History
Walt Disney Studios in its current form was initiated in 1998 by then Studio Chairman Joe Roth in order to centralize the various production units and to make live-action film production within Disney more cost-efficient.
The name "Buena Vista" originated from the much older Buena Vista Distribution company, founded by Walt Disney as a subsidiary to distribute his films and short subjects in 1953. That name in turn came from the street name South Buena Vista Street in Burbank where the Walt Disney Studios complex was, and still exists today.
In 2003, the first PG-13–rated film was released under the Walt Disney Pictures imprint, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a film based on the famous Disneyland attraction.
Film director M. Night Shyamalan, who had done The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village with Disney clashed with the Group's executives during pre-production of his 2006 film, Lady in the Water. Shyamalan left the studio after Nina Jacobson and others became, in Shyamalan's eyes, overly critical of his script, which would eventually be produced by Warner Bros. Shyamalan is quoted in a book about the difficult period that he "had witnessed the decay of her creative vision right before his own wide-open eyes. She didn't want iconoclastic directors. She wanted directors who made money." In her own defense, Jacobson said, "in order to have a Hollywood relationship more closely approximate a real relationship, you have to have a genuine back and forth of the good and the bad. Different people have different ideas about respect. For us, being honest is the greatest show of respect for a filmmaker."
In July 2006 Disney announced a shift in strategy of releasing more Disney-branded (i.e. Walt Disney Pictures) films and fewer Touchstone titles. The move was expected to reduce the Group's work force by approximately 650 positions worldwide, including that of its then President Nina Jacobson. In April 2007, Disney retired the Buena Vista brand.
The Studio launched Kingdom Comics division in May 2008 led by writer-actor Ahmet Zappa, TV executive Harris Katleman and writer-editor Christian Beranek. Kingdom was designed to create new properties for possible film development and reimagine and redevelop existing Disney library movies with Disney Publishing Worldwide getting a first look for publishing.
On February 9, 2009, DreamWorks SKG entered a 5-year, 30-picture distribution deal with the Touchstone Pictures imprint starting in 2011.
On December 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Both Marvel and Disney have stated that the merger would not affect any preexisting deals with other film studios for the time being, although Disney said they will consider distributing future Marvel Studios projects with their own studios once the current deals expire. On October 18, 2010, Disney bought the distribution rights for The Avengers and Iron Man 3 from Paramount Pictures.
On October 30, 2012, Lucasfilm agreed to purchased by The Walt Disney Company and a Star Wars trilogy was announced.
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