In 1993 disney was in growth mode under ceo Michael Eisner and decided to

enter the independent movie scene by buying mirmax for 60 million dollars.
Founded by the now disgraced Harvey and bob Weinstein. Miramax was the
studio for quality independent films in the 80s and 90s. this was actually disneys
first major acquisition seven years after its founding. Owning Miramax greatly
expanded disneys reach. They could release a wide variety of mature films for a
time pulp fiction was technically a Disney movie. So was clerks and the crow and
no country no men. Ofcourse none these movies had the Disney name on them
Miramax was its own thing and even though studio was making money and
winning awards. The weinsteins left in 2005. Their departure caused the new ceo
bob iger to re-evaluate the studio see eiger was never really interested in mere
maths. From a business sense the marvel acquisition was a masters troll Disney
was always weak in boys demographic so marvel was the perfect solution. After
Disney bought it for four billion dollars it took over the world pretty much. It
produces the worlds biggest movie series it sells massive amounts of
merchandise is making its mark in theme parks. Its grown the marvel fandom to
unreachable heights. Disneys made over 18 billion dollars on the mcu alone.
Think about that without accounting for the merchandise or comics or tv series.
Disney still made a massive profit of marvel and that’s just financial. The cultural
impact marvel has made is hard to measure in dollars. Successful merger and
almost disneys best. And almost disneys best marvel might be disneys most
profitable acquisition but pixar is its most seamless and as it happens my favorite
this 2006 purchase for 7.4 billion dollars made total since the pixar was trashing
animation studio at the time and bob iger wanted Disney to lead animation again.
The pixar acquisition paid off in all the best ways. Financially all pixar movies are
blockbusters with 14 billion dollars in box office earnings altogether. That alone
is more than the acquisition price but this is mass media giant Disney were
talking about. They make a lot more money outside of movies to story alone
made 10billion dollars merchandise sales. From a compatibility standpoint pixar
movies always felt especially Disneyland. You don’t think of toy story as a strictly
pixar franchise. You see it as Disney same with cars and the incredibles. The
movie are even labeled as Disney pixar. Their first major one was Miramax in 1993
but in 1996 ceo mike Eisner decided to really broaden disneys horizons. Disney
would buy abc one of Americas legendary big three broadcast networks. Which
also came with ESPN the sports media giant this was historic acquisition. For one
it cost 19 billion dollars equal to around 30 billion dollars today. For another it
gave Disney incredible reach. They had ABC content in their stable. News shows,
talk shows, late night shows, countless sitcoms and dramas not to mention the
hundreds of ABC stations around the U.S which gave Disney a powerful
advertising tool from miss piggy appearing on the view to Disney trailers
debuting on good morning America. ABC is a key division of the Disney
marketing machine. Now its true that broadcast tv is slowly declining but news
talk shows late night etc. will always relevant. ABC has produced and still
produces so much content that will always have an audience namely an older one
than Disney.