Major Disney Acquisitions Timeline | Disney Company History

Last Updated on: March 1st, 2023

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 Character(s) in this Post:

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Related News:

Comcast executives expect Disney to stick to its agreement to acquire the remaining stake in Hulu, September 3, 2022

TOPICS:Disney Hulu News

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.