"Beauty and the Beast" was released for three days, generating 308 million at the box office, Disney is the hegemon of the industry, and this year's film business is about to show its power again!
In 2016, Disney set a new high at the box office, breaking past records, but it won $6 billion at the box office. And Disney Pictures is not only very profitable, but most powerfully, the creative team behind the scenes can launch exciting works that move people every year, and these works are constantly creating a legendary Mickey Mouse army.
Walt Disney
A hot-blooded youth with an animation dream: Walt Disney
After World War I, Walt Disney, who had cultivated an interest in painting since childhood, was introduced by his brother to work as a painter for an advertising agency called "Presman Rubin". However, his talent for his work was not affirmed by the supervisor at the time, and he lost his job after not doing it long. But full of enthusiasm, he did not lose his mind, but dreamed bigger and bigger, and set up another art company with colleagues he knew at the advertising agency at the time, but things did not go well, and the two inexperienced people had no choice but to declare bankruptcy in the case of only making $135 a month of opening.
What really exposed Walt Disney to animation production was to join the Kansas City advertising agency, learn the basic techniques of film and animation, deeply attracted by animation, after two years of study, he once again made up his mind to start a business, set up laugh-o-gram films, when animation production had not yet appeared in the form of movies, mainly pre-screening short films, and after some hard work, Disney finally launched its first animation debut "Alice in Cartoon Country" (Alice). Comedies), followed by "laugh-o-grams" and "Alice's wonderland", but the company still announced its closure because it was not enough to make ends meet.
Wonderland
So, this 22-year-old young man with animation dreams came to Hollywood, when he only had $40 and an unfinished Alice in Wonderland film, after being rejected by several film companies, it is interesting that the last person to accept his animation was margaret winkler, but margaret winkler wanted to have the distribution rights of animated series characters and short films, walt Disney after seeking the assistance of his brother Roy O. Disney. Disney Brothers Studio was also successfully established, and the creative genius and the cooperation of the business operators maintained the Disney Brothers Studio for a long time, and Walt Disney also met his wife, the colorist Lillian Bonds.
Walt Disney with his wife
Mickey Mouse and "brother" Lucky Rabbit Oswald were born
After marrying Lillian, Disney decided to take away the "brother" of the company name and change it to Walt Disney Studios, and during this period the company also launched "osward, the lucky rabbit", which was a popular animation and was the first popular animation character of Walt Disney. But when Charles Mintz was discussing the renewal of the contract, Walt was going to raise the price, but Mintz asked Walt to lower the price, telling Walt that he had bought most of the production staff of "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" and that under the contract he owned the rights to the series, and if Walter did not agree to the price reduction, he could continue to make "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit". On the train back to Hollywood, Walt Disney had a sudden inspiration to create a cartoon image based on a mouse, Mortimer mouse, which was later renamed Mickey mouse at Lilian's suggestion, and Mickey Mouse was born on the train. However, although Mickey Mouse's appearance is pleasing and distinctive, the first two silent animations are not popular. It wasn't until he entered the era of sound movies that Walt Disney decided to boldly launch the first Mickey Mouse-starred sound animation "Steamboat Willie", and his sloppy animation path finally reached its peak.
On November 18, 1928, "Steamboat Willie" premiered at the Colonial Theater in New York City, and the crowd of people crowded the scene, many of whom came for the little mouse. This is the first time walt Disney's name has been remembered by the world, and November 18 is also scheduled to be Mickey Mouse's birthday, and after that, we will also play a short clip of Mickey Mouse's helm and swing in "Steamboat Willy" before watching disney movies to commemorate this legend-making short film.
Big Dreamers Officially Take Off: Snow White, the first animated film in film history
After years of waiting for fame and fortune, Walt Disney was not satisfied, he had a lofty dream, that is, to truly turn animation into a film art, not just a pastime short film before people watched the movie, he began to try more, such as making the first color animation "Flowers and Trees", which won the Academy Award for Best Short Film. After receiving the awards, Disney continued to launch works such as "Three Little Pigs" and "The Wise Little Hen", and finally decided to start making a feature-length animation "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". But it was considered unrealistic daydreaming at the time, and was called "the disney folly" by the media at the time.
