Disney has been, is, and probably always will be my favorite company of all time. I'm a huge fanatic, from my obsession with Disney movies (new or old, theatrical or television) to my overwhelming desire to become a Princess. It's to the point where I'm pretty sure that if you did a blood test on me, Pixie Dust would be on the result list.
But outside of my personal bias, Disney has been dominating the entertainment industry over the past couple years and they will continue to do so up through 2018, and here's why.
1. Increased Diversity
Disney has been working its way to being a more diverse, inclusive company. Producing more content with a female empowerment message, focusing on sisterly love and family love as opposed to looking for love in a prince, and adding diversity to the races of their princesses like with Elena of Avalor and the well awaited Moana. Sure they still have a long way to go, but they've made great progress in only a couple short years.
2. Live Action Remakes
Disney began the live action remake with Alice In Wonderland with the help of Tim Burton, and now they're just in a remake frenzy. Disney already released Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Pete's Dragon, and currently, they're working on remaking Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Sword In The Stone, Mulan, and 13 others over the next few years.
3. Long Awaited Sequels
Along with the announcement of the Cinderella live action movie, Disney also announced at the D23 convention that they'd be making sequels of a lot of Pixar movies. This includes Finding Dory (which was released June 2016), Incredibles 2, Cars 3, and Toy Story 4. Unfortunately, these are the only movies (along with two originals titled Coco and The Good Dinosaur) that Pixar has planned until 2020 (or at least that they've told us about).
4. Cross-Market Takeovers
In the past couple of years, Disney acquired the rights to the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, allowing them to cross out of pure family content (with the exception of Pirates of the Carribean) into the hugely successful Superhero and Sci-Fi markets. With no end in sight for the production of movies under these two franchises, Disney basically has a monopoly in three movie genres indefinitely.
5. Major Park Expansions
Announced at 2015's D23 Expo, Disney has created an estimated billion-dollar expansion plan for Disney World and Disneyland. As part of the renovation, Disney plans on adding a 14-acre Star Wars land and an 11-acre Toy Story Land in Disney World at Hollywood Studios, an Avatar land in Disney plans on adding a 14-acre Star Wars land and an 11-acre Toy Story Land in Disney World at Hollywood Studios, an Avatar land in Animal Kingdom, and a similar Star Wars land at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and a similar Star Wars land at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, along with park renovation plans for Disneyland Tokyo as well. There are very little details about the projects including when the renovations will start and exactly what will be in the parks, but the addition to Disney World is expected to make Hollywood Studios as big of a pull for the park as Epcot or even Magic Kingdom.
Based on my current trend of visiting Disney World, it will be at least 2021 before I go again, and I can't wait to see the new additions and see what else will be created and developed in the time before then. If Disney continues along this successful path, who knows what the family entertainment industry will look like in a few years?
