted as if a dam had broken. [1] — David Rosenthal "On August 4, 2015, Bob Iger mentioned on an earnings call that ESPN was experiencing 'modest subscriber losses due to cord cutting.' The ne…" 3:01:01 Disney stock dropped 10% the next day. Fox, Time Warner, and Discovery fell similarly. Viacom, viewed as even more indexed to cable, dropped over 20%. Disney had enjoyed an all-time high stock price that very same day. It has, effectively, never recovered: Disney's stock price in 2026 remains approximately flat to its level that August day, while the S&P 500 has returned 3.5x over the same period. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney stock flat for 11 years vs S&P up 3.5x: Disney's stock price in 2026 is roughly where it was in 2015, while the S&P 500 has returned…" 3:04:46 The structural forces that had made Disney fantastically profitable — cable bundle pricing power, the affiliate fee escalator, guaranteed household penetration — had begun to reverse. Everything Disney would do over the next decade was a response to this single data point.
After the 2015 earnings-call earthquake, Disney made a decisive choice: stand and fight streaming directly rather than cede distribution to Netflix. The key infrastructure purchase was BAMTech — the streaming technology spin-out of Major League Baseball that had already built HBO Now's backend and the NHL's streaming service. Disney acquired a 33% stake in 2016 and accelerated to a controlling stake in 2017. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 Simultaneously, they announced termination of their Netflix content deal — worth hundreds of millions in pure-margin annual revenue — and the launch of ESPN+ in 2018 and Disney+ in 2019. Just as this was coming together, Rupert Murdoch called with an offer: Fox had concluded its entertainment library was worth more inside a streaming platform than standing alone, and the deal made sense at Disney's stated price of $52 billion. Then Comcast lobbed in a competing bid, forcing Disney to pay $71.3 billion — a full $19 billion more, representing 40% of Disney's total market cap at the time. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney stock flat for 11 years vs S&P up 3.5x: Disney's stock price in 2026 is roughly where it was in 2015, while the S&P 500 has returned…" 3:04:46 The assets received — Simpsons, Avatar, FX, a third of Hulu, India distribution — were strategically valuable but fell well short of justifying the premium. Ben and David judge it the weakest of Iger's four big acquisitions, with the India assets eventually written down in the 2024 Reliance merger at a fraction of their Fox-deal valuation.
The Disney+ Investor Day in April 2019 was a masterclass in product clarity: the vault open, $6.99/month, all the IP in one place. Wall Street loved it; the stock jumped 11% the next day, 20% by month's end. [1] — David Rosenthal "Disney+ hit 100M subscribers in 16 months: Disney had projected 60–90 million Disney+ subscribers within 5 years; COVID accelerated this an…" 3:47:46 The launch in November brought 10 million signups in 24 hours. Then COVID hit — and Bob Iger, who had retired in February 2020 and handed the CEO role to Bob Chapek, watched as parks went to literal zero revenue while Disney+ subscriptions exploded. Disney had projected 60–90 million subscribers in 5 years; COVID delivered 100 million in 16 months. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 The stock hit $360 billion in March 2021 at this announcement. But the structural problems were being masked. Disney Animation and Pixar were in leadership transitions after Lasseter's exit. Lucasfilm's Star Wars sequels had no cohesive vision between directors. The post-Endgame Marvel slate was creatively exhausted and commercially disappointing. The streaming operating model required constant content volume — the exact opposite of Disney's brand promise. Under Chapek, additional self-inflicted chaos accumulated: Imagineer relocations that were then cancelled, the Florida political battle, a Star Wars hotel that opened and closed within a year. The Q4 2022 earnings call exposed all the streaming losses and management uncertainty, and the board fired Chapek, returning Iger from retirement.
Bob Iger's second stint focused on three priorities: restoring streaming to profitability (achieved — Disney+ turned a ~$1 billion operating profit in the most recent fiscal year after roughly $13 billion in cumulative losses), managing ESPN's decline while preserving its cash flow (separating it into its own segment in October 2023 and doing an NFL deal that gave the league 10% of ESPN), and doubling down on physical parks as the company's most durable competitive moat. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Parks = 60% of Disney operating income today: Disney Parks and Experiences now generate approximately 60% of the company's operating income…" 3:58:05 The $60 billion parks and cruises investment over the next decade — with $30 billion earmarked for domestic parks — reflects a clear-eyed view that the old structural advantages (cable, home video, theatrical) have eroded and parks represent the most defensible, least-algorithmically-disruptable extension of the Disney brand and flywheel. The company's most recent financials show $94 billion in revenue and $13 billion in net income, with Parks and Experiences generating $10 billion in operating income (60% of the total) versus Sports (ESPN) at $3 billion (16%) and Entertainment at $4.7 billion (the rest). [2] — Ben Gilbert "Theatrical revenue = just 3% of Disney total: Disney's theatrical distribution segment — movies in cinemas — now generates only $2.6 billio…" 3:58:36 Theatrical distribution — the business most people think of as core Disney — generates $2.6 billion, just 3% of total revenue. Josh D'Amaro, head of parks, was named CEO in early 2026; Bob Iger would stay on as a senior advisor through year-end.
Bob Iger's second stint focused on three priorities: restoring streaming to profitability (achieved — Disney+ turned a ~$1 billion operating profit in the most recent fiscal year after roughly $13 billion in cumulative losses), managing ESPN's decline while preserving its cash flow (separating it into its own segment in October 2023 and doing an NFL deal that gave the league 10% of ESPN), and doubling down on physical parks as the company's most durable competitive moat. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Parks = 60% of Disney operating income today: Disney Parks and Experiences now generate approximately 60% of the company's operating income…" 3:58:05 The $60 billion parks and cruises investment over the next decade — with $30 billion earmarked for domestic parks — reflects a clear-eyed view that the old structural advantages (cable, home video, theatrical) have eroded and parks represent the most defensible, least-algorithmically-disruptable extension of the Disney brand and flywheel. The company's most recent financials show $94 billion in revenue and $13 billion in net income, with Parks and Experiences generating $10 billion in operating income (60% of the total) versus Sports (ESPN) at $3 billion (16%) and Entertainment at $4.7 billion (the rest). [2] — Ben Gilbert "Theatrical revenue = just 3% of Disney total: Disney's theatrical distribution segment — movies in cinemas — now generates only $2.6 billio…" 3:58:36 Theatrical distribution — the business most people think of as core Disney — generates $2.6 billion, just 3% of total revenue. Josh D'Amaro, head of parks, was named CEO in early 2026; Bob Iger would stay on as a senior advisor through year-end.