However, even though it was ridiculed at the time, the media and film critics were not optimistic about this money-burning work, but the film's premiere day achieved unprecedented success, Chaplin and other celebrities stood up to applaud, and the beautiful melody of the film was also deeply rooted in people's hearts, becoming an epoch-making animation classic. Later, because the songs in the film were so popular, Walt Disney decided to release the soundtrack of the film, which was the world's first soundtrack.
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" won the supremacy of Walt Disney, this year Walt Disney won the Oscar lifetime achievement award, and at the time of the award, the trophy produced another 7 little golden men, paying tribute to the 7 dwarfs, and commemorating the wonderful stroke of "Snow White" in history. But then Disney entered a difficult period — the outbreak of World War II.
Donald Duck joins the military and pays taxes: Disney during World War II
In the early 1940s, Disney played the leading reputation in the animation industry with long-form works such as "Pinocchio", "Bambi", "Dumbo" and so on, constantly bringing the audience a dreamlike fantasy feast with dazzling visions, making the company move towards the first wave of peaks. However, Walt Disney's animation dreams were interrupted by World War II, and after the United States entered the war, the studio did not have enough human resources to create long-form works because most of the staff were recruited into the army. During this period, the U.S. government also commissioned Disney to create a number of war-themed promotional shorts, including a "Commando Duck" short film starring Donald Duck, which expressed the mood and misery of the generals on the battlefield in a humorous form, which was very popular at the time. In addition, the United States also vigorously promoted the importance of paying taxes at that time, and this time Donald Duck incarnated as a struggling citizen in "The Spirit of 43", and the short film vigorously conveyed the value that "everyone has the obligation to contribute to the war", which did increase the willingness of many Americans to pay taxes at that time.
Many of today's unimaginably sensitive issues became material for Disney animation at the time, influencing American audiences through Donald Duck's comical interpretation. However, it was clear that the lack of the wartime market, coupled with the lack of "official" animation, could not support the basic income required for Disney to produce animation, and Disney's deficit was as high as $1.2 million during this period, so Walt Disney had to refuse to continue to animate for the military and continue to produce entertainment content. Even if it was unable to produce exquisite long-form animations, Disney Studios still tried to release a number of films with multiple short stories as a compilation album during this period, such as "Saludos Amigos", "The Three Caballeros", "Make Mine Music", "Melody Time" and "Fun and Fancy Free". It wasn't until the end of World War II and the return of Disney employees to the studio that Walt Disney was able to produce the long-planned masterpiece: Cinderella.
The golden age is coming
"Cinderella" ("Cinderella") was actually a big bet by Disney Company that year, when Disney was close to the last blockbuster movie, which was already in the "Dumbo" period. If the film does not succeed, Walt Disney's painstaking animation empire will be wiped out. Fortunately, after the release of this film, it received quite good reviews and box office. At that time, the audience expressed their love for the film's colorful visuals, beautiful songs, and cute little mice, and Walt Disney himself must have been proud of the film, and he publicly stated that the picture of Cinderella changing clothes before going to the prom in the film was his favorite of the works he had ever produced. The film will also save Disney from the deficit and usher in a golden age for Disney, which is facing a crisis.
Since the great success of "Snow White" and "Fairy Tales", Disney Studios has also begun to adapt more fairy tale works such as "Sleeping Beauty", "Alice in Wonderland", "Peter Pan" and other works, and also tried the novel adaptation of "101 Loyal Dogs", and even launched the first full-live-action movie "Treasure Island", and swept 13 Oscar nominations "Happy People".
Starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson, "Big Dreamer" describes Walt Disney's persuasion of "Happy Man" author Travers to adapt his book into a film (this is the first biopic film to describe the story of Walt Disney), "Happy Man" finally won back 5 Academy Awards, disney's most awarded work so far, and the concept of feminist movement and family values in the film has had a great impact on future generations.
