this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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Yes, but they also brought back piracy, eroded faith in the brand, and while Disney+ is making money.....
Disney's newer efforts are kinda showing it's not the powerhouse it used to be. With the only thing they really have going for them are the legacy media that they're holding hostage on a platform, they arbitrarily removes things from time to time for seemingly no reason (the Willow series for example, which makes very little sense since that was original to Disney+ to begin with and for some reason Buzz Lightyear of Star Command isn't on the platform despite all the other Toy Story media being present... and there are several episodes of The Simpsons that are just straight up memory-holed; most infamously the Michael Jackson episode)
If this trend continues, Disney will be left with people pirating the legacy media that people at home have shaky access to at best (Monthly fee for content that may be removed with no notice and for no reason), especially as prices soar and wages stay the same, and interest in newer project dwindling.
Or to be blunt, one of the most classic blunders: High short term profits at the cost of being unsustainable in the long term.
Sure it's easy to think of Disney as laughing its way to the bank, but.. think of it this way.
Disney's been king of the world, especially in animation (Which has been getting sidelined in favor of live-action. I guarantee if Mufasa was animated it'd be running neck and neck with Sonic 3 instead of lagging behind). They're a luxury limousine running fast on a road that has no other cars (because Disney bought those cars), and the tank's running out of gas. You won't know it's running on fumes until it comes to a complete stop, but at the speed it's going it will take awhile...
And the second it stops, a simple fuel service isn't going to get it running again. It will get running again, too many people need it to run. So they'll call a mechanic, and it will take to the streets once more.
Is Disney cooked? of course not, but they will see a return of their darkest days. A decade or two of the Disney brand no longer being that shining seal of quality people take it for.
I see it comparable to Nintendo's Wii-U days when the company was a joke with no 3rd Party support and consumers who weren't even sure what the Wii-U was even supposed to be. (Too many passed on it, believing it to be an overpriced gimmicky tablet add-on for the Wii... The launch title being NSMBU instead of something fans hadn't already seen before I think is a big part of the blame for that.)
Nintendo didn't wind up in bankruptcy, but they'd need to reinvent the wheel via the Switch, win back 3rd Party Support, and rekindle the faith of the fans, to get back to being a power house.
Don't forget another thing in common between Nintendo and Disney: lawsuits. And obsession with intellectual property. Not required to be against their own fans, but it is preferred.
At this point I'm surprised I haven't been sued for wearing a Waddle Dee hat that I paid in public. (I don't have the Kirby License)
Given Disney's stranglehold on animation and general lack of interest in high quality 2d animation it's been quite interesting seeing the market for high quality foreign animation grow so much. At one time Studio Ghibli relied on Disney for distribution in the US, but now they're a name that can stand on its own (and with the gkids acquisition/merger we should be seeing more Japanese animation hitting American screens and theatres)
I have to expect foreign and indie animation studios to continue to grow in market share as Disney continues to ignore 2d animation and continues it's overly rapid production schedules that don't allow for the quality.
Simply put, you watch a non-disney animated film or even just any of Disney's animated films from before they killed hand drawn animation and there's so much quality lost, where you go from every single frame being it's own masterpiece of artwork to just enough set dressing to not look out of place but good luck finding a still you'd want to hang on your wall.
I give it about 10 years before Disney is forced to course correct. Just long enough for kids who haven't seen a good animated film released by Disney their entire childhoods to become teens/adults and start paying to consume competitors content instead
I give it five