Ben and David spend this chapter stress-testing their thesis against the counterfactual: what if Disney had stayed on Netflix, collected hundreds of millions in high-margin licensing revenue, and avoided the $13 billion in streaming losses? Ben's instinct was that Disney+ should have been a boutique premium service rather than a Netflix competitor. But the fatal flaw in that vision is algorithmic: if Netflix controls whether a family discovers Encanto or Moana, and Netflix's recommendation engine is optimized for Netflix's subscriber retention rather than Disney's park visits, Disney loses control of its own discovery funnel. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 The strategic imperative to own direct consumer relationships — to know who is watching, to ensure franchise content reaches maximum eyeballs, to protect the flywheel — required building Disney+. But the cost was steep: building a tier-1 streaming service demands constant content output, which dilutes the brand, depreciates existing IP through overexposure, and eliminates the theatrical event-movie model that seeded new franchise characters into culture. The winners in streaming — Netflix (scale), YouTube (free, creator-led) — are structurally suited to it in ways Disney, with its brand premium and content scarcity model, fundamentally is not. The 'kitchen sink' nature of winning streaming is the exact opposite of the Disney brand promise.
Ben opens the bear case with a pointed question: has Disney produced a single new franchise in the last decade that achieved commercial success? Everything that generated real box office after 2016 — Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther, the Star Wars films — was harvesting existing IP. The original Pixar films of the last decade (Soul, Turning Red, Elemental, Encanto) are beloved but didn't set box office records. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 More structurally, ESPN's affiliate fee model is permanently impaired, box office is permanently smaller, and streaming is permanently less profitable than cable was. David counters with a fundamentally optimistic thesis: these franchises are the generational myths of our society. You cannot kill them. Every time they're at their lowest point, they surprise us — just as Disney Animation surprised the world in 1989 after being declared dead. And there are clearly great IP franchises in the world right now that would benefit from Disney's flywheel canvas. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Parks and Experiences now generate $10 billion in operating income — nearly 60% of the entire company — while ESPN has declined to 16%. Dis…" 3:56:35 The most obvious: Bluey, the Australian animated show that already has Disney+ placement and park presence, rhyming with Pixar's early trajectory. And Nintendo — at a $50 billion market cap, down 50% from its peak, arguably combining the IP quality of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm in Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon — is the acquisition that could define Disney's next 20 years the way ESPN defined the last 25.
Ben's final synthesis argues that the extraordinary profitability of Disney's 1990s and 2005–2019 eras was primarily a function of structural tailwinds — guaranteed cable bundle penetration, home video resale windows, relatively uncrowded theatrical markets — and not primarily a function of management genius, however real that was. Those tailwinds are now headwinds, and Disney must earn its profits in a far more competitive, lower-margin environment where Netflix has structural scale advantages, YouTube commands free video, and sports rights costs perpetually escalate. Disney will be fine and may thrive under careful management, but the era of quasi-automatic prosperity is over. David's counterpoint is equally compelling: Disney has survived and reversed multiple near-death experiences (1941, 1966, 1984, 2001, 2004) because it is the custodian of our culture's defining myths. Frozen, Toy Story, Star Wars, and the Avengers are handed down generation to generation like fairy tales. They will outlast any single strategic era. The carve-outs include Warby Parker's Transitions XtraActive lenses, Michael Arndt's Toy Story 3 story lecture on YouTube, and the Golden State Valkyries WNBA franchise. Extensive thank-yous are given to Bob Iger, Josh D'Amaro, Pete Docter, Ed Catmull, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kristen Bell, and dozens of other contributors who helped the hosts prepare.
Ben's final synthesis argues that the extraordinary profitability of Disney's 1990s and 2005–2019 eras was primarily a function of structural tailwinds — guaranteed cable bundle penetration, home video resale windows, relatively uncrowded theatrical markets — and not primarily a function of management genius, however real that was. Those tailwinds are now headwinds, and Disney must earn its profits in a far more competitive, lower-margin environment where Netflix has structural scale advantages, YouTube commands free video, and sports rights costs perpetually escalate. Disney will be fine and may thrive under careful management, but the era of quasi-automatic prosperity is over. David's counterpoint is equally compelling: Disney has survived and reversed multiple near-death experiences (1941, 1966, 1984, 2001, 2004) because it is the custodian of our culture's defining myths. Frozen, Toy Story, Star Wars, and the Avengers are handed down generation to generation like fairy tales. They will outlast any single strategic era. The carve-outs include Warby Parker's Transitions XtraActive lenses, Michael Arndt's Toy Story 3 story lecture on YouTube, and the Golden State Valkyries WNBA franchise. Extensive thank-yous are given to Bob Iger, Josh D'Amaro, Pete Docter, Ed Catmull, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kristen Bell, and dozens of other contributors who helped the hosts prepare.
Chapter 3 · 05:07
The episode proper begins at ground zero: 1984, a year of compounding crises for the Walt Disney Company. Disney's stock had collapsed from $82 to $52, and by every financial measure the company was worth more dead than alive — corporate raiders held live offers to sell the film library (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) to MGM and the parks to hotel operators. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney worth more dead than alive: In 1984, Disney's stock dropped from $82 to $52 and the company was worth more if broken up and sold for…" 07:07 Internal family drama was rampant, with Roy E. Disney's son Roy E. having resigned from the board and scheming to oust Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller as CEO. The only defensive move management could execute was a dilutive deal with the Bass family of Fort Worth, Texas — oil and gas money managed by Richard Rainwater — granting them 25% of the company to serve as a pseudo-controlling shareholder bulwark against the raiders. Meanwhile, the creative core was effectively dead: in 1984, Disney generated $250 million in profit from parks and consumer products and a mere $2 million from film and TV. [2] — Ben Gilbert "$2M from film vs $250M from parks (1984): In 1984, Disney generated $250 million in profit from parks and consumer products but only $2 mil…" 08:13 The famous flywheel was completely broken. But in a small basement classroom at CalArts — the school Walt himself had funded in his will — John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Docter were being trained in animation, waiting for their moment.
In 1984, Disney's stock had crashed from $82 to $52 and the company was worth more if sold for parts than kept running. Corporate raiders had live offers to sell the film library to MGM and the parks to hotel operators. The only defense was to dilute shareholders by handing 25% of the company to Texas oil money.
