How Disney’s movie empire survived 100 years of near disaster

The Walt Disney Company’s massive modern empire is a far cry from the small animation studio Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded in 1923. One hundred years ago, the two brothers took a train from their hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, to Los Angeles, where they worked out of their uncle’s garage before purchasing a tiny studio space on Kingswell Avenue. The Disney brothers made animation mostly for other studios in the early days. It wasn’t till Walt Disney Studios was about to lose half its staff and its first successful character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to Universal Studios that Walt and his most loyal animators created Mickey Mouse and began to carve out a legacy of their own.

Disney 2023 is more than just animation and movies. It’s also superheroes, Star Wars characters, Hulu, National Geographic and many other things. This company is now a global leader in entertainment and has a worldwide market share of over multi-billion. But the Disney name is still a reminder of the animated films that it started. The world’s perception of animated movies has dramatically changed in the 20th century.

In the beginning…

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Walt, along with his colleagues, made animated shorts for the first time in 1921. The field was exciting and new. Back in the 1920s and 1930s, animation hadn’t yet evolved a reputation as a children’s medium. Animation was still an emerging art form that attracted both adults and kids. Animation was also considered to be high art because of its novelty. Disney’s Silly Symphony shorts, a series of 75 musical films released from 1929 to 1939, drew significant of praise for their innovation, particularly the use of Technicolor and multiplane cameras.

1932’s short Flora and trees, which follows two trees falling in love, was the first commercially released movie in Technicolor — and audiences adored it. Film Daily extolled it as a “genuine novelty that bids fair to put the cartoon on a new plane of importance.” Disney continued to outdo itself with 1937’s The Old MillA charmingly written short story about animals who live in an abandoned windmill, and how they weather a terrifying storm. Democrat and Chronicle reported it to be “as beautiful as old Dutch masters.”

So when Disney released America’s first ever full-length animated feature (20 years after the first ever full-length animated feature, Argentina’s El Apostol), audiences and critics alike weren’t expecting a children’s movie. They expected high art — and the critical response suggests that Snow White and Seven Dwarfs delivered.

“Mr. Disney and his technical crew have outdone themselves,” critic Frank Nugent wrote for the New York Times. “The picture more than matches expectations. The classic is as important. [sic]Filmically: The Birth of a Nation Or the birth of Mickey Mouse. Nothing quite like it has been done before; and already we have gone impolite enough to clamor for an encore.”

Warstime struggle

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1940’s Pinocchio, Snow White’s immediate successor, was released to critical acclaim, with The Hollywood Reporter even calling it “infinitely superior to Snow White.” But before Walt Disney Studios could fully capitalize on its early successes, World War II greatly affected the studio’s output — And the reception of its movies. Fantasia and BambiThese are the next steps PinocchioYou will receive a cold reception Fantasia, in particular, was outright contentious: Some critics loved it, while others called it “kitchsy.”

1941’s Dumbo, however, was a smashing success — partly because it was significantly cheaper to make than the other movies. The character became so popular that in 1941, Time Magazine almost made the elephant the “Mammal of the Year” — a spoof on the magazine’s annual “Man of the Year” issue. (Since 1999, it’s been “Person of the Year.”) A full magazine cover was drawn up, but plans shifted after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, and the magazine decided to reexamine the tone of the year-end issue. The reality of war began to hit America, and Disney too changed its priorities.

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By 1943, 90% of Disney’s work as a company had been redirected to aid the war effort. Disney produced propaganda films, created insignia for military use, and made instructional videos and training videos. Donald Duck laughed at Hitler. War bonds were decorated with the Seven Dwarfs. Mickey Mouse was featured on Remember Pearl Harbor posters. While Walt himself was initially reluctant to get involved in the war effort, the company’s involvement reportedly increased morale across troops and on the homefront. While Walt Disney doesn’t often acknowledge this period, it is a significant part of American history.

However, the studio’s focus on shorts and war films meant they had limited time for creative endeavors. The solution was a series of “package films” — original shorts compiled into feature-length compilations, such asMr. Toad and Ichabod’s AdventuresAnd Three Caballeros.They offered a cheaper and quicker alternative to large-budget labor-intensive films like PinocchioAnd Fantasia. Most of these package films stayed away from the war-heavy topics of the company’s other ventures and kept to lighthearted fare.

Critics’ consensus on the package films is that they were entirely OK; perfectly acceptable, and usually mediocre. The highest praise in reports from the era usually amounts to “That was fun.” And honestly? When people went to the theaters in 1943 to escape the tragedy of the war, maybe that’s all they needed.

