Smash Notes

Back to Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire.

Why Did Disney Plus Open the Disney Vault?

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal say Disney Plus opened the Disney Vault. The Fox deal closed in March 2019, and the next month an investor day announced the service. The product was the library: Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and the Fox assets, priced at $6.99 a month.

The stock jumped 11% the next day and was up 20% by the end of April. When the service launched in November, Disney got 10 million signups in the first 24 hours and 26 million in the first quarter. Pixar, Disney Animation, Lucasfilm, and the Marvel run were all near a peak, which is the setup that price and that open vault were built on.

Transcript

Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire ·

Acquired

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  2. Why Was Disney Worth More Dead Than Alive in 1984?Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal say Disney in 1983 was worth more sold for parts than run as a company.
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  12. How Did DreamWorks Compete With Disney?Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal describe DreamWorks, with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, as a full-stack Disney competitor.
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  18. How Did Bob Iger Win the Disney CEO Job?Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal say Bob Iger won by refusing to defend the past.
  19. Why Did Bob Iger Lose Faith in Disney Animation?Ben Gilbert says Bob Iger, during his CEO audition process, had completely lost faith that Disney animation can be fixed from within.
  20. Why Did George Lucas Sell the Group That Became Pixar?Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal say George Lucas sold the graphics group because he was getting divorced and needed cash.
  21. Why Do Toy Story Animators Move the Body First?Ben Gilbert says Toy Story animators work frame by frame on the bodies first and only later on the faces.
  22. How Long Did Each Toy Story Frame Take to Render?Ben Gilbert says each frame of Toy Story took an hour or two to render, and Pixar could render only three and a half minutes of footage per week.
  23. Why Did Michael Eisner Want Finding Nemo to Fail?David Rosenthal says Michael Eisner wanted Finding Nemo to fail because a flop would give Disney more negotiating leverage over Pixar.
  24. Why Did Disney's Board Approve Buying Pixar?The Disney board forgot to say no because buying Pixar was unthinkable.
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