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.
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:
- Disney in 1927 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1928 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1930 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1934 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1940 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1945 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1946 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1947 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1951 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1952 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1959 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1961 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1965 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1967 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1971 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1976 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1984 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1985 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1989 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 1994 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 2000 | Everything that Happened
- Disney in 2011 | Everything that Happened