In 1984, Disney's stock dropped from $82 to $52 and the company was worth more if broken up and sold for parts than as a going concern.
In 1984, Disney generated $250 million in profit from parks and consumer products but only $2 million from film and TV — its creative core was essentially broken.
While Disney was imploding, the entire future of animation was sitting in a basement classroom at CalArts — the school Walt Disney himself funded in his will. John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, and future Pixar leaders were all trained there, hired by Disney, then fired or driven out, only to return and save the company.
Chapter 4 · 11:33
The boardroom coup of September 7th, 1984 forced out Ron Miller, but Disney was now leaderless in double crisis. Within 14 days, they executed one of the most consequential hirings in corporate history: Frank Wells, the recently retired president of Warner Brothers, and Michael Eisner, the hottest studio executive in Hollywood who had just been passed over for the top job at Paramount. [1] — David Rosenthal "In 14 days in September 1984, Disney went from leaderless chaos to hiring arguably the greatest management duo in media history. Frank Well…" 11:33 Their deal structure was elegant — Eisner as chairman, Wells as president, both reporting separately to the board — reflecting Frank's extraordinary selflessness and setting up a partnership that would hold for a decade. Jeffrey Katzenberg was quickly brought over from Paramount to run the studios. Eisner's 'singles and doubles' philosophy — keep production costs low, avoid A-list stars, prioritize script quality — had already produced Indiana Jones, Grease, and Saturday Night Fever at Paramount. Codified in a deliberately leaked memo ('we have no obligation to make art, but to make money'), it quickly generated Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Three Men and a Baby, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, and Pretty Woman for Disney. [2] — David Rosenthal "27 of first 33 movies profitable: Under Eisner's singles-and-doubles strategy, 27 of the first 33 movies Disney made under his tenure were …" 23:13 The results were immediate: 27 of their first 33 films were profitable, a hit rate David compares to losing money on only 6 out of 33 venture capital investments. Meanwhile, Eisner and Wells raised parking fees at Disney World from $1, generating instant cash flow that would fund the next decade's investments.
In 14 days in September 1984, Disney went from leaderless chaos to hiring arguably the greatest management duo in media history. Frank Wells was available from retirement at Warner Brothers. Michael Eisner had just been passed over at Paramount. Their deal structure — Eisner as chairman, Wells as president, both reporting to the board — would hold the company together for a decade.
Eisner's Paramount strategy — later called 'high concept' — was ruthlessly simple: keep production budgets low, avoid A-list stars, and let script quality drive the decision. He codified it in a famous memo: 'We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement, but to make money.' It produced Indiana Jones, Grease, and Footloose, and then it turned Disney into a profitable studio almost overnight.
Under Eisner's singles-and-doubles strategy, 27 of the first 33 movies Disney made under his tenure were profitable — a hit rate comparable to only losing money on 6 out of 33 venture investments.
Chapter 5 · 24:30
The animation turnaround that defined the 'Disney Renaissance' is the product of several converging forces: Roy E. Disney's insistence that animation be protected, Peter Schneider's fearless examination of every broken process, and most crucially, Howard Ashman's unique insight that animated Disney films could be Broadway musicals. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Howard Ashman had one insight nobody else had: animated Disney films should be Broadway musicals. The third song of every great musical is …" 28:48 Ashman observed that in every great musical, the third song has the leading character sitting alone explaining their desire to the audience — 'Part of Your World' is Ariel doing exactly that. Combined with Alan Menken's compositions, this formula produced The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast ($330M on a $25M budget), Aladdin ($500M on $28M), and The Lion King ($750M on $45M) [2] — David Rosenthal "Aladdin: 30M VHS tapes = $900M: Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross merchandise sales…" 41:57 — the latter becoming the most successful traditionally hand-drawn animated film in history. CAPS (Computer Animated Production System), a $10M software investment developed with Pixar, eliminated the physical inking and painting process and replaced the physical multiplane camera with unlimited virtual planes — enabling richer visuals at lower cost. The Lion King was brought back to the Burbank lot in triumph, and Michael Eisner announced a new animation building on the very land originally intended for Disneyland.
Howard Ashman had one insight nobody else had: animated Disney films should be Broadway musicals. The third song of every great musical is the character sitting alone explaining what they want. That's 'Part of Your World.' That structure — combined with Alan Menken's compositions — generated Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, and turned Disney Animation into the most profitable creative engine in entertainment history.
Chapter 6 · 37:33
With Disney Animation back in full flourish, Eisner and Wells spent the late 1980s and early 1990s extending the flywheel in ways Walt had never imagined. Home video was the most contentious: the Disney family viewed releasing classics on VHS as heresy — a permanent devaluation of the vault. Eisner had to convene the entire family to approve Pinocchio as a test on a limited 1.7-million-unit run at $29.95. It sold out instantly. Cinderella followed with 6 million units and $200 million in gross revenue. Then the Renaissance films hit: Aladdin sold 30 million tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in sales, with Disney keeping $17-20 in profit per tape. The Lion King sold 32 million units — the best-selling VHS of all time — at roughly $1 billion in gross sales. [2] — David Rosenthal "Aladdin: 30M VHS tapes = $900M: Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross merchandise sales…" 41:57 Home video quickly became a billion-dollar profit center, second only to the parks. Disney retail stores — over 750 in malls across America — turned Saturday mall trips into branded Disney experiences. And then there was Broadway: The Lion King musical, directed with extraordinary artistry, has been running for 30 years and has grossed over $11 billion across Broadway, London, and touring companies — more than any film, album, or video game ever made. [1] — David Rosenthal "The Lion King musical has been running for 30 years across Broadway, London's West End, and global touring companies. It has grossed over $…" 45:10 It averages $350 million in revenue for Disney every single year.
Disney's decision to release its classics on VHS was heresy to the family — they expected it to cannibalize theatrical demand. Instead, it created a second box office from nothing. Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993. The Lion King sold 32 million, the best-selling VHS of all time. Disney was keeping $17-20 per tape in profit. Home video became a billion-dollar business almost overnight.
Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross merchandise sales at retail.
The Lion King home video release sold 32 million VHS units — the best-selling VHS of all time — generating roughly $1 billion in tape sales alone.
The Lion King musical has been running for 30 years across Broadway, London's West End, and global touring companies. It has grossed over $11 billion in total revenue — more than Avatar, more than Avengers: Endgame, more than any album, more than any video game. It generates an average of $350 million in revenue every single year. Disney owns it outright.
The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion in its 30-year run, making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment in history across any medium.
Chapter 7 · 54:31
The year 1994 marked the peak of Disney's financial triumph — The Lion King was the most successful animated film in history — and simultaneously the beginning of its unraveling. On Easter Sunday, Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter crash while heliskiing, robbing Disney of its operational conscience and peacekeeping force. Three months later, Michael Eisner required emergency quadruple bypass surgery, leaving the company leaderless during a period of maximum complexity. In the middle of this, Jeffrey Katzenberg — who believed Eisner had promised him the number-2 role — departed, convinced that Disney would not honor that commitment. He didn't just leave quietly: he sued Disney for bonuses reportedly settled at $280 million and co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, setting up operations in Glendale directly adjacent to Disney and beginning to poach Disney's animators. Howard Ashman had already died from AIDS, leaving the musical innovation engine of the Renaissance with no architect. Disney Animation, from this point forward, would produce Pocahontas, Hunchback, Hercules, and eventually Treasure Planet and Chicken Little — films that drew a generation blank. Michael Eisner consolidated his position by becoming his own number-2, declaring himself both chairman and effective COO, before making what both hosts call a catastrophic hire in bringing Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz in as president — a role that lasted just over a year before ending in a $140 million severance.
ESPN was buried inside ABC when Disney acquired Capital Cities in 1996 for $19 billion. Nobody thought it was the main attraction. The affiliate fee model — charging cable operators per subscriber — was still under a dollar at the time. It would grow to $9.42 per subscriber per month. Between 2008 and 2011, ESPN alone generated 60% of Disney's entire operating income. It paid for Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm.
Chapter 8 · 1:05:55
The deal happened the way many of the best ones do: a chance encounter at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in 1995, where Eisner ran into Warren Buffett (Berkshire's largest holding was ABC Cap Cities) and Tom Murphy, the CEO. Within days they had a $19 billion deal — at the time the second-largest acquisition in US history. The stated rationale was smart: the FCC had just repealed rules preventing networks from owning their programming, opening the door for vertical integration. Disney had ABC, a broadcast network, to distribute its content in the same way Walt Disney had originally partnered with ABC in the 1950s to promote Disneyland. But what nobody realized at the time — including Roy E. Disney, who later admitted nobody would have called ESPN 'the weightlifter of the group' — was that buried inside ABC was a cable asset unlike anything in existence. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Nobody would have told you when that deal, the ABC deal, was being made that ESPN was going to turn out to be the weightlifter of the group…" 1:11:04 ESPN had invented the affiliate fee model: charging cable operators per subscriber rather than taking carriage money from them. Starting under a dollar per subscriber, ESPN grew its leverage by acquiring long-term sports rights and threatening to pull them in carriage disputes — causing subscribers to riot at their cable operators' doors. By 2015, ESPN's affiliate fee was $9.42 per subscriber per month. Between 2008 and 2011, ESPN alone generated 60% of Disney's entire operating income, over $5 billion annually. [2] — Ben Gilbert "ESPN = 60% of Disney operating income (2008–11): Between 2008 and 2011, Disney's cable networks segment — roughly three-quarters of which w…" 1:24:14 It funded Pixar. It funded Marvel. It funded Lucasfilm. The cash from ESPN was the structural engine that allowed Disney to make every other good decision it made over the next 25 years.
ESPN charges cable operators $9.42 per subscriber per month in affiliate fees — the single highest paid channel by far — generating billions in contractually guaranteed cash.
Chapter 9 · 1:21:26
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a study in strategic drift. Eisner made shrewd moves (declining AOL's merger overtures before the dot-com implosion wiped out Time Warner) and disastrous ones (acquiring Infoseek and creating a Disney Internet assets tracking stock at the peak of dot-com mania). Disney Animation continued its descent, releasing films so forgettable that an entire generation — anyone born after about 1990 — has no Disney film from their childhood like Aladdin or The Lion King. September 11th, 2001 brought an immediate crisis: parks business went to near-zero, consumer spending cratered, and the Bass family — Disney's largest shareholders and Eisner's strongest supporters — faced margin calls on other investments and sold a $2 billion block of Disney shares in a single transaction. Overnight, Eisner's shareholder support vanished. The stock had already been declining for years. Then Roy E. Disney, keeper of the Disney spirit, resigned from the board in November 2003 and launched Savedisney.com — a first-of-its-kind public grassroots shareholder campaign — calling on Eisner to resign. His resignation letter cited seven specific failures including the creative brain drain, micromanagement, destruction of the Pixar relationship, and lack of a succession plan. At Disney's March 2004 annual shareholder meeting — held, hilariously, in Philadelphia, Comcast's headquarters — 43% of shareholders withheld support from Eisner.
Between 2008 and 2011, Disney's cable networks segment — roughly three-quarters of which was ESPN — accounted for 60% of the entire company's operating income, over $5 billion in profit.
In 2004, Comcast launched a $54 billion hostile takeover bid for Disney — a cable company attempting to acquire the most storied entertainment brand in America.
Chapter 11 · 1:41:18
Bob Iger's path to the CEO job was improbable: he was the number-two to an unpopular, outgoing incumbent, which ordinarily disqualifies a candidate. His solution was to hire a political campaign consultant and reframe the competition entirely around the future. [1] — David Rosenthal "Bob Iger won the Disney CEO job against an exhaustive external search because he completely reframed the contest. He didn't defend the Eisn…" 1:42:31 His three pillars were precisely calibrated: prioritize the creation of high-quality branded content (acknowledging that Disney Animation needed saving); embrace technology fully rather than fighting it (while every other studio was suing YouTube, Iger was promising to use digital distribution as an asset); and expand global reach into China and India (home to a third of the world's population and almost no Disney presence). The board — which had expected an external candidate to win — voted for Iger in March 2005, and his tenure was accelerated to begin in September of that year. His first call on confirmation day was to Steve Jobs at Pixar, who answered with characteristic skepticism ('I don't see how things will be any different') — but the door was open. That phone call would lead to the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition and the revival of Disney's creative core.
Bob Iger won the Disney CEO job against an exhaustive external search because he completely reframed the contest. He didn't defend the Eisner years — he proposed a future. Three pillars: make only the best content, embrace technology rather than fight it (when every other studio was suing YouTube), and expand globally into China and India. It was exactly right and he executed on all three.
