The company I chose to research is the famous “Walt Disney Studios”, one of the four parts of the larger “Walt Disney Company”. Today, the prominent people in the company are Alan F. Horn, the Chairman, and Alan Bergman, the President of the company. Walt Disney Studios creates, markets and distributes their own films, as well as marketing and distributing the films of their other production studios.
Disney has a list of ethics that they like to follow – not just for the company itself, but for all the individuals and departments. They are all in place to create a better working environment for the employees, as well as keep the Disney brand a positive one. Disney is a company that is targeted at many people, young, old and more. They have a substantial influence on society, due to their long history and created products. Walt Disney Company owns Walt Disney Studios, the studios being the part of Disney that deals with films – both animated and live action. Walt Disney Studios contains a few other production companies that each focus on a particular medium of film – some animated, some not. This split allows the studios to specialise in whatever they are good at, allowing them to improve and produce the highest quality films possible. However, all these films still fall under the same main owner – Walt Disney Studios.
The Walt Disney Company has four parts to it – “Disney Media Networks”, focusing on television, “Disney Parks and Resorts”, created to run and organise the various Disney themed theme parks, “Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media”, dealing with the online store and other such things, and finally “Disney Studio Entertainment”, which is in charge of Walt Disney Studios and other studios owned by Disney, having to manage each of the respective studios. Disney has a long history – being founded in Los Angeles, California, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney in 1923. In 1925, the brothers paid for an area in a Hyperion Avenue lot in Los Angeles, so they could build a better studio. Disney’s first full length animated film took three years to make but was eventually released – it was called “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.
It was a successful release, only having a budget of $1.49 million. To date, it has made $418 million on the box office alone, and throughout its lifetime has grossed $184,925,486. With the money they made from Snow White, Disney bought another plot of land and built another studio, so they could create more films to meet the expectations of their audience. They produced many movies at the new studio during the 1940s and 1950s, some examples being; “Cinderella” (1950), “Pinocchio” (1940), “Bambi” (1942) and “The Sword and the Rose” (1953).
At first, Walt Disney Studios mainly focused on creating animated films. “Treasure Island”, released in 1950, was the first fully live action film that Disney had ever made. It was different to their original style, showing that they had begun to branch out and try new things.
It has made roughly $1,875,000 on the box office to date, which is less than their previous films. However, it was the start of a new wave of Disney films. Disney then began to make a lot of live action films, – especially between the years 1960 and 2000. Generally, these films aren’t as well-known as the animated films, due to the fact that they aren’t really talked about that much today. Disney Land, for example, mainly contains stuff focused on their animated films, which may be one of the leading reasons as to why the animated films are still so popular and praised even today. They also experimented with a blend of animated and live action films, mainly done during their early days in the 1930s and 1940s. “Fantasia”, released in 1940, was their first example of this. To date, is has roughly domestically grossed $76,408,097, which is less than their fully animated previous film – “Pinocchio”, released a few months earlier in 1940.
Pinocchio has grossed approximately $84,254,167 to date, slightly more than Fantasia had. Disney have made considerably less animation and live action hybrid films compared to purely animated or fully live action films, possibly due to the fact that they’re not as popular or because they didn’t end up enjoying the style as much. Nearly all of their films are still very popular today, most people knowing about them all. They have become iconic and have had a substantial influence on both film and western animation. Their films appeal to a wide range of people, mostly made to be family friendly so they can be targeted at children or teenagers, but still somewhat appealing to the adult demographic. Walt Disney Studios is a video production company that iswell known for its large roster of films, some animated, some live action andsome a mixture of the two. The video production studio contains a few largefilm production studios, as well as having designated distributors. The Studioshad an estimated income of $2.
703 billion during 2016, and in 2012 the studio entertainmentbusiness made roughly $5.83 billion alone. The production studios are asfollows; Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, DisneyToonStudios, Pixar, Disneynature, Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios.Pixar, also known as “Pixar Animation Studios” is one of themost well-known animation studios ever.
It was founded in 1979 by Edwin Catmulland Alvy Ray Smith, being a part of Lucasfilm – one of the other studios thatis now part of Disney Studios. The studio has approximately made $8 billionworldwide, also having broken many box office records. The award-winning studiowas bought by Walt Disney Studios in 2006 for $7.
4 billion, due to the factthat Disney wanted to acquire their skill when it came to creating computeranimated films. To date, Pixar has produced 19 feature films, “Toy Story”(1995) being their first. Toy Story has grossed $373,554,033 worldwide to date,also having become an incredibly iconic and recognisable film. However, thisisn’t Pixar’s only successful film. Instead of churning out film after filmover the years, Pixar have put more work into the films created. Most of theirmade films have won awards and have generally received critical acclaim andpraise. A few examples of their other films include, “The Incredibles” (2004),grossing $631,442,092 on the box office, “Finding Nemo” (2003), grossing $940,335,536,and their most recent film “Coco” (2017), which has grossed $657,132,236 todate. All of these examples have won awards, and their other films have too.
This shows the high quality of Pixar’s films, also showing how popular andimpressive they are – they have won 31 Academy Awards and have grossed over $11billion at the worldwide box office to date. Lucasfilm is an American film and television production companythat was founded by George Lucas in 1971. The company is slightly different toPixar, as it is mainly known for two film franchises – “Star Wars” and “IndianaJones”. Both of these franchises are incredibly successful, all of theDisney-owned Star Wars films making more than $4.06 billion when the profitsare combined. This franchise alone has made back the money that Walt DisneyStudio’s spent to buy Lucasfilm with during 2012 – Disney paying $4.
