Where this was said
Analysis: Bull/Bear Cases
At 4:14:02 · chapter starts 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.