Chase the Golden Age

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1950 Cinderella became Disney’s first great financial success since Snow White — and, some critics argued, its first artistic success since then, too. Many of the reviewers had used this technique. Snow WhiteAs a point of reference when discussing the art in CinderellaThe film had two main effects: it solidified Disney’s status as the fairy-tale master, and also made Disney a household name. Snow WhiteThis was the benchmark for all other future films, and it was the highest standard Disney could set. The Disney films were seen throughout this period as solid, all-ages entertainment. However, they weren’t as innovative or ambitious as those of the Golden Age.

1959’s Beauty and the Sleeping BeautyThey got the worst comparison Snow White, since it’s also a fairy tale about a beautiful princess who passes out due to a poisoned item given to her by a high-cheekboned witch and then gets revived by a kiss from a handsome prince. It is the Snow WhiteThe theme of comparison remained in Disney movies until the Disney Renaissance. This was despite generally favorable reviews. Many critics pointed to the Golden Age movies as the pinnacle of artistic success — even though they weren’t critical darlings when they came out. Still, Disney’s focus on familiar stories and the nostalgia for its early industry-changing movies kept its reputation positive. The sheer euphoria of seeing the theatrical-length animation couldn’t be dismissed.

Modern eyes see the obsession as a matter of course. Snow White as Disney’s finest movie can feel a little dissonant. It’s not surprising that movies such as the highly-acclaimed “Deadpool” can feel a little dissonant. Peter PanAnd Alice in WonderlandBetter than Snow White? But, on their release, the films were scrutinized because they diverged from the books that they were based upon. You can’t change some things! Peter Pan It did better than Alice in Wonderland in its critical reception, but a particular phrase started to pop up in reviews, and to reshape Disney’s overarching image: “for the kids.”

“[…]You don’t have to be too fussy about Carroll or Tenniel images, but you will love Disney magic whimsey. [sic] and if you’ll take a somewhat slow, uneven pace, you should find this picture entertaining,” wrote Bosley Crowther in his review of Alice in WonderlandFor the New York Times. “Especially should it be for the kids, who are not so demanding of fidelity as are their moms and dads.”

Consider the children

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Für die Kinder. This sentiment still bogs down reviews of animated features today, especially from critics who aren’t huge fans of whatever movie they’re writing about, but have to admit it has There is charm in the world. You are guilty as charged. Once you spot it popping up, it’s hard to unsee. Sometimes even in a favorable review, the critic recognizes that the movie lacks emotional impact or artistic innovation, and suggests that it’s meant for less critical and experienced viewers. Negative reviews often lament the fact that children can’t enjoy such a silly movie.

While the “Disney is for kids” take that emerged in the 1950s can come off as condescending, it wasn’t always meant as criticism. Especially in the 1970s and ’80s, when there were so few new family-friendly movies in general, Disney animation was always a safe and familiar option. Disney had been around for decades, and even though there was competition from Filmation and Don Bluth Productions, it was the preferred option. It is safe to say that Disney animation will not offend young viewers. That market was almost entirely dominated by Disney. It was near impossible for newer studios to compete with the studio’s long history and cultural cachet.

By the 1980s, Disney’s reputation as a squeaky-clean family-friendly brand was so strong that it limited what the corporation could successfully release under the Disney banner. Some of the company’s edgier live-action releases, like 1979’s The Black HoleHowever, they ended up performing poorly. To solve that problem, then-CEO Ron Miller created Touchstone Pictures in 1984, giving the studio’s more mature live-action movies their own home.

“The Disney name and its image of Mickey Mouse, famous the world over, have been box-office poison for the last five years for the high school and college-age ticket buyers who make up the largest segment of the moviegoing public,” the New York Times wrote about the creation of Touchstone Pictures. “Twenty years ago, Disney movies appealed to teen-agers. But the industry has long believed that young adults today, with their diet of television adventure series since early childhood, are more sophisticated in their tastes than young adults of 20 years ago and associate the Disney name with movies they feel they have outgrown.”

A new benchmark

Walt Disney Animation Studios

It’s no secret that the Disney Renaissance — the period of films beginning with 1989’s The Little Mermaid and ending around 1999’s Tarzan — was one of the most iconic eras for Disney Animation. Disney was saved from certain disaster by the Disney Renaissance.

Before the Renaissance, Disney was experiencing a financial slump. Walt Disney died in 1966. Many of his animators, known as the Nine Old Men, carried on the legacy into the 1970s. However, newer animators were disappointed by how stagnant Disney animation was. Don Bluth led some of them to leave and start their own studio. Other Disney executives, such as Brad Bird, Glen Keane and John Lasseter tried to push Disney towards more difficult projects.

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Lasseter infamously got canned after insisting that the studio pivot to computer animation, but some of the new generation — particularly those who had been mentored by the Nine Old Men — worked on what they perceived to be a new, exciting project. 1985’s The Black Cauldron The film was at that time the most costly animated movie. It featured a dark fantasy to show new talent and appeal more to an older demographic. This movie almost ended in failure, and it was nearly a disaster for the company. Disney changed its priority away from animation. If Roy E. Disney had not intervened then Mike Eisner could have shut down animation.

