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Acquired · Aug 10Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
Its flywheel of characters, parks, merchandise and home video was broken by 1984, then rebuilt under Eisner, Wells and Iger. Operating profit rose from under $300 million to nearly $2 billion in a decade, and parks and cruises now make almost 60% of operating income.
Tips
- Michael Eisner put Disney classics on VHS in 1985 despite family opposition▶ 38:251.7 million Pinocchio tapes at $29.95 sold out at once for about $50 million, and The Lion King sold 32 million VHS copies in 1995.
- Eisner and Wells raised flat Disney park prices and parking to fund the turnaround▶ 20:52Parking at the parks was still only a dollar when they arrived.
- Katzenberg and Howard Ashman turned Disney cartoons into musicals that happen to be animated▶ 28:34Beauty and the Beast grossed $330 million on a $25 million budget, and The Lion King $750 million on $45 million.
- Disney under Eisner extended its characters to Broadway, and The Lion King became the biggest earner ever▶ 45:09Over $11 billion in total revenue, about $350 million a year on average.
- Eisner turned Disney's theme parks into multi-day resorts that compete with a European vacation▶ 48:18Disney Parks and Experiences contributed $10 billion in operating profit last year.
- Bob Iger won the CEO job by reframing the pitch around the future and three pillars▶ 1:42:27The board named him CEO and moved his start date up a year, to September 2005.
- Michael Eisner said no to AOL during the dot-com bubble▶ 1:18:09AOL merged its inflated stock into Time Warner and the deal destroyed value.
- Eisner hired his friend Michael Ovitz as president, a mismatch of skills that lasted a year▶ 1:19:13Ovitz left with a $140 million severance package.
- Disney Plus clashed with the scarce, best-only content model that made the Disney brand valuable▶ 3:26:44Marvel's output rose after Endgame, and later films and shows underperformed.
- Bob Iger picked Bob Chapek as successor, assuming a peacetime that never came▶ 3:42:48Disney Plus accumulated about $13 billion in losses before turning profitable.
