Major Disney Acquisitions Timeline | Disney Company History

Last Updated on: March 1st, 2023

Posted By: Craig Smith

Here is a quick rundown of the major Disney acquisitions over the years with dates and dollar amounts. With the recent Disney 21st Century Fox acquisition, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at that purchase and everything else they’ve bought. As always, I will be updating and adding to this post as new developments occur.

disney acquisitions timeline 21st century fox

For decades, Disney kept their operations very close to the vest. While they operated across a number of channels, spanning all realms of entertainment, the Disney family steered pretty clear of major acquisitions, opting to grow organically and rely on their abundance of creativity.

This independence and reliance within came to a screeching halt in the 2000’s as Bob Iger took helm of Disney and began to steer the company in the direction of a number of other media giants, strategically filling in the gaps in their offerings with monstrous Disney acquisitions.

Disney Acquisitions Timeline

  • Miramax – 1993; $60 million
  • Capital Cities/ABC/ESPN – 1995; $19 billion
  • Starwave – 1998; undisclosed
  • Infoseek – 1999; undisclosed
  • Fox Family Worldwide (Freeform) – 2001; $2.9 billion
  • Baby Einstein – 2001; undisclosed (Sold to Kids II, Inc in 2013)
  • The Muppets (and Bear in the Big Blue House) – 2004; $75 million
  • CrossGen – 2004; $1 million
  • Avalanche Software – 2005; undisclosed
  • Pixar – 2006; $7.4 billion
  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit – 2006; traded for the rights to sports broadcaster Al Michaels
  • Junction Point Studios – 2007; undisclosed
  • Marvel – 2009; $4 billion (Saban Entertainment also joined Disney at this time)
  • Hulu – 2009; 30% purchase (increased to full ownership in 2019)
  • Wideload Games – 2010; undisclosed
  • Tapulous – 2010; undisclosed
  • Playdom – 2010; $563 million
  • UTV Software Communications – 2011; $297 million
  • Lucasfilm (Star Wars) – 2012; $4.06 billion
  • Maker Studios – 2014; $500 million
  • Sphero – 2014; unknown minority investment
  • BAM – 2016 & 2017; $2.58 billion total
  • 21st Century Fox – 2019; $71.3 billion

Disney by the Years Series

For a more in-depth look at an important year in Disney history, please click on a year below:

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    About the Author

    Craig Smith
    I am founder and editor of DisneyNews.us. My passion for all things Disney goes pretty far back to my first trip to Walt Disney World in the mid-80's. I have since returned to the magical place more than 20 times. I started this site when I came to the realization that I spent a significant portion of my day reading articles about Disney and watching Disney content with my 8-year old, so it made sense that I would start sharing some of what I read and see and building a little community around it. Other interests include 80's nostalgia, vintage toys, video games, LEGO, Star Wars and tech gadgets. Other sites include DMR and VideoGamesStats.com.