But The Little MermaidThe film made quite a splash and completely changed everything. There were also a handful of not-so-fun films. The Black Cauldron And The Little MermaidHowever, Mermaid’s daring Broadway-style musical approach finally rejiggered expectations for Disney animation, proving the studio’s movies could still be artistic And financial successes. For the first time since the company’s inception, the new movies weren’t being held up to the standards of Snow WhiteOr Pinocchio. The Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast, AladdinAnd The Lion KingThe Disney movie standard was reinvented. Beauty and the Beast It was the 10th year since the Best Animated Feature award introduced, and it became the first animated movie nominated in the Best Picture Oscar category. And most notably, many critics felt that Disney had at long last shed the “only for children” label that had plagued the company for decades. Theatrical feature animation is now artistic and interesting.

Success is not free.

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The Renaissance period saw positive reviews for Disney’s animated films. But later Renaissance films like Notre Dame: The Hunchback And Tarzan didn’t hit the same marks. As with the company’s Golden Age, where every movie was compared toSnow White and Seven DwarfsAnd Pinocchio, Beauty and the BeastThe other Renaissance films remained high on a pedestal no other movie could attain.

Disney failed to recreate the magic of Beauty and the Beast’s Best Picture nomination with Pocahontas, HerculesAnd more. But even though the audience responded positively, it was still remarkably muted. As with the Golden Age of Hollywood, Disney Renaissance was capped off by another Fantasia movie. Just like 1940’s Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 The film was expensive and did not do well at the box-office. Fantasia II had an entirely capitalistic feel, which was different from the original.

Disney was ultimately unable to sustain itself because of the immense success of Renaissance. The Lion KingIt earned $760million at the international box-office, an incredible amount for an animated movie at that time. Others studios wanted to share in those amazing box-office profits. But creating an animation studio from scratch was a complicated proposition, and simply replicating Disney’s Broadway-musical formula was no guarantee of box-office success. Warner Bros. is one example of a potential Disney competitor. Feature Animations and Fox Animation were both doomed to fail before they had a chance at success. But others, like DreamWorks, managed to carve out a space of their own in the following years — sharply affecting the next decade or so for Disney.

Moving to CG

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Disney released a few duds at the dawn of the 2000s. Treasure Planet And Atlantis, The Lost EmpireThey were costly, high-risk passion projects. The Emperor’s New Groove Ignored for many years by the development world, my company floundered. And even the movies that managed some financial success didn’t have much cultural impact. (Lilo and StitchThis was an exception. Nevertheless, success was enjoyed by ShrekPixar films and other DreamWorks projects helped to redefine audience expectations for feature length animation. Some critics suggested that modern audiences were drawn to the cutting-edge 3D graphics seen in DreamWorks and Pixar fare, rather than Disney’s old-fashioned traditional animation. Others had issues with Disney’s narratives, which veered toward a more earnest tone, while most of pop culture had embraced edgy snarkiness.

Disney hit a low with 2005’s Chicken Little, one of the studio’s worst films, which was supposed to signify its big pivot into CG animation. Disney’s Florida animation studio was closed in 2004. The Range: Home, which was supposed to be the company’s last traditionally animated movie. Though Disney executives repeatedly downplayed how much the medium of animation affected the success of the movies, many in the public speculated that closing the Florida studio and canceling the few remaining traditional animated projects on the slate was Disney’s effort to chase after the latest hot trend.

The brand should be saturated

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Disney was a strong brand that emphasized nostalgia and familiarity. The nostalgia was for an idyllic America at the beginning. This association evolved into a nostalgic feeling for old Disney films as the years passed. This nostalgia was used by the company as a marketing tool.

Walt Disney was staunchly against sequels, worried that they would taint the impact of the studio’s original movies. But the rise of the home video era opened up a new market that the company couldn’t resist. The first direct-to-video Disney sequel — a follow-up to 1992’s Aladdin — came out in 1994.

Thus began a new era in Disney animations that were poorly animated and made so little profit that they didn’t even make the box office or sell as well. The Jungle Book 2 made $135.7 million in theaters against a $20 million budget, but the London Standard review summed up the critical response to these rapidly cranked-out movies: “The whole threadbare production looks and sounds like one of those cheapo, functionally drawn ‘sequels’ to its famous cartoons which the studio has begun issuing for the video market on the strength of a title, but without anything like the inventiveness or tunefulness of the original.”

Growing pains

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The important thing that happened was: Chicken Little’s failure that changed the trajectory of Disney animation: In 2006, Disney bought Pixar, the animation studio that had been stealing Disney’s thunder since 1995’s Toy Story. Prior to the purchase, the two companies had a partnership, with Disney distributing Pixar’s films.

