A third is that the firm’s creative energy is dissipating, with an endless surfeit of Marvel movies. Another is that the company has raised ticket prices at its theme parks for consumers and eliminated perks that longstanding Disney fans appreciated. The strike consuming Hollywood is a reaction to this dynamic. One consequence is simply that Disney, like all giant streaming firms, has reduced its payout to writers, producers, directors, actors, movie theaters and suppliers. The rise of imperial Disney and its vast bargaining leverage has led to considerable fallout. The GOP presidential candidate and the striking Hollywood creatives may not agree on much, but both are aggrieved by Disney’s raw use of power. In addition, it is now a global empire and has to protect its significant investments in China by offering obsequious gestures to the Chinese government. It now has roughly a quarter of the nation’s theatrical box office take, despite making fewer films than it used to.ĬEO Bob Iger, who ditched the beloved Mickey Mouse ties his predecessor wore, made it clear in his biography that his strategy wasn’t to do great storytelling, which is what Americans loved about Disney, but to build a portfolio of brands and extend its power into direct distribution to 160 million homes. The studio is no longer just Walt’s playground but “imperial” Disney, in the words of film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, a colossus formed after a deregulatory push in the 1990s paved the way for a series of mergers and acquisitions that placed huge amounts of intellectual property - from Lucasfilm to Marvel to Pixar to the Muppets to Fox - in the hands of just one company. Today, it’s hard to find little girls who don’t love Frozen.Īnd yet, Disney is a different firm than it was just a few decades ago, and its change reflects a broader transformation in America. Disney can boast of spurring the golden era of 1950s animation, and then in the 1980s and 1990s of bringing Broadway-caliber theatrics to cartoon films in classics like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Little Mermaid. Disney World is the so-called happiest place on Earth, the favored destination of Super Bowl winners and six-year-olds alike. It’s odd to think that a populist series of rebellions would target Walt Disney’s creation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |