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The Walt Disney Company history
The Walt Disney Company company history timeline
On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California.
The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty in Los Angeles.
In 1923 Disney produced the short subject Alice in Cartoonland, a film combining both live action and animation that was intended to be the pilot film in a series.
After his Laugh-O-Gram Studio went bankrupt in 1923, Walt moved to Los Angeles, where Roy was recovering from tuberculosis.
1924: M.J. Winkler Productions debuts the Alice Comedy Series, with the film Alice's Day at Sea, in theaters.
He found an ideal piece of property on Hyperion Avenue in Hollywood, built a studio, and in 1926 moved his staff to the new facility.
In 1927 Disney began his first series of fully animated films, featuring the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Disney Company, in full The Walt Disney Company, formerly (1929–86) Walt Disney Productions, American corporation that was the best-known purveyor of family entertainment in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The first Mickey Mouse book was published in 1930, as was the first Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip.
The Silly Symphonies entry Flowers and Trees (1932) was the first cartoon produced in the three-colour Technicolor process, as well as the first animated short subject to be honoured with an Academy Award.
On October 16, 1934, the embattled Chinese Communists break through Nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China.
The popularity of the Mickey Mouse shorts convinced Disney his studio could produce a feature film, which he began to do in 1934.
In 1934, Walt Disney informed his animators one night that they were going to make an animated feature film, and then he told them the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In 1937, Disney's innovative first full length animated feature, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, was released to critical acclaim and worldwide success.
The project, which some dubbed “Disney’s Folly,” went 400 percent over budget and required over 300 animators, artists, and assistants, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a smash hit when it debuted just before Christmas 1937.
1937: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first full-length animated film, debuts.
Stage 1 is part of the original lot that was built in 1940.
Pinocchio is an American animated film released in 1940 by the Disney Company, then known as Walt Disney Productions.
Pinocchio (1940), which features complex characters rendered in painstakingly detailed full-figure animation, is perhaps Disney’s grandest achievement.
Fantasia (1940) is a series of abstract vignettes set to classical compositions; it remains a controversial work, derided for its portentousness and praised for its stunning visual virtuosity.
1950 saw big successes at Disney-the first completely live action film, Treasure Island, the return to classic animated features with Cinderella and the first Disney television show at Christmas time.
After two Christmas specials, Walt Disney went onto television in a big way in 1954 with the beginning of the Disneyland anthology series.
A live-action reference for a scene in LADY AND THE TRAMP. In 1954, Sound Stage 3 was built specifically for 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, complete with watertank.
The Mickey Mouse Club, one of television’s most popular children’s series, debuted in 1955 and made stars of a group of talented Mouseketeers.
The first theme park created by the Disney Company was Disneyland, which opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California.
On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino.
The People’s Republic of China joins the rank of nations with atomic bomb capability, after a successful nuclear test on October 16, 1964.
In 1965 he purchased 43 acres of barren land in central Florida for his most ambitious project, the Walt Disney World Resort.
The studio did manage a few successes during this period, including Blackbeard's Ghost, with Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette, and the 1969 release The Love Bug, which became the year's biggest box office hit.
Disney got into educational films and materials in a big way with the start of an educational subsidiary in 1969.
The next project was the Walt Disney World Resort in central Florida, which opened in 1971.
The studio released three new live-action movies: The World's Greatest Athlete, Gus, and The Shaggy D.A. Return from Witch Mountain, a sequel to the popular mystery-fantasy Escape to Witch Mountain, premiered in 1978.
He has been employed by NIKE since 1979 in a variety of positions with primary responsibilities in product research, design and development, marketing and brand management.
In 1982 the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, known as Epcot, opened.
Tokyo Disneyland opened April 15, 1983, and was an immediate success in a country that had always loved anything Disney.
The Company had left network television in 1983 to prepare for the launch of a cable network, The Disney Channel.
In 1983, beginning with the release of Mickey's Christmas Carol, Disney's fortunes finally began to look up.
To reverse that trend, Disney established a new label, Touchstone Pictures, with the release of Splash in 1984.
During a bitter board of directors’ dispute in 1984, Michael Eisner wrested power from Miller and, as chairman of the board and company CEO, began a further expansion of the Disney empire.
The 1985 release of Down and Out in Beverly Hills helped Touchstone build momentum, which it increased with Outrageous Fortune, Tin Men, Ruthless People, and other hits.
Filmmaking hit new heights in 1988 as Disney, for the first time, led Hollywood studios in box-office gross.
Rice began his career in the marketing department at Twentieth Century Fox in 1989 after graduating from the University of Nottingham.
The revival was heralded by the release of The Little Mermaid (1989), an animated feature regarded as Disney’s best such effort in more than 40 years.
The suits were settled in 1989 when the two companies jointly agreed to pay shareholders $45 million.
In 1989 Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park opened near Orlando, Florida, on the grounds of Walt Disney World.
Although they continued to be a crucial part of the company, the theme parks found competition with Disney's newer projects, including hotel expansions, home video distribution, and Disney merchandising, which together in 1991 garnered an impressive 28 percent of fiscal revenues.
According to Ron Grover, Katzenberg himself began pushing for such a redirection in early 1991.
Both Bernard Weinraub, in a New York Times article, and Eisner, in the company's 1991 annual report, reported that Disney was going to try to stem the flow of high production costs for big-budget films and instead offer films with appealing storylines and engaging characters.
In 1991, Disney purchased Discover magazine, the leading consumer science monthly.
1992: Euro Disney (later named Disneyland Paris) opens.
Disney animation began reaching even greater audiences, with The Little Mermaid being topped by Beauty and the Beast which was in turn topped by Aladdin (1992). Hollywood Records was formed to offer a wide selection of recordings ranging from rap to movie soundtracks.
As a totally new venture, Disney was awarded in 1993 the franchise for a National Hockey League team, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
The tumultuous period began with tragedy, when Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994.
In 1994, Eisner attempted to buy the NBC television network from General Electric Company, but the deal fell through because General Electric reportedly wanted to retain ownership of 51 percent of the network.
An enormous crowd consisting mostly of African American men demonstrates on the National Mall on October 16, 1995, an event known as the Million Man March.
Gómez joined the Company in 1995 as an Analyst in the Financial Risk Management group.
His search ended in 1995 when Disney announced its head-turning merger with Capital Cities/ABC, a $19 billion deal that gave Disney control over television stations, radio stations, cable networks, and legions of other properties.
Bergman joined The Walt Disney Company in 1996 as a Director in the corporate controllership group with a focus on Walt Disney Studios initiatives.
Under Eisner's reign, Disney acquired Capital Cities/ABC in 1996, a $19 billion deal that increased the company's stature enormously.
Disney signed a long-term deal with Showtime Networks, Inc., giving the cable service exclusive rights to Touchstone and other Disney releases through 1996.
After the death of the owner Gene Autry, Disney acquired the California Angels baseball team to add to its hockey team, and in 1997 opened Disney’s Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World.
Quadrani joined J.P. Morgan through its merger with Bear Stearns, where she had served as Senior Managing Director since 1997.
Back in California, Tomorrowland at Disneyland was redesigned in 1998.
A whole new park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, opened at Walt Disney World in 1998.
Disney regional entertainment expanded with DisneyQuest and the ESPN Zone in 1998, and that same year, the Disney Magic, the first of two luxury cruise ships, made its maiden voyage to the Caribbean, stopping at Disney’s own island paradise, Castaway Cay.
In 1998, he was promoted to Vice President of the Company’s operations planning group, where he was responsible for developing the Company’s annual operating plan.
Josh began his Disney career in 1998 at the Disneyland Resort and held a number of leadership positions across the company.
In 1998, Disney acquired Starwave, which maintained ESPN.com and Mr.
A musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame opened in Berlin, Germany in 1999.
After practicing law in New York for five years, he was named head of business affairs for Launch.com in 1999 before joining Yahoo.
Showbiz, as well as other web sites, and purchased 43 percent of Infoseek, acquiring the rest of the Internet search engine company in 1999.
For the first nine months of 1999, excluding the income gained from an asset sale, operating income was down 17 percent, net income dropped 26 percent, and earnings per share fell 27 percent.
1999: Disney Cruise Line begins operations with the Disney Magic.
The year 2000 opened with the release in IMAX theaters of an almost totally new version of Fantasia entitled Fantasia/2000.
Prior to joining Disney in 2000, Ms.
Disney's finances improved in 2000, with a 9 percent increase in total revenues and an impressive 39 percent jump in net income.
In 2001, The Walt Disney Company honored the 100th Anniversary of the birth of its founder, Walt Disney.
Before returning to Disney in 2001, she served as Vice President of Marketing at iexchange.com, Senior Manager of Strategic Planning at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, and Director of Marketing at Pacific Theaters.
By 2001's end, Disney suffered a staggering $158 million loss in net income.
2001: Disney's California Adventure opens next to Disneyland; Disney acquires Fox Family Worldwide for $5.3 billion.
Masters, Kim, Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else, HarperInformation, 2001.
Prior to rejoining the Company in 2002, he was an Associate in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs & Co.
The year 2002 also witnessed creative successes for Disney, with the releases of Peter Pan: Return to Neverland and Lilo & Stitch.
Prior to joining Disney in October 2003, Brent was Vice President, Controller of Yum! Brands, Inc., a spin-off from PepsiCo, and the Controller of PepsiCo’s international restaurant division, serving 10 years with the PepsiCo and Yum! organizations.
The Walt Disney Studios reaped large rewards in 2003, becoming the first in history to exceed over $3 billion in worldwide box office sales.
2003: Roy E. Disney--son of Roy O. Disney, last of the founding family associated with the company--and Stanley Gold quit the Disney board and start Save Disney.com in an attempt to oust CEO Michael Eisner.
He joined Disney in July 2004.
Also in 2004, cable giant Comcast Corporation placed an unsolicited $54 billion bid to acquire the Walt Disney Company, which the latter refused, but which spread doubt concerning the company's future.
Eisner's difficulties did not lessen in 2004.
A major anniversary came in 2005 as Disneyland celebrated its 50th, and all of the Disney theme parks joined in a Happiest Celebration on Earth.
With 2007 came another popular release from Pixar, Ratatouille, and Disney had its first co-production in China—The Secret of the Magic Gourd.
Arnold has been a Director of the Company since 2007.
Quadrani served as Managing Director and Senior Analyst for J.P. Morgan’s United States Media Equity Research group since 2008.
ABC was at the top of the list, hobbled by low ratings and rising costs, including the $9.2 billion spent for ABC and ESPN to acquire the rights for the NFL through 2008.
At the Disney parks in 2008, Disney-MGM Studios was renamed Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Toy Story Midway Mania! opened there and at Disney’s California Adventure, and It’s a Small World opened at Hong Kong Disneyland.
The big news in 2009 was the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment.
In 2009, he was named to Sports Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” annual list of top achievers in sports for his dynamic leadership and “breathless flurry of market-moving pacts” with major sports rightsholders and media companies.
In business news in 2010, the Company sold Miramax.
Pitaro originally joined The Walt Disney Company in 2010 as Co-President, Disney Interactive, where he successfully led the turnaround of the digital media and gaming division.
The year 2011 saw the launch of the Disney Dream and the repositioning of the Disney Wonder to the West Coast.
In theaters in 2012 were John Carter, Marvel’s The Avengers, Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, and Lincoln (DreamWorks). Bob Iger took on the additional title of chairman of the board, and Alan Horn became chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
Maria Elena Lagomasino, 72, is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of WE Family Offices, an office serving high net worth families, and has held these positions since March 2013.
Susan E. Arnold, 65, has been an operating executive of The Carlyle Group, an equity investment firm, since September 2013.
The beginning of 2013 saw a big achievement for Tokyo Disneyland.
She joined the Company in 2014 as Principal Counsel, later serving as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, as well as Global Deputy Chief Compliance Counsel.
Safra A. Catz, 60, has been a Chief Executive Officer of Oracle Corporation since 2014.
Prior to becoming CFO of The Walt Disney Company in 2015, Ms.
Lagomasino has been a Director of the Company since 2015.
Moana and Doctor Strange were two other box-office smashes in 2016.
Schake has served at the highest levels of government, as Communications Director for First Lady Michelle Obama and Deputy Communications Director for Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Latondra Newton was named Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity Officer of The Walt Disney Company in February 2017.
Barra has been a Director of the Company since August 2017.
Hong Kong became home to the first Marvel-themed ride at any Disney park in 2017 when Iron Man Experience opened.
He has been a Director of the Company since September 2018.
Michael B.G. Froman, 58, has been Vice Chairman and President, Strategic Growth at Mastercard Incorporated since 2018.
Before being named President of Walt Disney World in 2019, Josh was President of the Disneyland Resort, where he opened the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land, and helped initiate development of an upcoming Marvel-themed land.
Rice joined the Company during the acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s television and film assets in 2019.
Chapek assumed the role of CEO on February 25, 2020.
Prior to joining Disney in October 2020, Ms.
Jimmy Pitaro was named Chairman, ESPN and Sports Content, on October 12, 2020, focusing on ESPN’s live sports programming, as well as sports news and original and non-scripted sports-related content, for The Walt Disney Company’s cable channels, ESPN+, and ABC.
Early in 2021, two Disney+ series from Marvel Studios became instant hits—WandaVision, which debuted in January, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in March.
*Elected as Chairman of the Board as of December 31, 2021
He also began the development of plans for the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World in 2021, which will include new entertainment experiences for the Epcot theme park and new attractions across the resort.
Chang has been a Director of the Company since 2021.
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The Walt Disney Company competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ViacomCBS | 2019 | $14.5B | 12,700 | - |
| Pixar Animation Studios | 1979 | $770.0M | 1,233 | 11 |
| Sony Pictures | 1987 | $7.1B | 9,500 | 116 |
| Lucasfilm | 1971 | $450.0M | 2,000 | - |
| The Jim Henson Company | 1955 | $12.0M | 50 | - |
| Splaat | 1982 | $704,548 | 75 | - |
| News | 2013 | $10.1B | 24,000 | 238 |
| The Walt Disney Family Museum | 2009 | $12.2M | 97 | - |
| Disney Theatrical Group | 1999 | $600.0M | 125 | - |
| Hoop Retail Stores, LLC | 2004 | $2.7B | 15,000 | - |
The Walt Disney Company history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of The Walt Disney Company, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about The Walt Disney Company. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at The Walt Disney Company. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by The Walt Disney Company. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of The Walt Disney Company and its employees or that of Zippia.
The Walt Disney Company may also be known as or be related to Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio (1923–1926) The Walt Disney Studio (1926–1929) Walt Disney Productions (1929–1986), The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Co Ltd and Disney.