The 2nd Dark Age may actually doom this company to eternal damnation. After years of movie box office flops, poor T.V. show ratings, bad PR, and now rumored poor park ticket sales, Disney is seriously looking at SELLING major pieces of its empire.
Disney is going down a really dark path.
Despite having a market cap of nearly $160B and commanding the world’s most recognizable brand (with a few competitors to the title), Disney is in utter chaos right now with their cash flow streams drying up faster than a droplet of water in the Sahara Desert due to horrible movie and T.V. shows, dwindling audiences and unhappy patrons, rumored poor theme park ticket sales, and dreadful PR battles with local governments. And that has forced CEO Bob Iger to shop around major pieces.
If you would have given this 2023 forecast to Disney as a prediction 10 years ago, you would literally have been sent to a psych ward in an instant as the House of Mouse was unstoppable back then.
(Disney/Lucasfilm-Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope-Official Trailer)
Up until the last three years, nearly every Disney investment of the 2010’s was paying off as Pixar had major successes with Toy Story, The Incredibles, Inside Out, etc., the parks were pulling in record numbers of customers/year at over 150M, ESPN and ABC were dominating in their, respective, news fields, Lucasfilm was…well, we won’t talk about that, Walt Disney Animation Studios found massive hits in Frozen, Moana, Tangled, Zootopia, etc., Pirates of the Carribean was swimming along, and Marvel completed the greatest cinematic universe tale (in terms of box office success) in cinema history with the Infinity Saga.
How could Disney possibly find itself in a situation where it not only faced crippling cash shortfalls, but also faced the very serious possibility of actually SELLING off assets to come up with some change?
Well, to be honest, I’ve got absolutely no idea as it really doesn’t make sense to me how Disney’s hierarchy became so stupid since COVID-19 took over the world for a year, but that’s exactly what’s happened. Nevertheless, you’re probably wondering what assets Disney are looking to sell and if your favorite franchise might be getting spared from the cruel and inhumane “Disney treatment”.
Unless you’re a major fan of news and sports channels, your out of luck as Disney CEO Bob Iger has been actively and openly (he made it clear in an interview with CNBC a few days ago) that Disney was looking for strategic partners for ABC, FX, and ESPN.
Yes, you read that right, Disney is looking to sell major chunks of ABC, FX, and ESPN, some of the biggest television stations in the world (and ESPN is the biggest sports network by a county mile), because they’re running out of cash and need the money fast to complete an obligated purchase of Hulu for at least $9B.
It’s a little complicated as to why Disney must purchase Hulu for such a ridiculous price, but to save time and everyone’s sanity from boring business talk, I’ll just jump straight to the main point: Disney needs $9B+, Disney’s main revenue streams are failing, and Disney must now sell valuable chunks of the empire to avoid financial disaster.
Sounds very dire for the House of Mouse, right?
(Disney/Lucasfilm/Paramount-Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark-Official Trailer)
Sadly, for Iger and his Disney cronies, it’s probably going to get a lot worse as the exact opposite of all the praise I gave to their major revenue sources has been occurring since 2020.
Pixar can’t generate a profitable movie even if one hit them in the face, cable T.V. is dying, Lucasfilm has committed reputational suicide with the Indiana Jones 5 and Star Wars Sequel Trilogy failures, Walt Disney Animation Studios haven’t had a major hit since 2019 (which was a sequel to Frozen II) or an original hit since 2016 (Moana), Pirates of the Carribean is dead with Johnny Depp unjustly backlisted from the franchise, and the MCU is a rudderless mess post the Infinity War saga.
And, if the recent reports about the parks generating lower revenues are true, then Disney is well and truly screwed as they simply don’t have any other IPs, brands, products, etc. to sell and market at high quantities.
Who’s going to want to go to Disneyworld and Disneyland if there isn’t any new, compelling Mickey Mouse and Co. cartoons and all the rides are old and stagnant? Who’s going to want to buy Marvel comics if the movies and shows are so utterly devoid of logic and insulting to the legacy characters? Who’s going to want to watch a Pirates movie without Captain Jack Sparrow as Johnny Depp has been wrongfully blackballed by Disney?
Who’s going to want to watch half-assed, outdated, crony-corporate animation films from Pixar and/or Walt Disney Animations when other studios are doing unique and original ideas 10X better? Who’s going to watch ESPN and ABC if they don’t even watch T.V. anymore in the first place?
(Walt Disney Animation Studios-Frozen-“Let It Go” Clip)
Who’s going to watch Disney products if they believe they’re filled with divisive, 21st century-centric politics and toxic ideological ideas (whether it’s even true or not)? And who’s going to buy Indiana Jones and Star Wars toys if the brands are dead and drowning underneath the crap fanfiction the writers Disney injected into the lore?
These are extremely legitimate and valid questions that must be keeping Bob Iger up at night as they’re the reason Disney has fallen into a 2nd Dark Age!
Though, unlike the 1st one, I’m growing a little concerned Disney won’t be able to pull out of it.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Walt Disney Studios) (Mickey: The Story of a Mouse | Official Trailer | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope – Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Disney/Lucasfilm/Paramount) (INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK | Official Trailer | Paramount Movies – YouTube)
In Text Image 3: (Walt Disney Animation Studios) (Disney’s Frozen “Let It Go” Sequence Performed by Idina Menzel – YouTube)
