Disney in the 2020’s

In this episode, we review all the films and events of the Walt Disney Corporation from 2020 to today. We talk about the political fight in Florida, the launch of Disney+, and speculate where Disney is heading in the future. Click and listen! 🎥🎥🎬🎬

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to CinemaChat with David Heath. And I am your host, David Heath, and this is the podcast where we talk about movies from every era and just about every genre. And we have had a long, long, long, long, long recurring series of episodes on uh Disney. And I have covered every era of Disney going back to uh the days of uh before Mickey Mouse. Um so um we have sort of reached an end. Uh I what we're gonna do with this episode is we're gonna talk about Disney from 2020 to today and find and maybe speculate a little bit uh where Disney is going in the future. Um but uh we are almost done with this Disney series. What I intend to do uh at some point is uh is release an episode of that that ranks uh the animated features and another episode where I'm going to uh possibly spread these out a little bit, I'm not sure, but I'm going to do uh at least an episode on the 100 best Disney live action films, and uh so that might be interesting. And and uh but today uh we are going to talk about uh Disney from 2020 to today. If you want to scroll back and listen to our prior episodes, uh where we talked about Disney in the 30s, Disney in the 40s, Disney in the 50s, and uh Disney in the 60s, and and so on. Uh but uh we have reached the point where we have finally gotten to uh where we are currently. Uh and uh let's see, uh so Bob Iger is uh running Disney still, um, and he will end this time frame between 2020 and now he will retire and then unretire um to run Disney again. But uh we'll get into that a little more of that in a little bit. Uh but we want to talk a little bit about the acquisitions Disney made and some of the films Disney released, and um well, let's get started. So uh Disney, of course, has uh up to this point has made a uh name for uh uh acquiring uh all kinds of different studios and starting different studios like like Touchstone, which uh basically dissolved uh me prior to 2020. And also uh Disney had uh during this time frame it had acquired uh searchlight pictures, um more importantly, uh Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, uh which 20th Century Fox is constantly teetering on on bankruptcy. Um you know, there was a time when they had put together put out a couple flops in a row, and Planet of the Apes saved 20th Century Fox. And in the 70s, 20th Century Fox was almost in bankruptcy again, and Star Wars came out and really lifted 20th Century Fox uh out of the doldrums. Um, but finally uh Disney had bought 20th Century Fox and they changed the name uh sadly to 20th Century Studios. Uh this will end uh some of the potential confusion. I don't think it really did that, but you know, whatever. Uh but of course Disney had already acquired Marvel uh the MCM or MCMs, MCU. I'm always guilty of saying MCM some for some reason. The MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and had been putting out movies uh left and right that were earning uh a billion dollars, 700 million dollars, eight hundred million dollars. You know, and so this was a recurring thing. However, uh late in the last decade, uh Disney uh Disney and the MCU had reached a point where these movies were not surefire guarantees. Uh Paul Fee uh produced uh has produced all the Marvel movies, and there uh has been a set plan for Marvel movies to come out at specific times. Uh uh Paul Fee had planned uh you know three, four years in advance all the Marvel movies that uh would be coming out. Uh but uh these are not surefire guarantees like they once were. Now there's some of them that are coming out and they're you know guaranteed to make a uh a billion. Um but uh uh largely these have by now started to show some wear and tear, shall we say. Uh Disney had also, of course, re acquired the Star Wars uh films with uh in Lucas film, uh along with the 20th Century Fox. Uh they had that now, of course. And the Star Wars movies uh have all done very well. Uh Disney had uh Disney had been in charge of of them, but uh of course doing well at the box office didn't necessarily mean that all the Star Wars fans were thrilled about this. Um and uh my take, and I think I may have offered it on the last Disney episode, but my take on Marvel movies uh is that um you know none of them are particularly awful, maybe a couple of them are that have been released recently, but but none of them are particularly awful so much to me. It's just that there, why does there have to be so many? Why does it have to dominate uh cinema? Um, but at the same time, uh I've used this example many times. Uh Hollywood wore out the western and the musical in the 60s. By the late 60s and early 70s, most people were done with westerns and with um um musicals. Uh the only westerns that really came out in the 70s uh were revisionist history uh or revision revisionist westerns um that you know, especially like Clint Eastwood's uh westerns that were not traditional. And uh those did those did pretty well. Uh and musicals just completely just went away. And uh they've started to make a comeback a little tiny bit, both westerns and musicals, but they're not released, you know, like like one right after the other. Instead, uh Hollywood has done a pretty good job of of every once in a while churning out a real good one. And oh, I mean, I like uh the Unforgiven and Tombstone came out in consecutive years. Uh sometimes I forget that it's been over 30 years since those came out. But um, but this was you know, at past or this is this is a post uh time of the musicals and the westerns being uh