1. AndrewWilson
How to Dethrone Disney
OriginallyPublishonOdyssey
It is difficult to imagine the modern film 'Landscape' without Disney coming to mind. The
undoubted titan of the modern entertainment industry, this media giant stands above the
competition with its continued success with its own inside projects, as well as a lucrative ownership
of Marvel Studios, LucasFilms, and Pixar.
This year already, the Walt Disney film 'Distributor' known as 'Buena Vista', has earned 2.45 billion
dollars with more expected as 'Moana' and 'Rogue One' will release before the year lets out. Of the
top 10 grossing films this year, Disney currently holds five places, with four of them floating around
the one billion dollar mark, while the remaining six major film studios fight over the remaining
places.
With a company appearing to be so successful, it is rather difficult to create compelling competition
in a competitive market. Disney's closest competition, Warner Brothers, released their biggest film
projects, Batman Vs. Superman and Suicide Squad, which were both undermined by critical and
commercial response. 21st Century Fox lost out on their tent poles with the under-performing X-
Men: Apocalypse and Independence Day: Resurgence. Not to mention Sony's continued failure with
it's failed Ghostbusters reboot. What begs the question is, what separates Disney from it's
competition and it largely boils down to management and acquisition of the larger properties.
Disney's recent success is can be attributed to the current CEO and chairman, Bob Iger. A long time
company man for Disney, he was appointed to his position in 2005 with the goal of restoring the
company to it's former glory following several dismal years in box office returned. The company's
continued failure was attributed to an overwhelming amount of creative control held by the Strategic
Planning Division and a lack of fresh, lucrative content. Over the next seven years, Iger would
gradually begin to revitalize the Disney film brand with a serious of strategic acquisitions of
successful studios, beginning with Pixar in 2006, Marvel in 2009, and Lucasfilms in 2012, and
granting them immense control over the direction of the films produced by them.
In these moves, Iger bought beloved intellectualproperty with established groundwork and allowing
them to produce the content they want with limited interference. This strategy would later be
applied to their own animated and live-action divisions; the former focusing on creating new content
while the later emphasized remakes of classic Disney property.
While this model has served well in recent years, this continued practice poses a long term problem
for Disney; lack of original content. Of the twelve films released this year, only Moana and Zootopia
were property based not based on a preexisting fiction, and has remained at about the same ratio
since 2012. Instead of releasing more content, Disney has downsized on the number of projects
released and focused on pouring more money into the projects they release. While this is a practical
choice from a business perspective, the need for overwhelming success becomes that much more
important otherwise a property will not continue. While Zootopia shattered proved its worth,
financially and critically, Moana is struggling to earn the profits that 'Frozen' or 'Tangled' enjoyed,
despite being better received. With fewer original projects created in recent years, Disney is creating
a shallow pool of properties to draw back on in years to come.
It is here where I submit my simple solutions for the studios:

2. AndrewWilson
How to Dethrone Disney
OriginallyPublishonOdyssey
1. A cap on the number of tentpole/big budget films released in a year.
There are simply too Many to compete and be financially viable when every studio is releasing six a
year. Put in a limit for adaptions and a requirement for original content.
2. Clear and precise leadership for franchise films.
Something they should steal from Disney, a strong, creative leader at the helm of the franchises on
all levels. A clear creative director to see everything, interesting directors, and stars who are invested
in your projects.
3. Cut spending.
Not every blockbuster needs a 50 million dollar set piece to make itself viable. Deadpool, John
Wick, and the modern horror genre prove that successful movies can be made on relatively small
budgets. A financial limitation can make for creative, out of the box, films that audiences can
appreciate.
4. Selling rights/allowing them into public domain
This one is more of a pipe dream but it is viable to the survival of film as a genre. The Public
domain is currently lacking due to the state of copyright law, so new regulation must be written to
ensure that content is made available for people to experiment with down the line. If something
continues to fail, let it go to the public domain so that someone smaller might have better luck with
it.
While the billion dollar box office returns and record breaking weekends of franchise films continue,
the end will come. Eventually there will be a saturation point where audience will use their dollars to
demand a break from Star Wars or the Avengers and want something else to keep them entertained.
We've seen these bubbles come and go in the past 20 years with the disaster movie bubble of the
late 90's and the young adult movie bubble in recent years, the burst is inevitable. The only thing we
can do in these moments is adapt, create, and trust that this new work will change someone's life for
the better down the line, or even inspire them to give their own take on the world at large.