George Lucas needed cash for his divorce and didn't want to give his ex-wife equity in Lucasfilm, so he sold the graphics group. John Lasseter had just been fired from Disney for proposing computer animation on the same day as his pitch meeting. Ed Catmull had been building 3D graphics tools at Lucasfilm without a storyteller. They met on the Queen Mary. Steve Jobs, recently ousted from Apple, bought the whole thing for $5 million.
Chapter 12 · 1:45:37
The Pixar story is one of the great collision-of-trajectories narratives in business history. Ed Catmull wanted to do animation but didn't trust his artistic chops, so he built computer graphics tools instead — at Utah, alongside future luminaries Alan Kay, Jim Clark, John Warnock, and Nolan Bushnell — before joining Lucasfilm to push computer graphics for filmmaking. John Lasseter had dreamed of being a Disney animator his entire life, attended CalArts, got hired by Disney, and was fired the same day he pitched using computer animation for his directing debut — a 'faster and cheaper' question he couldn't answer. [1] — Ben Gilbert "George Lucas needed cash for his divorce and didn't want to give his ex-wife equity in Lucasfilm, so he sold the graphics group. John Lasse…" 1:44:57 The two met on the Queen Mary at an industry conference; Lasseter was available, Catmull needed a storyteller. George Lucas, meanwhile, needed cash for his divorce and didn't want to give his ex-wife equity in Lucasfilm, so he sold the graphics division. Steve Jobs — simultaneously being pushed out of Apple — bought it for $5 million, named it Pixar, and owned 70% from day one. Over nine years he pumped in $54 million in operating cash to keep it alive. The early years were spent making short films to demonstrate the technology, selling hardware to hospitals for MRI rendering, and developing RenderMan software. The first check to Pixar Inc. came from Disney — to build the CAPS system for 2D animation — making Disney the unwitting patron of its greatest future competitor and then savior.
Making a Pixar film is not drawing faster with computers. Animators build an entire universe in 3D, then calculate every pixel of every frame — each one taking 1-2 hours of render time on a farm of 117 clustered Sun Microsystems servers. They make a full rough-cut 2D movie in storyboards before touching 3D, because if the story doesn't work in 2D, animation won't save it. The whole process takes 4+ years.
Chapter 13 · 2:03:11
The Toy Story story reels famously crashed at a December 1993 Disney screening — Katzenberg hated it, the characters were too mean — and Pixar had two to three weeks to rebuild from scratch or lose the production funding entirely. The rebuilt version was good enough. Over 1994, the film took shape. By 1995, Steve Jobs had concluded that if Toy Story succeeded, Eisner would understand that Pixar had just become Disney's greatest nightmare — a genuine animation competitor — and would move to lock them up. The solution: go public the week after Toy Story opens. It worked. Toy Story grossed nearly $400 million — the highest-grossing film of 1995, period [1] — David Rosenthal "Steve Jobs knew if Toy Story succeeded, Disney would try to renegotiate the Pixar deal from a position of power. The only way Pixar could n…" 2:06:00 — and on November 29th, one week after opening, Pixar closed its IPO day at a $1.5 billion market cap. Jobs' 78% stake was worth approximately $1.2 billion. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Steve Jobs bought Pixar for $5M, sold for $1.2B stake: Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for $5 million in 1986, ultimately pumped …" 2:07:21 The Toy Story IPO, not Apple, made Steve Jobs a billionaire. The subsequent five-picture renegotiation worked briefly — Disney went 50/50 on production budgets — but began to fracture over sequels (Toy Story 2 grossed $500 million), Eisner's congressional testimony attacking Apple's 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' campaign, and a leaked Eisner board memo calling the Finding Nemo reel 'a bad movie' that would give Disney negotiating leverage. In January 2004, Pixar pulled the plug on negotiations and issued a Steve-written press release: 'It's a shame that Disney won't be participating in Pixar's future successes.'
Steve Jobs knew if Toy Story succeeded, Disney would try to renegotiate the Pixar deal from a position of power. The only way Pixar could negotiate as an equal was to have capital. So he timed the IPO for one week after Toy Story's opening. It was the largest IPO of 1995, bigger than Netscape. Jobs' 78% stake was worth $1.2 billion on day one. The Toy Story IPO — not Apple — is how Steve Jobs became a billionaire.
Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for $5 million in 1986, ultimately pumped in $54 million over 9 years, and on IPO day in 1995 his 78% stake was worth approximately $1.2 billion — making the Pixar IPO the moment Jobs became a billionaire.
Chapter 14 · 2:24:30
Bob Iger had watched the opening parade at Hong Kong Disneyland's launch in 2005 and realized there were no Disney-generated characters in the parade from the last decade — only Pixar characters. The path was clear: Pixar needed to take over Disney Animation, not just be owned by it. His call to Steve Jobs opened surprisingly quickly into deal discussions. [1] — David Rosenthal "The morning Disney was about to announce the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition, Steve Jobs took Bob Iger on a private walk around the Emeryvil…" 2:34:05 The terms: $7.4 billion in Disney stock, making Jobs the largest individual shareholder at ~7.7%, and Lasseter and Catmull would commute to Burbank two days a week to run Disney Animation while keeping Pixar intact in Emeryville with its own culture, email addresses, and creative autonomy. Both Lasseter and Catmull had been given the option to simply shut down Disney Animation — and chose instead to try to save it. On the morning of the acquisition announcement in January 2006, Jobs walked Iger around the Pixar campus privately and disclosed that his cancer had returned and he didn't know how long he had to live, offering Iger the option to back out. [2] — David Rosenthal "Pixar acquired for $7.4B; Steve Jobs gets 7.7% of Disney: Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in Disney stock in 2006, making Steve Jobs…" 2:37:17 Iger chose to proceed. Jobs would live another five and a half years. The acquisition proved definitively correct: Frozen, Tangled, Zootopia, Moana, Inside Out, and Up followed. During one of their last dinners before Jobs died, he raised a glass: 'Look what we did. We saved two companies.' Pixar couldn't have survived independently without Jobs. Disney couldn't have survived without Pixar reviving its creative core.
The Finding Nemo DVD sold 65 million copies at $30 each, generating $2 billion in home video gross — the peak of the DVD era.