05 billionto acquire Lucasfilm. Disney haven’t even touched the Indiana Jones franchiseyet, but that is likely to happen at a later date. Lucasfilm are responsiblefor creating Disney’s highest grossing film – “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”(2015). Although it has only been out for a short amount of time, it has mademore money than every other individual Disney film – overtaking them and goingfurther beyond that. It holds records for many categories, including highestall time domestic sales, the top opening week and highest ticket sales percinema. Marvel Studios, previously known as Marvel Films, wasfounded Avi Arad, Toybizand Marvel Entertainment in 1993.
The studio is one of the leading studios whenit comes to creating superhero action films, based off of “Marvel Comics”, thatwas founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman. They were acquired by Disney Studios in2009, having been bought for $4 billion. The film “Iron Man” was made in 2008,before Disney bought Marvel Studios.
It has domestically grossed $318,412,101to date, proving its popularity. “Iron Man 3” (2013), however, was one of thefilms that Disney had a part in. Although it was the third Iron Man film in thefranchise, it made nearly $100,000,000 more, as it domestically grossed $409,013,994.The original Iron Man film was received much better than the third Iron Manfilm, having acquired many more awards and having a generally higher rating.
However, the fact that Disney had a huge part in the advertising anddistribution of Iron Man 3 is the reason why it made so much more money thanthe first one. Other Marvel films created by Disney include; “Guardians of theGalaxy Vol. 2” (2017), domestically grossing $389,813,101, “Spider-Man:Homecoming” (2017), domestically grossing $334,201,140 and “Ant-Man” (2015),domestically grossing $180,202,163.”Disneynature” is a part of Walt Disney Studios thatproduces nature documentary films, founded in 2008. Disney created nature filmsin the past – 1948 to 1960 is when the “True-Life Adventures” series wascreated, which was nature related. Disney also got behind the French releaseanother nature documentary – “March of the Penguins”. DisneyToon Studios is a division of Walt Disney Studiosfounded in 1988, that specialises in creating direct-to-videos – which literallymeans releasing the film on home video rather than at a theatre.
They alsooccasionally create animated films, some examples include, “DuckTales theMovie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp” (1990), “A Goofy Movie” (1995) and “Return toNever Land” (2002). They began to create sequels to some of their animatedfilms, the first direct-to video film sequel being “The Return of Jafar”(1994), the sequel to “Aladdin” (1992). Later on, another sequel was createdcalled “Aladdin and the King of Thieves” (1996). This branch of Disney is anoddball, focusing on something that relates to the other parts, but at the sametime doesn’t really have to worry about their films being distributed totheatres like all of the other branches.
“Walt Disney Animation Studios”, founded in 1923, and “WaltDisney Pictures” are the two companies that deal with Disney’s created films –not films created by one of the other studios. Walt Disney Pictures wasoriginally integrated with Walt Disney Animation Studios, but it was made aseparate thing in 1983, so each studio could focus on a style of film making.Walt Disney Pictures focuses on the live action films, whereas Walt DisneyAnimation Studios focus on the animated films. This allows each studio to focustheir efforts in honing their respective craft, instead of being asked to makesomething that they aren’t as specialised in. This may be another reason whyanimation and live action Disney hybrid films are a lot more rare nowadays, asthey are technically two separate entities. Each of these respective studios was very popular andprofitable even before Walt Disney Studios acquired them, all having made atleast a few iconic films.
Looking at the highest grossing films of all time, afew Disney films are present. In the top 15 highest grossing films, 8 of themare Disney films. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is the highest grossing Disneyfilm, having made $2,068,223,624. It is the third highest grossing film, beatenonly by “Titanic” (1997) and “Avatar” (2009). “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017)is also present at number 9, having grossed $1,297,666,174.
Four of the eightpresent Disney films are Marvel Studios films, and two are created by WaltDisney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation. Looking at the highest grossinganimated films of all time, 8 of the top 20 are Disney films. Frozen (2013) hasraised $1,290,000,000 to date, being the highest grossing animated film of alltime. It received critical acclaim, having awards and becoming a staple in theanimated film genre. “Toy Story 3” (2010), “Finding Dory” (2016), “Inside Out(2015) as well as a few more are present.
Disney is a juggernaut when it comesto film and animated film, having had a huge influence on many other things.Their films are made with the intention of appealing to a wide range of people,not really excluding anyone from their target audience. They aim to cater foreveryone, which has clearly worked – proven by the fact that a lot of theirfilms are near the top of the most grossing films of all time. The films Disney have made have somewhat shaped society,having worked their way into our daily lives. There are theme parks based thatinclude things related to the films, as well as countless products, includingtoys, clothing and accessories. Disney is one of the leading film industries,even though it isn’t just a film industry.
Walt Disney Studios is not acommercial company, as it doesn’t focus on one specific type of genre. They dohave a style but have shown that they are branching out due to the fact thatthey acquired other studios to create diverse types of films for them. The maindifference between commercial and public service companies is reasonings anddesign, since commercial companies want to focus on their audienceand try to keep them happy, whereas public services care mainly towards theirprofit maximization.
Commercial companies tend to choose a particular genretype of film and create them to keep their target audience pleased, whereaspublic services may branch out more and have a wider target audience.