Just like the plot of "Big Dreamer", Walt Disney also attached great importance to the development of theme parks when he began to experiment with script diversification. After the California theme park opened in 1955, he worked day and night to promote the park, and in order to promote the park, he bought a time slot for "Disneyland" on abc Television. At first, it was only dedicated to the park tour, but in the later period, more and more content began to appear, and even the old cartoons of the past were played, and the predecessor of the Disney Channel came from this. However, at the peak of Disney's development on both the big screen and the theme park, Walt Disney suffered from lung cancer at this time, and finally died on December 15, 1966, just before being sent to the hospital, he was still struggling for the creation of Disneyland Resort in Florida, and in the same year, he painstakingly promoted and produced "The Prince of the Forest" as his last legacy.
In the past, Walt Disney would be directly involved in the creation of scripts and songs, with its wild creativity and enthusiasm to lead the staff to create countless masterpieces, after the death of the creative department suddenly faced the dilemma of leaderless, so that the next few years Disney company production is very small. Disney's reliance on revenue from parks and resorts during this period forced the company to face a crisis of mergers and acquisitions, until the control of power was transferred from the commercially inclined Walt Disney son-in-law Ron Miller to the entrepreneur Michael Eisner (and had Warner Bros. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells join the board lineup), and the company finally ushered in the dawn, although this was the first time that Disney, which started as a family business, handed the company over to outsiders Under his leadership, however, Disney moved towards a second golden age.
The secret to the success of the musical The Little Mermaid
In the early 1980s, the song and dance film fell into a slump, and during Ron Miller's tenure as president, the quality of the work declined, and Disney faced a lot of criticism, the success of "The Little Mermaid" was like the "Fairy Tale" saved Walt Disney Company, and the key to the film's success was the Gold Award-winning arrangers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman who were responsible for the music that year. Referring to Disney's expectations for The Little Mermaid, Alan Menken said: "They want to bring back the golden age of musical theater, and our job is to create contemporary music while retaining the innocence and unforgettable charm of past musicals." The two created a connection between music and plot, rather than using the previous form of music and script creation, the result is a classic masterpiece that touches people's hearts.
The success of The Little Mermaid in terms of reviews and box office is seen as the beginning of the Disney Renaissance, symbolizing the inheritance of a whole new generation. The subsequent works, whether musical or visual, can be seen to inherit the creative style of "The Little Mermaid", and "Beauty and the Beast" in 1991 tried computer technology for the first time, and won the Oscar nomination for Best Picture, becoming the first animated film in film history to be nominated for Best Picture; a few years later, Disney Studio became more and more beautiful because of the advancement of animation technology. Progress can be seen in both Aladdin and The Lion King. In 1995, Disney collaborated with Pixar Studios to produce the first fully computer-animated feature film in film history, "Toy Story", which was a major breakthrough in film history. The works during this period are also closer to the audience, and even accompany the growth of many audiences. After the era of hand-drawn animation is over, it will be greeted by more live-action movies and exquisite CG animation - after the first wave of golden age works "Sleeping Beauty" and "Fairy Tales" have been successfully adapted into live-action movies, "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", "The Little Mermaid", "Mulan" will also jump on the big screen in live-action form to meet fans.
Adapting the animation from a beloved fairy tale, playing the resounding name of the Dream Kingdom, its image of Mickey, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. That's why Robert Iger, who took over as executive chairman from Michael Eisner, decided to buy Pixar Studios for $7.4 billion, and let a bunch of people's jaws fall. Many people in the industry thought that Robert Iger was crazy, but after 2000, Disney did face creative and technical difficulties, and this cooperation confirmed a few years later that Disney had made the smartest choice.
Hand-drawn animation shows weakness: the era of Pixar animation is coming
"Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin" have established classic status in film history, but the situation has been greatly different after entering the 21st century. At this time, the "Finding Nemo", "Monster Power Company" and "The Incredibles" launched by Pixar were deeply loved by young people, of course, Disney also conformed to the times, and made various attempts in script and technology, including the production of "Star Baby" with the cute alien Stitch as the protagonist and the background set in Hawaii; and the first challenge to make the animation "Dinosaur" with cg technology, although it failed to win at the box office, the former relied on the cute Stitch and sold a lot of peripherals.
