The Disney Problem, Part 1

$130 billion.

That was the estimated value of the Walt Disney Corporation in 2015. Industry insiders believe that the company has increased in value by about $20 billion since then, making the monster entertainment provider’s value presently estimated at $150 billion.

It’s no secret that Disney is a powerful company which plays a big role in the media we consume, but the extent to which they reach potential customers in the mainstream is unbelievable. Their acquisitions since 2000 alone have been incredibly successful. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar [“Toy Story” (1995), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “Monsters, Inc.” (2001)]; in 2009, Disney purchased Marvel Studios [“Iron Man” (2008), “The Avengers” (2012), “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014)]; and in 2012, they bought Lucasfilm (Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises). The company made headlines earlier this year when they acquired 21st Century Fox; Disney now has control over valuable properties such as the X-Men, the Simpsons, “Avatar” (2009), and a majority stake in the streaming service Hulu, among many, many other things.

At first glance, it seems like Disney picking up Fox is a good thing. The Avengers can now exist in the same universe as the X-Men, etc. However, further review reveals the amount of power that Disney is amassing is almost scary. As Disney gains more and more control over entertainment, they can overwhelmingly control smaller businesses such as local movie theaters.

Usually, movie studios earn about 50 percent of the profits a movie makes at a theater while the rest goes to the theater and its employees. However, Disney has recently been requesting around 60 to 65 percent of the ticket sales from movies. This is simply unfair to theater owners, who need the profits to pay workers and the upkeep of the theater itself. On top of that, for certain movies such as “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017), Disney insisted that theaters keep the movie playing for a minimum of four weeks and have it play on the biggest screen. Some small theaters only have one or two screens in total. Thus, a multi-billion dollar company forcing a small business to waste their valuable screen space on a single movie for at least 28 days is ridiculous. Many theaters retaliated by not playing the movie at all, which must have been very detrimental to the theaters’ ticket sales, as “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017) was a huge movie, and is part of one of the most recognizable franchises in the world. This same thing happened in Brazil with the animated film “Coco” (2018), where many Brazilian theaters boycotted the showing of the movie.

However, a boycott can’t always work as it is impossible to deny the sheer power of Disney’s global box office numbers. In the eight months of 2019 alone, the studio’s movies have grossed a total of over nine billion internationally. Movies like “Avengers: Endgame” (2019), “The Lion King” (2019), “Captain Marvel” (2019), “Toy Story 4” (2019), and “Aladdin” (2019) have made Disney over a billion dollars each. In fact, “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) has already made history by becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time. Movie theaters can’t just boycott these movies, as they make incredible amounts of money. Disney has a unique grasp on what the general public wants to see, and they know how to make a movie very successful, leaving theaters worldwide struggling to fight them.

But movie theaters aren’t where the problems end. Disney will be releasing its highly anticipated streaming service Disney+ on November 12, 2019. Like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, Disney+ will allow you to stream movies and television on demand. However, unlike those other streaming platforms, Disney has power over all the intellectual property that Disney owns. Which is to say, a lot of power. This means that while using Disney+, you will have access to the libraries of Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, National Geographic, FOX, ESPN, Disney itself, and more. With Disney+, you can watch anything and everything Disney, from “The Sound of Music” (1965) to “Iron Man” (2008).

As time goes on, more and more Disney movies and shows will be added to Disney+, including eagerly awaited original content. This slate of new programing stretches for years to come, with new programing coming out every few weeks. Most of the anticipated shows are spin-offs or sequels of other popular content, such as Marvel’s “Loki,” “WandaVision,” and “She Hulk” to name a few. Star Wars is getting its spin-off treatment too with “The Mandalorian,” as well as Pixar with “Monsters at Work” and “Forky Asks a Question.” But after a certain point, the sheer number (and randomness) of the new titles coming in the coming years is almost comical. A “High School Musical” TV series with an all-new cast, a Cruella DeVille live-action solo flick, and an all-new Muppets variety show are just a few examples of the depths into the Disney catalog that the spinoffs derive from.

Disney+ is already making some people very nervous—most notably the people at Netflix. The company is in a bad place, as it has recently begun losing subscribers and is in a near 15 billion dollar debt according to TechCrunch.com. Disney will also be removing all of its content from the streaming service, which will severely narrow down Netflix’s catalog. On top of that, while Netflix charges a monthly fee of $12.99 for its most basic plan, Disney+ will charge just $6.99 for a monthly subscription. All the TV and movies you could ask for monthly, all for the price of about two cups of coffee. It seems almost too good to be true, and it can be expected that many people will jump on this offer. While it is true that Netflix has some big titles like “Stranger Things” (2016- ) and “Breaking Bad” (2008-2013) and it will still have much more overall programming than Disney+, but it's going to be very hard for the service to convince people to choose them over the draw of all-new Disney content, especially if it is more cost-efficient.

Disney’s reign spreads far and wide, far past just screen-bound entertainment. Everything Disney has to be bigger and better than its competition (Universal, Sony, etc.). One hundred and fifty million people paid a visit to the Disney theme parks last year. Disney has about 300,000 paid employees including those employees from the Fox merger. Disney makes $15 to $20 billion in revenue each quarter. Everything about this entire situation points to a forthcoming monopoly, and it is making many people, inside the industry and out, nervous. If Disney continues to control the entertainment industry the way they do now, they could begin to lower the quality of their films. Without a plethora of viable options outside of Disney, we would be forced to watch their content, or nothing. Disney could also raise the prices of movie tickets, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything to do about it, because they will have wrapped the general public around their finger when it comes to movies and television.

Not only does Disney rule the movie scene far more than any other company, but it also has a healthy grasp on television, and it will soon rule streaming with an iron fist. No company has ever controlled entertainment in the same way Disney does presently, and it is a cause for concern. The measures to take now are not clear. One route to take could be a viewer boycott, which would be extremely difficult for many people including myself. I love Marvel, Star Wars, and so many other Disney properties so much that giving them up seems near impossible for me and many other fans. Raising awareness seems like a doable way to ever so slightly stem the growth of Disney, but it can only go so far in the end.

The future is uncertain. Will Disney continue to grow at its current rate? Will a competitor challenge its authority? Whatever happens, we better buckle up and put on our rose-colored glasses because it’s Disney’s world, and we’re all just living in it.