Walt Disney Studios (division)

The Walt Disney Studios is an American film studio, one of the four major businesses of The Walt Disney Company and the main component of its Studio Entertainment segment. The studio, best known for its multi-faceted film division, which is one of Hollywood's major film studios, is based at the eponymous Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.

The Studios generated an estimated income of $2.355 billion during the 2017 fiscal year. The studio entertainment business alone (live-action and animated motion pictures, direct-to-video content, musical recordings and live stage plays) brought in $8.379 billion in 2017.

The Walt Disney Studios is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Background
Walt Disney Productions began production of their first feature-length animated film in 1934. Taking three years to complete, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered in December 1937 and became the highest-grossing film of that time by 1939. In the 1940s, Disney began experimenting with full-length live-action films, with the introduction of hybrid live action-animated films such as The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and Song of the South (1946). That same decade, the studio began producing nature documentaries with the release of Seal Island (1948), the first of the True-Life Adventures series and a subsequent Academy Award winner for Best Live-Action Short Film.

Walt Disney Productions had its first fully live-action film in 1950 with the release of Treasure Island, considered by Disney to be the official conception for what would eventually evolve into the modern-day Walt Disney Pictures. By 1953, the company ended their agreements with such third-party distributors as RKO Radio Pictures and United Artists and formed their own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution.

1980s
By the 1980s, The Walt Disney Company's collection of film units emerged as one of Hollywood's major film studios, mostly due to newly designed efforts in branding strategies, a resurgence of Walt Disney Pictures' animated releases and unprecedented box office successes, particularly from Touchstone Pictures. The Walt Disney Productions film division was incorporated on April 1, 1983 as Walt Disney Pictures. In April 1983, Richard Berger was hired by Disney CEO Ron W. Miller as film president. Touchstone Films was started by Miller in February 1984 as a label for their PG-rated films with an expected half of Disney's 6 to 8 movies yearly slate would be released under the label. Berger was pushed out as a new CEO was appointed for Walt Disney Productions later in 1984, as Michael Eisner brought his own film chief, Jeffrey Katzenberg and film studio president, Richard H. Frank. Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures were formed within that unit on February 15, 1984 and February 1, 1989 respectively.

Organized in 1985, Silver Screen Partners II, L.P. financed films for Disney with $193 million in funding. In January 1987, Silver Screen III began financing movies for Disney with $300 million raised, the largest amount raised for a film financing limited partnership by E.F. Hutton.

In April 1988, Touchstone became a unit of Walt Disney Pictures with newly appointed head Ricardo Mestres. With several production companies getting out of film production or closing shop by December 1988, Walt Disney Studios announced the formation of Hollywood Pictures division, which would only share marketing and distribution with Touchstone, to fill the void. Walt Disney Television and Touchstone Television were grouped together under Garth Ancier as president of network television for The Walt Disney Studios on April 18, 1989.

Late in the 1980s, Disney purchased a controlling stake in one of Pacific Theatres' chains leading to Disney's Buena Vista Theaters and Pacific to renovate the El Capitan Theatre and the Crest by 1989. The Crest was finished first while El Capitan opened with the premiere of The Rocketeer film on June 19, 1991.

1990s
In September 1990, The Walt Disney Company arranged for financing up to $200 million by a unit of Nomura Securities for Interscope films made for Disney. On October 23, 1990, Disney formed Touchwood Pacific Partners I to supplant the Silver Screen Partnership series as their movie studios' primary funding source. In 1992, Walt Disney Studios agreed to fund a production company, Caravan Pictures, for exiting 20th Century Fox chairman Joe Roth. In 1993, Miramax Films was purchased for $60 million by Disney.

On March 30, 1992, Disney Studios agreed to sell KCAL-TV to Pineland, Inc. for a 45% ownership stake in Pineland, so as to have interest in TV stations in both large markets, Los Angeles and New York City, allowing for increased original programming. Instead Pineland agreed to an unsolicited bid in May from Chris-Craft Industries thus ending the planned business merger with Disney's KCAL.

David Hoberman was promoted by Katzenberg to president of motion pictures at Walt Disney Studios in April 1994 from president of Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures. While Ricardo Mestres was forced out as president of Hollywood Pictures in exchange for a production deal.

On August 24, 1994 with Katzenberg's resignation, Walt Disney Studios was reorganized spinning out a new TV group. Richard Frank became head of newly formed Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications (WDTT). Roth moved up from Caravan Pictures to helm the remaining Walt Disney Studios as chairman. Hoberman stepped down as president in January 1995 to take a five-year, multi-film deal for his production company, Mandeville Films.

Roth was appointed as chairman of Walt Disney Studios in 1996. In April 1996 due to ongoing post Disney-CC/ABC merger realignment and retirement of its president, WDTT group's division were reassigned to other groups with most transferred to The Walt Disney Studios or CC/ABC. Units returning to the studio were the television production companies, Walt Disney Television, Disney Television Animation, Touchstone Television and Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

Buena Vista International - Latin America and two other companies became owners of Patagonik Film Group, an Argentina-based production company, in 1997. In late 1997, Disney bid on CDR's Epic movie library but lost to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.

Disney's Buena Vista Distribution and Cinergi Pictures had a 25-picture distribution deal with Disney taking a 5% stake in Cinergi stock. After nine films were delivered under the agreement, Cinergi sold Disney on November 22, 1997 all of its 12 film library except for Die Hard With a Vengeance plus $20 million in exchange for Disney's Cinergi shareholdings, production advances of $35.4 million and other loans.

In 1998, the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group was formed by Roth to unite the Disney, Touchstone and Hollywood film production units with leadership under David Vogel. This was in order to centralize the various production units and to make live-action film production within Disney more cost-efficient. Roth also determined that the studio's year production slate should be cut. So in August 1998, Roger Birnbaum, Caravan's co-founder, left to co-found Spyglass Entertainment at Roth's prompting in which Disney gave Caravan's development slate, a five-year distribution agreement and an advance. Caravan after the remaining three films are release when inactive. By May 2000, Disney had taken an equity stake in Spyglass.

Peter Schneider was promoted to Studio president in January 1999, while Thomas Schumacher was promoted to president of Walt Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney Theatrical Productions while both are made co-presidents of Disney Theatrical Group. As the first Studio president, Schneider had supervisory control of all Walt Disney label released films. In July, Walt Disney Television, including Buena Vista Television Productions, were transferred out of The Walt Disney Studios to ABC Television Network to merge with ABC's prime-time division to form the ABC Entertainment Television Group.

2000s
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2010s
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