humongous. Uh but back to Disney, what Disney was really uh facing was uh the launch of uh November of 2019 of Disney Plus. And there were there there was quite a bit of excitement, a lot of fervor about Disney Plus uh coming out. And I know I personally was as excited. Um, but the funny thing is for me is what was I excited about? I was excited about watching uh the the classic Disney movies, the uh you know, the classic, the the animated ones uh when Walt was alive, and the live action ones that are silly and corny, but still fun. And uh I'm looking forward to talking uh about the live action films and ranking them. I'm gonna do the 100 uh best. Now, the interesting thing about uh Disney Plus coming on 2019, you know, November, of course, Disney didn't predict COVID-19 would would happen. But imagine if Disney would have waited a little longer to release it, uh it would have been disastrous. Of course, it was something that a lot of people assume Disney uh just absolutely raked in the bucks after launching uh uh Disney Plus. Uh but in fact, despite a lot of the bugs and there were lots of bugs, I I don't know who remembers the early days. That's not that long ago. Uh you know, it's hasn't even been seven years yet. But the early days of Disney Plus, where there was a lot of buffering going on, and uh we live in a time where we just can't handle buffering. Of course, it's not fun to have a snafu with your with your feed. Um, but uh Disney Plus, I remember the first, I don't know, probably 20 shows or or movies I watched on there, um, kept getting interrupted by buffering. And you know, eventually that's been cleaned up. And uh, but but what a lot of people don't realize is that Disney Plus, for the first time, I uh this uh for the very first time in 2026, Disney Plus finally turned out a profit. So Disney Plus has made more money than it's has spent uh for the first time. And a lot of people just assume that this is just like this huge moneymaker, and it and it probably will be, um, but it took a long time to turn that profit and a lot of patience. Um, but coming out right before a pandemic was huge for Disney. Uh and of course, there's going to be a lot more uh subscriptions, and uh Disney put you know really um a de-emphasis. Is that a word? They de-emphasized their the the Disney channel and uh were uh uh trying to get people to subscribe to Disney Plus. Um there were there was some programming or quite a bit of programming on there, um, but certainly it wasn't complete. And um certainly it isn't what it is today. Um but when it first started, uh you saw a lot of the Disney classics. Um most of them were rolled out, not Song of the South, by the way, but um, but uh most of those classics were rolled out, the classic animated, and most of the classic, uh most of the classic uh uh live-action films were released too. Um the interesting thing for me is how just random ones were not available. And you know, like the Twilight Zone on our uh uh the Tower of Terror uh movie um that uh came out um in 1980. That's a movie that just for some reason Disney didn't want us to see it. But strangely, it was on it was on uh YouTube. Very strange stuff. Um I I I think it said 1980. I I I think it was actually more like 85 or something. But um, in any case, uh Disney Plus uh oh over time uh has uh really evolved. Uh originally there were not going to be any uh access to R-rated movies or or TVMA uh movies uh or shows, uh, but uh Disney has acquired Hulu um uh as well, and so they've kind of merged the two the apps um so you can access a lot of Hulu stuff from the Disney app. And uh, you know, my son says it seems weird to log on to Disney Plus and see R-rated movies that that are listed on there. And I agree, it's it's a little it seems a little odd. Of course, uh there's there's multiple versions of it where uh you know some don't have Hulu and some are just the kids uh only ones. But uh anyway, uh it's uh it it is a little a little jarring. Um but it it kind of started though uh evolving with uh things like uh uh they had uh uh the P the uh uh the Peter Jackson uh directed uh Beatles uh show where they were talking about uh the um where they where they were showing the the the Beatles sessions late when they were all mad at each other, but uh there were several parts to it, and it was really if you're a Beatles fan, then it was it's quite fun. Uh they also had a Beach Boys documentary that was uh really good. Um But Disney has has added most of the well, if if not all of the programming um that was on the Disney Channel, including some of the older shows from the 2000s. Uh you can find those uh shows on there too. And Disney Plus is just uh basically like the golden corral of movie apps now. It's just all kinds of stuff on there. Um, and you you didn't necessarily expect it. I didn't necessarily expect it. I expected it to be a little simpler like it was in the beginning, but it really has evolved into this giant, just like Disney itself. It's kind of like a microcosm of what Disney uh Disney is in the first place. But there are now 131 uh million subscribers. Um you can watch the stuff all the Star Wars films on there, uh all the Indiana Jones films on there, the Marble films on there, uh all on there. Uh now um the releases that Disney has has had, uh the theatrical releases have been shortened. The list is shorter than years past uh because of COVID-19. Uh there are a lot of a lot of movies that they just put right on Disney, Disney Plus. Uh some of the notable releases, though, were Inside Out 2, Moana 2, Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny, lots of sequels. Um uh Lightyear, uh let's see, um, and some uh also Disney had uh continued on and has continued on with the live action versions of the animated classics. Um they put