The morning Disney was about to announce the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition, Steve Jobs took Bob Iger on a private walk around the Emeryville campus and told him: 'My cancer is back and I don't know how much longer I'm going to live.' He offered Iger an option to back out. Iger had 30 minutes to decide. He kept the deal — and Jobs lived another five and a half years. This was why Pixar sold.
Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in Disney stock in 2006, making Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder of Disney with approximately a 7.7% stake.
Chapter 15 · 2:46:39
After Pixar, the Disney board was effectively sold: find great IP franchises with running room and acquire them. Marvel came in 2009 for $4 billion — widely derided as paying too much for a comic book company whose best characters (Spider-Man, X-Men) were already licensed to Sony and Fox. What remained were 'leftover' characters like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. But Kevin Feige and Disney's creative team built something unprecedented: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a meticulously planned interconnected franchise machine that over three phases of films culminated in Avengers: Endgame grossing $2.8 billion — the second-highest-grossing film in history. By 2025, the MCU had generated nearly $32 billion at the global box office. [1] — Ben Gilbert "ESPN paid for Pixar, Marvel & Lucasfilm combined: ESPN's cable profits funded all three of Disney's landmark acquisitions — Pixar at $7.4B,…" 2:57:37 Lucasfilm followed in 2012 for another $4 billion, acquiring George Lucas's mythological masterwork in Star Wars. Both acquisitions are smaller price tags than Pixar but generate comparably complex ROI debates. Ben Gilbert's observation cuts to the core: all three acquisitions combined — $7.4B plus $4B plus $4B, roughly $15.4 billion — represent approximately four years of ESPN's then-operating profit.[2] ESPN, the accidental acquisition nobody called 'the weightlifter,' funded the deliberate strategic acquisitions that defined Disney's 21st-century identity. Disney's market cap hit $200 billion under Iger's first decade, up 4x from the $50 billion he inherited.
ESPN's cable profits funded all three of Disney's landmark acquisitions — Pixar at $7.4B, Marvel at $4B, and Lucasfilm at $4B — in roughly 4 years of ESPN cash flow.
By 2025, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had generated nearly $32 billion at the global box office across 37+ films, the most successful film franchise in history.
On August 4, 2015, Bob Iger mentioned on an earnings call that ESPN was experiencing 'modest subscriber losses due to cord cutting.' The next day Disney stock dropped 10%. Fox, Time Warner, and Discovery fell similarly. Viacom dropped over 20%. Disney's stock price today is still roughly where it was that day. The structural forces that made Disney and every traditional media company fantastically profitable had begun to reverse — permanently.
Chapter 16 · 3:03:01
August 4, 2015 is the precise moment the golden age of traditional media ended. For years, everyone had been talking about cord cutting — Netflix was already a $50 billion market cap company — but the affiliate fee revenue numbers kept going up, masking the structural deterioration. Then Eisner's great accidental purchase began to crack. Bob Iger mentioned 'modest ESPN subscriber losses due to cord cutting' in Disney's Q3 2015 earnings call — a careful, almost euphemistic phrase — and the market reacted as if a dam had broken. [1] — David Rosenthal "On August 4, 2015, Bob Iger mentioned on an earnings call that ESPN was experiencing 'modest subscriber losses due to cord cutting.' The ne…" 3:01:01 Disney stock dropped 10% the next day. Fox, Time Warner, and Discovery fell similarly. Viacom, viewed as even more indexed to cable, dropped over 20%. Disney had enjoyed an all-time high stock price that very same day. It has, effectively, never recovered: Disney's stock price in 2026 remains approximately flat to its level that August day, while the S&P 500 has returned 3.5x over the same period. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney stock flat for 11 years vs S&P up 3.5x: Disney's stock price in 2026 is roughly where it was in 2015, while the S&P 500 has returned…" 3:04:46 The structural forces that had made Disney fantastically profitable — cable bundle pricing power, the affiliate fee escalator, guaranteed household penetration — had begun to reverse. Everything Disney would do over the next decade was a response to this single data point.
Disney's stock price in 2026 is roughly where it was in 2015, while the S&P 500 has returned approximately 3.5x over the same period.
The Frozen soundtrack was the best-selling album of 2014, selling 10 million copies including streaming equivalents — beating Taylor Swift's 1989.
Chapter 17 · 3:06:30
After the 2015 earnings-call earthquake, Disney made a decisive choice: stand and fight streaming directly rather than cede distribution to Netflix. The key infrastructure purchase was BAMTech — the streaming technology spin-out of Major League Baseball that had already built HBO Now's backend and the NHL's streaming service. Disney acquired a 33% stake in 2016 and accelerated to a controlling stake in 2017. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 Simultaneously, they announced termination of their Netflix content deal — worth hundreds of millions in pure-margin annual revenue — and the launch of ESPN+ in 2018 and Disney+ in 2019. Just as this was coming together, Rupert Murdoch called with an offer: Fox had concluded its entertainment library was worth more inside a streaming platform than standing alone, and the deal made sense at Disney's stated price of $52 billion. Then Comcast lobbed in a competing bid, forcing Disney to pay $71.3 billion — a full $19 billion more, representing 40% of Disney's total market cap at the time. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney stock flat for 11 years vs S&P up 3.5x: Disney's stock price in 2026 is roughly where it was in 2015, while the S&P 500 has returned…" 3:04:46 The assets received — Simpsons, Avatar, FX, a third of Hulu, India distribution — were strategically valuable but fell well short of justifying the premium. Ben and David judge it the weakest of Iger's four big acquisitions, with the India assets eventually written down in the 2024 Reliance merger at a fraction of their Fox-deal valuation.
Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's characters. But streaming required volume — constant new content — which is the exact opposite of Disney's brand promise: scarce, perfect, iconic content. Every low-quality sequel on Disney+ destroys the brand equity that makes the parks, the merch, and the whole flywheel work.