The new Disney-Pixar deal made John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at both Pixar Animation and Walt Disney Animation, a Disney shareholder. While Disney produced mediocre films like Brothers BearAnd The Range: Home, Pixar’s movies were redefining animation. Monsters Inc., Finding NemoAnd The AmazingsAll of them soared, while the other Disney films floundered. Lasseter’s legacy is uncomfortable, rife with sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, but he pushed Disney Animation into a new direction. One of Lasseter’s first actions was to stop all planned sequels to direct-to-home video and to essentially eliminate the section dedicated to them.

Disney Animation was slowly getting back on track. It released films that were close to great but not quite. Every movie had tighter and more emotive stories. The movies also looked sharper. This is because Disney finally figured how to transfer its decades-old design into computer animation. While most of the movies were CG animations, the studio did make a brief attempt to return to traditional animation. Notably, 2009’s The Princess and Frog both introduced the first Black princess to Disney’s highly profitable Disney Princess brand and also experimented with reviving hand-drawn features. But even though the public eagerly looked forward to a cel animation comeback (there’s that association between Disney and nostalgia again), Disney focused its efforts elsewhere.

The Walt Disney Company was expanding rapidly beyond animation and began aggressively buying other properties. The rights to the Muppets were acquired by the company in 2004. In 2009 it purchased Marvel Entertainment. It also bought Lucasfilm in 2012. The companies had properties that were at odds with Disney’s family-friendly, animated image. The company was moving past animated movies and theme parks, especially when those animated movies weren’t breaking records or redefining the medium; it was starting to become the giant corporation that we know today.

Disney today

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2013. FrozenThe new status of Disney Animation was established and a forward-looking path laid. It was a shift again. A new measurement emerged.

“Frozen is one of the few recent animated films to capture the classic Disney spirit,” wrote Bilge Ebiri for Vulture. “And by that I don’t even mean the classic Disney spirit of the ninetiesAnd films like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King Although it shares many similarities with these films, the film is a classic example of Disney’s Disney magic. Cinderella Oder Snow White.”

Disney thus entered a new era and brought in many other successful, splashy movies such as Moana, ZootopiaAnd Encanto. Even with occasional dips Frozen 2 (a smash at the box office, but could anything really replicate “Let It Go”?), Raya and The Last DragonThe pandemic released made it as wealthy and prosperous as possible. Strange World A solid movie that was unlikely to be a box-office hit, modern Disney animation is consistently successful with great movies and good theatre profits.

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The company is a vastly different entity in public than it was 20 years ago, 50 years ago or 100 year ago. The 2020s mark the first “successful” Disney period where the studio actually has competition, even from within its own doors with Pixar. And while Walt Disney Animation Studios certainly has cutting-edge filmmaking technology, it isn’t pushing the envelope or redefining what animation can be — animators at Pixar, DreamWorks, Sony, and other studios are the ones really trying new things, while Disney stays within its good-looking, safe house style.

However, this could be changing. Innovation is more possible when there’s more competition. Disney’s 2023 film Make a WishBlending 3D animation with watercolor elements will be possible. However, Make a Wish is also supposed to be chock-full of Disney Easter eggs — which brings up the third big difference between this Disney animation period of success and the previous ones. Disney has ceased to be a studio that focuses on animation and does not want its other projects separated from the Disney brand the same way Touchstone Pictures did. Disney wants to be synonymous with all forms of multimedia entertainment. Acquisitions such as 20th Century Studios or Searchlight Pictures will join the rest under the same banner.

Walt’s legacy

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Disney stopped making cheap direct-to-VHS sequels in 2008 — but it still makes sequels and spinoffs, both for theaters and for television. The company has become more thoughtful about brand extension. Instead of cheap sequels, the company’s new go-to is glossy, expensive live-action remakes. Each year the studio releases a new movie remake, either in theaters or on Disney Plus’ streaming service. Although these remakes may be narratively weak and not well received by critics, audiences still love familiar titles and the promise that they will provide safe entertainment for their families. Even the least-recommended of them can still bring in huge box office returns. (2019’s all-CG remake of The Lion KingHe earned $1.6 billion globally and a mere 52% profit on Rotten Tomatoes.

If anything has been consistent about Disney over the past 100 years, it’s been the company’s commitment to maintaining its image. Different strategies have been used to achieve this goal at different times in history. Back in the 2000s, Disney limited its VHS and DVD releases in order to create a sense of urgency and prestige when a beloved classic “left the Disney Vault” and became available for purchase for a brief period. Today, the company has its own streaming service to house basically the entire Disney library, and simultaneously holds up its pedigree of animated movies by repackaging them into something “new.” Disney has moved far beyond its origins, and instead of doing one thing well, it needs to remind people that it can do everything. Its brand and reputation will also continue to shift as the company grows. Just look at how far it’s come from that little studio in Walt’s uncle’s garage.