Before 2005, seeking innovation and breaking through this period was called the "2nd Pre-Renaissance", in addition to the above-mentioned 2 works, Disney also launched many classic sequels such as "The Little Mermaid 2", "Miss and the Rogue 2", "Fairy Tale 2", steadily grabbed the old fans, and the live-action film "Pirates of the Caribbean" was successful at the box office and evaluation, and also let the lead actor Johnny Depp nominate for the Oscar for Best Actor. However, Disney still faced a bottleneck in animation production, and after hand-drawn animations such as "Star Baby" and "Star Silver Island" did not bring the desired response, Robert Egger actively repaired the awkward relationship between Mike Eisner and Pixar, and finally was able to deal with Jobs, who was the co-founder of Pixar and the father of Apple, to acquire Pixar in exchange for shares. (During his tenure, Mike Eisner fought jobs for the rights and distribution rights of Pixar's characters, but the two sides reached an impasse due to the failure of the benefit ratio negotiation, which made the relationship very tense.) ）
After the merger, under the leadership of john lasseter, the soul of Pixar Studios, Disney in charge of distribution reached a new era, since the beginning of "Cars", Pixar's title logo has become "disney ・pixar", and the works launched in the next few years such as "Ratatouille", "Robot Story", "Flying House" also laid a good foundation for cooperation, and now in the eyes of the public, Disney and Pixar are inseparable, but this is not Robert F. Kennedy. The biggest innovation of Iger's tenure, after the acquisition of superhero base "Marvel Studios" in 2009, was the real beginning of Disney's entertainment expansion.
Superheroes join the Mickey Mouse army: the great Disney empire of men and women, young and old
Before joining Disney, Marvel Entertainment was faced with financial difficulties, forcing it to sell the rights to its highest-grossing "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" to Sony and 20th Century Fox. Even the success of Iron Man in 2008 could not save the precarious financial situation at the time, until Disney took it under the wings for $4.2 billion in 2009, and these nearly homeless superheroes had a perfect home. There is a successful case of Pixar mergers and acquisitions, and this time everyone is keeping their eyes open to see what "marketing magic" Disney is going to play.
The merger has created a win-win outcome for Disney and Marvel, Marvel Entertainment does not have to worry about the huge cost of making superhero movies, and Disney has also made up for the lack of attracting male markets in the past. Even if it is hindered by Marvel's contract problems with Universal and Paramount, the initial cooperation cannot be profitable, and the copyright of "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" is in other homes, making some people think that Disney has spent money unjustly. A few years later, the expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and box office profits propelled Disney to the top of the entertainment empire, and after "Avengers" set a record of 5 highest grossing in film history ($1.5 billion), In 2012, Disney ate Lucasfilm, which filmed "Star Wars", and expanded the battlefield into outer space. In 2015, the first work after the merger, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", swept the box office and sucked up $2 billion worldwide.
Original animation can't die: "Frozen" reminds fans of the beauty of Disney
It is rumored that Robert Egger had a feeling when attending the opening ceremony of Hong Kong Disneyland, and was shocked to realize that the most popular characters in the park were actually produced by Pixar, and it was almost impossible to see Disney's original characters, making Disney work harder to deepen the computer animation. Since "The Frog Prince" in 2009, the era of hand-drawn animation has officially come to an end, followed by the launch of the hand-drawn 3D animation "Trolls", and the Oscar nomination for Best Animation "Invincible Destruction King", all of which have won the hearts of the people; in 2013, "Frozen" was blown around the world, with brainwashed songs, charismatic characters and gorgeous vision, Disney Animation pushed Disney Animation to a new achievement, with a global box office revenue of 1.2 billion US dollars to become the highest-grossing animation film in film history.
Since the merger, Marvel has not produced any works with a box office of less than $300 million, and the total box office of 12 works has reached the 10 billion mark (Disney said that it is very satisfied with the cp value), in the top 10 highest-grossing movies in North America in 2016, Disney Pictures released 6 works, last year's box office alone, brought up to $6 billion in revenue, a new high for Disney since its inception; some of the films that exceeded the 1 billion box office in global revenue are "Finding Nemo 2", "Zootopia", "Crazy Animal City". Captain America 3.
In 2017, Disney Pictures has more movies to release, "Beauty and the Beast", the villain independent film "Kuila" starring Emma Stone, plus "Star Wars 8" and "Thor 3" are also coming out, which will surely be another wonderful year.
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