Chapter 18 · 3:19:01
The Disney+ Investor Day in April 2019 was a masterclass in product clarity: the vault open, $6.99/month, all the IP in one place. Wall Street loved it; the stock jumped 11% the next day, 20% by month's end. [1] — David Rosenthal "Disney+ hit 100M subscribers in 16 months: Disney had projected 60–90 million Disney+ subscribers within 5 years; COVID accelerated this an…" 3:47:46 The launch in November brought 10 million signups in 24 hours. Then COVID hit — and Bob Iger, who had retired in February 2020 and handed the CEO role to Bob Chapek, watched as parks went to literal zero revenue while Disney+ subscriptions exploded. Disney had projected 60–90 million subscribers in 5 years; COVID delivered 100 million in 16 months. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 The stock hit $360 billion in March 2021 at this announcement. But the structural problems were being masked. Disney Animation and Pixar were in leadership transitions after Lasseter's exit. Lucasfilm's Star Wars sequels had no cohesive vision between directors. The post-Endgame Marvel slate was creatively exhausted and commercially disappointing. The streaming operating model required constant content volume — the exact opposite of Disney's brand promise. Under Chapek, additional self-inflicted chaos accumulated: Imagineer relocations that were then cancelled, the Florida political battle, a Star Wars hotel that opened and closed within a year. The Q4 2022 earnings call exposed all the streaming losses and management uncertainty, and the board fired Chapek, returning Iger from retirement.
Chapter 19 · 3:42:15
Bob Iger's second stint focused on three priorities: restoring streaming to profitability (achieved — Disney+ turned a ~$1 billion operating profit in the most recent fiscal year after roughly $13 billion in cumulative losses), managing ESPN's decline while preserving its cash flow (separating it into its own segment in October 2023 and doing an NFL deal that gave the league 10% of ESPN), and doubling down on physical parks as the company's most durable competitive moat. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Parks = 60% of Disney operating income today: Disney Parks and Experiences now generate approximately 60% of the company's operating income…" 3:58:05 The $60 billion parks and cruises investment over the next decade — with $30 billion earmarked for domestic parks — reflects a clear-eyed view that the old structural advantages (cable, home video, theatrical) have eroded and parks represent the most defensible, least-algorithmically-disruptable extension of the Disney brand and flywheel. The company's most recent financials show $94 billion in revenue and $13 billion in net income, with Parks and Experiences generating $10 billion in operating income (60% of the total) versus Sports (ESPN) at $3 billion (16%) and Entertainment at $4.7 billion (the rest). [2] — Ben Gilbert "Theatrical revenue = just 3% of Disney total: Disney's theatrical distribution segment — movies in cinemas — now generates only $2.6 billio…" 3:58:36 Theatrical distribution — the business most people think of as core Disney — generates $2.6 billion, just 3% of total revenue. Josh D'Amaro, head of parks, was named CEO in early 2026; Bob Iger would stay on as a senior advisor through year-end.
Disney had projected 60–90 million Disney+ subscribers within 5 years; COVID accelerated this and they hit 100 million subscribers within just 16 months of launch.
Chapter 20 · 3:50:54
Bob Iger's second stint focused on three priorities: restoring streaming to profitability (achieved — Disney+ turned a ~$1 billion operating profit in the most recent fiscal year after roughly $13 billion in cumulative losses), managing ESPN's decline while preserving its cash flow (separating it into its own segment in October 2023 and doing an NFL deal that gave the league 10% of ESPN), and doubling down on physical parks as the company's most durable competitive moat. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Parks = 60% of Disney operating income today: Disney Parks and Experiences now generate approximately 60% of the company's operating income…" 3:58:05 The $60 billion parks and cruises investment over the next decade — with $30 billion earmarked for domestic parks — reflects a clear-eyed view that the old structural advantages (cable, home video, theatrical) have eroded and parks represent the most defensible, least-algorithmically-disruptable extension of the Disney brand and flywheel. The company's most recent financials show $94 billion in revenue and $13 billion in net income, with Parks and Experiences generating $10 billion in operating income (60% of the total) versus Sports (ESPN) at $3 billion (16%) and Entertainment at $4.7 billion (the rest). [2] — Ben Gilbert "Theatrical revenue = just 3% of Disney total: Disney's theatrical distribution segment — movies in cinemas — now generates only $2.6 billio…" 3:58:36 Theatrical distribution — the business most people think of as core Disney — generates $2.6 billion, just 3% of total revenue. Josh D'Amaro, head of parks, was named CEO in early 2026; Bob Iger would stay on as a senior advisor through year-end.
Disney incurred approximately $13 billion in cumulative losses building out Disney+, but the streaming segment is now profitable at roughly $1 billion per year.
Parks and Experiences now generate $10 billion in operating income — nearly 60% of the entire company — while ESPN has declined to 16%. Disney is investing $60 billion in parks and cruises over the next decade. The thesis: cable profits are gone, box office is gone, streaming isn't as profitable. The only business that compounds like the old flywheel did is physical experiences where Disney's brand and characters create irreplaceable magic.
Disney Parks and Experiences now generate approximately 60% of the company's operating income — nearly $10 billion — a total reversal from ESPN's dominance a decade ago.
Disney's theatrical distribution segment — movies in cinemas — now generates only $2.6 billion in revenue, representing just 3% of the company's total revenue.
Chapter 22 · 4:10:01
Ben opens the bear case with a pointed question: has Disney produced a single new franchise in the last decade that achieved commercial success? Everything that generated real box office after 2016 — Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther, the Star Wars films — was harvesting existing IP. The original Pixar films of the last decade (Soul, Turning Red, Elemental, Encanto) are beloved but didn't set box office records. [1] — Ben Gilbert "Disney had to build Disney+ because without first-party streaming, Netflix's algorithm would control whether children ever saw Disney's cha…" 3:14:40 More structurally, ESPN's affiliate fee model is permanently impaired, box office is permanently smaller, and streaming is permanently less profitable than cable was. David counters with a fundamentally optimistic thesis: these franchises are the generational myths of our society. You cannot kill them. Every time they're at their lowest point, they surprise us — just as Disney Animation surprised the world in 1989 after being declared dead. And there are clearly great IP franchises in the world right now that would benefit from Disney's flywheel canvas. [2] — Ben Gilbert "Parks and Experiences now generate $10 billion in operating income — nearly 60% of the entire company — while ESPN has declined to 16%. Dis…" 3:56:35 The most obvious: Bluey, the Australian animated show that already has Disney+ placement and park presence, rhyming with Pixar's early trajectory. And Nintendo — at a $50 billion market cap, down 50% from its peak, arguably combining the IP quality of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm in Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon — is the acquisition that could define Disney's next 20 years the way ESPN defined the last 25.
No indexed bits in this chapter.
The morning Disney was about to announce the $7.4 billion Pixar acquisition, Steve Jobs took Bob Iger on a private walk around the Emeryville campus and told him: 'My cancer is back and I don't know how much longer I'm going to live.' He offered Iger an option to back out. Iger had 30 minutes to decide. He kept the deal — and Jobs lived another five and a half years. This was why Pixar sold.