out uh Mufasa, the Lion King, which is an extension of the Lion King story, also uh or it's uh like a prequel. Uh Lilo and Stitch, a live action movie that did really well, and a live action Pinocchio. And of course, how could we forget about the live-action Snow White film and all of the hullabaloo uh regarding that? Disney had finally uh escaped uh some uh some flack that it was receiving um uh for all of that incident uh or all of that stuff that was happening within Snow White with Rachel Ziegler, who is just is never going to be hired as a PR person. That's one job Rachel Ziegler will never have is a PR person. She she does she's not a PR person. Um and we also have the uh political fighting uh with uh Disney um in uh with Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, of course, um due to some uh disagreements with with uh ideology uh and also uh the flat out, well, you know, Ron Ron DeSantis just said, well, hey, uh why is Disney getting such a free pass uh for paying taxes? And um and they and of course um when that changed, there was a lot of a lot of fire coming back from Disney and and from uh a lot of uh people that didn't like Florida or Ronda DeSantis, quite frankly. Um, but that was uh an interesting hubbub as well. Um there was also uh a proxy war. Uh Bob Iger again as of 2020 was was running Disney and uh he planned his retirement and he did retire and then he came back. Um and uh and a little bit of it had to do with COVID-19, but I think that was the little cover. But there was also a proxy fight. Um there was uh a man, if you hadn't heard of him, uh his name is Mel Nelson Peltz. Uh he is uh somebody that developed a reputation for uh uh buying, you know, for proxy wars and buying buying out companies. And uh he made an attempt to um do a hostile takeover of Disney, um, and uh it failed. Uh but right now Bob Iger is still uh running Disney and Disney has has done a little bit of a makeover of sorts. Um, you know, I think the Snow White thing really affected them, and this they decided uh that maybe they want to be less political, politically progressive. I'm not sure how to how to put it, but but somehow um Disney has escaped that problem and is kind of like living life in the middle kind of thing. But in any case, uh where's Disney going right now? What is there left to conquer? Well, there's still other studios um out there. Um and you know who knows? Um Disney is such an interesting entity. Um I I wonder what Walt would have said if he saw what Disney has become. If he'd be proud or happy, or if he'd be really irritated. I don't really know the answer that question. I think Disney Walt Disney was a little bit of an enigma. Um, he's somebody that put himself out there a lot, you know, and and was very public, but I don't. Know that we really know a lot about him. Not really a lot about him, anyway. Um, I know we had Mike Mike McGreevy, who was in seven Disney film, I think seven, it's the right number, seven Disney films, and boy, he what a great interview he was a few years ago. Um, he had lots of stories, including about meeting Mr. Disney, Walt Disney. But uh that was an interesting conversation and lots of fun. Um but uh yeah, who knows where Disney's going. Um it's interesting to uh think about. Um, I gotta tell you, guys, I'm really looking forward to these episodes where I'm going to be ranking the Disney uh animated films and ranking the the top 100 uh live action Disney movies. Not sure when those episodes are coming out, um, but I will I will be working on them. And uh I'm curious what my own answers are going to be. Um you know, but but having said that, about looking forward to that, um I'm kind of glad that my Disney, my other Disney episodes are over with because um while some of it has been fun, uh I really liked liked it better when Disney was putting out a lot less product because I made a notion to watch every theatrical release and and I held true to that and I watched every theatrical release uh Disney has made or has put out there, and uh and it and it wore me out, quite frankly. Um but uh but uh I soldiered on and did it anyway. Um did not watch every single Disney movie, just all the theatrical releases. So put that out there. Um what do you think? Uh if you are able to comment uh on the platform you're listening to, you know, let me know what you think. But um uh speaking of listening to the podcast, I want to thank everybody for listening. Um this show has grown to the point where um where I was happy to that three people clicked on it to being listened to in 129 countries. Um and I'm just thrilled about that. Um just absolutely thrilled uh about that. However, the show can grow a little more if you're willing to help me. Um and you don't have to send me any money, but what you can do uh is you can um subscribe to the show. Um you can also write a nice review, five-star review will help the show uh grow. And um, and also just by simply telling people that you know. Um, you know, if you're on social media and you want to tell someone about the show, uh you know, then uh we I would really would really would appreciate it. And hopefully they'll appreciate the research that uh that I do. And uh this is a little bit of an abbreviated episode compared to some of the others. Um, but uh the um uh the uh but I just kind of wanted to oh give you an overview of what's happened over the last five years with Disney. It's been a lot. Uh I made a decision to or conscious decision not not to go deep into in the depth of uh any one particular subject because there's so many things to talk about, and I don't want to do seven more episodes on on Disney um today. Um, but I want to thank everybody for listening, and uh, I will be putting out some more episodes every week, and um I really appreciate you.