The Lion King musical has been running for 30 years across Broadway, London's West End, and global touring companies. It has grossed over $11 billion in total revenue — more than Avatar, more than Avengers: Endgame, more than any album, more than any video game. It generates an average of $350 million in revenue every single year. Disney owns it outright.
On August 4, 2015, Bob Iger mentioned on an earnings call that ESPN was experiencing 'modest subscriber losses due to cord cutting.' The next day Disney stock dropped 10%. Fox, Time Warner, and Discovery fell similarly. Viacom dropped over 20%. Disney's stock price today is still roughly where it was that day. The structural forces that made Disney and every traditional media company fantastically profitable had begun to reverse — permanently.
This episode
Factual claims made this episode, and whether a source was named.
In 1984, Disney generated only $2 million in profit from film and TV, while generating $250 million from parks and consumer products.
27 of the first 33 movies Disney made under Eisner's leadership were profitable.
Beauty and the Beast grossed $330 million at the box office on a $25 million production budget.
Aladdin grossed approximately $500 million at the box office on a $28 million production budget.
The Lion King grossed $750 million at the box office on a $45 million production budget — the most successful traditionally hand-drawn animated film in history.
The Lion King musical has grossed over $11 billion in its 30-year run, making it the single highest-grossing piece of entertainment in history in any medium.
Aladdin sold 30 million VHS tapes in 1993, generating approximately $900 million in gross sales.
The Lion King sold 32 million VHS units — the best-selling VHS of all time — generating approximately $1 billion in gross sales.
ESPN charges cable operators $9.42 per subscriber per month in affiliate fees — the highest of any cable channel.
Between 2008 and 2011, Disney's cable networks segment accounted for 60% of the entire company's operating income, generating over $5 billion annually.
Disney acquired Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion in 1995, at the time the second-largest acquisition in US history after RJR Nabisco.
Finding Nemo sold approximately 65 million DVD copies at $30 each, generating $2 billion in home video gross.
Finding Nemo grossed $871 million in theaters, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2003 behind only Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Steve Jobs bought Pixar from Lucasfilm for $5 million in 1986, invested $54 million over 9 years, and owned 78% of the company at the time of Pixar's 1995 IPO.
Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in Disney stock in 2006, making Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder of Disney with approximately 7.7% of the company.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has generated nearly $32 billion at the global box office across 37+ films by 2025, making it the most successful film franchise in history.
The Frozen soundtrack was the best-selling album of 2014, selling 10 million copies including streaming equivalents, beating Taylor Swift's 1989.
Disney+ reached 100 million subscribers within 16 months of its November 2019 launch, far exceeding their 5-year target of 60–90 million.
Disney's theatrical distribution segment generates only $2.6 billion in revenue, representing just 3% of the company's total $94 billion in annual revenue.
Disney Parks and Experiences contributed approximately $10 billion in operating income in 2024, representing nearly 60% of total company operating profits.
This episode
Disney CEO from 1984 to 2005 who engineered the greatest turnaround in media history alongside Frank Wells, presided over the Disney Renaissance, acquired ESPN via Capital Cities/ABC, and was ultimately ousted.
Disney CEO from 2005 to 2020 and again from 2022 to 2026 who orchestrated the Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm acquisitions and launched the Disney+ streaming service.
Bought Pixar from George Lucas in 1986 for $5 million, built it into a major studio, and became Disney's largest individual shareholder when Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006.
Brought from Paramount by Eisner to run Disney studios; oversaw the Disney Renaissance films before leaving in 1994 to co-found DreamWorks, taking Disney talent with him.
CalArts-trained animator fired by Disney for proposing computer animation; co-founded Pixar, directed Toy Story, and later served as Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation after the acquisition.
Walt Disney's nephew and board member; instrumental in the 1984 boardroom coup that brought in Eisner and Wells, championed the Disney Animation revival, and later launched the Save Disney campaign to oust Eisner.
Disney president from 1984 to 1994, widely regarded as the operational and diplomatic counterpart to Eisner's creativity; his death in a 1994 helicopter crash began the unraveling of Disney's golden management era.
Creator of Star Wars and founder of Lucasfilm; sold the Pixar graphics division to Steve Jobs in 1986 to fund his divorce settlement, inadvertently creating the conditions for Pixar's founding.
The subject of the entire episode — its turnaround from near-bankruptcy in 1984 to a global media empire, and its ongoing transition to streaming.
Disney's 'accidental goldmine' acquired inside Capital Cities/ABC in 1996; grew to generate 60% of Disney's operating income through cable affiliate fees before cord-cutting began its decline.
Originally a Lucasfilm graphics division, Pixar was spun off and rescued by Steve Jobs, became Disney's distribution partner, then was acquired for $7.4 billion in 2006 to save Disney Animation.
The primary streaming competitor Disney built Disney+ to challenge; Netflix is discussed as a scale economies winner with $35 billion in revenue and $13.5 billion in operating income versus Disney's subscale streaming business.
Acquired by Disney for $4 billion in 2009; grew into the most successful film franchise in history with $32 billion in box office across 37+ films before facing franchise fatigue post-Endgame.
21st Century Fox's entertainment assets were acquired by Disney for $71.3 billion in 2019 to bolster the Disney+ content library, adding The Simpsons, Avatar, FX, and a controlling stake in Hulu.
George Lucas's production company, home to Star Wars and Indiana Jones; acquired by Disney for $4 billion in 2012 and discussed as a potentially over-valued acquisition given the uneven post-acquisition Star Wars films.
TV network company that owned ABC and ESPN; acquired by Disney for $19 billion in 1995 in what was then the second-largest acquisition in US history, with ESPN proving to be the most valuable asset by far.
Philadelphia-based cable operator that launched a $54 billion hostile takeover bid for Disney in 2004, driven partly by desire to acquire ESPN; later bid against Disney for Fox assets and was outbid at $71.3 billion.
California Institute of the Arts, founded and endowed by Walt Disney to create an animation talent pipeline; Room A113 trained virtually every major animator of the Disney Renaissance and Pixar eras.
Full-stack Disney competitor founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen after Katzenberg departed Disney; poached Disney animators and created Shrek as its breakthrough success.
Japanese video game company discussed as an ideal future Disney acquisition target, with IP franchises (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon) that David Rosenthal argues rival Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm combined.
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