Will the Disney empire fall?

Disney is one of the most widespread companies in all of history. Since their founding in 1923, Disney has slowly and efficiently spread their roots into basically every form of entertainment. With the onslaught of streaming services that poured into our homes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney was of course mixed in there. The streaming service Disney+ dropped onto our screens on Nov. 12, 2019 with the somewhat reasonable price of $7.99 monthly. The site was accepted with decent reviews but has been slowly going downhill since its drop. 

With the purchase of Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Twentieth Century Fox, Disney+ has a huge catalog of classic shows and films that people love, however this can not be said about their original shows. 

The first set of original shows included fan favorite “The Mandalorian”, with an outstanding 4.8 star audience rating. This batch also included two shows that were as nearly well received, “Diary of a Future President” and “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” Those two got around 4.5 stars each. Disney+ was off to a pretty good start.

Disney kept a constant stream of what were either received as average or good shows like “WandaVision,” “Moon Knight,” and “Loki.” 

Trouble has started up recently with the new batch of shows and new licenses Disney is trying to obtain, mostly rooted in the new Disney show “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.” 

“She-Hulk” is about the female counterpart to Hulk, who also happens to be a lawyer. The source material was loved and well-received, but the new show isn’t. The show received audience backlash, as viewers felt the acting was bad, the production was rushed, and the source material was not properly followed. “She-Hulk” has an underwhelming audience rating of 2.3 stars. 

Not only that, after Disney bought “The Simpsons” to put on Disney+, they cropped the original format of the show so some scenes are missing. This outraged long-time fans of the show who felt that many visual jokes were being cropped out and caused the show to go down in quality.

After how badly received “She-Hulk” was and the way the original episodes of “The Simpsons” were cropped, fans of other media are apprehensive about Disney buying other licenses. Long-time fans are scared of what’s coming with their favorite shows. 

A great example is the hit anime “Bleach,” which had an outstanding audience review score of 4.8 stars. The show was set to be streamed and funded by popular anime streaming site, Crunchyroll, but recent reports have said Disney started a bidding war over the rights to “Bleach” which they have never shown interest in before. Although unconfirmed by Disney, numerous sources have said that Disney has won the battle for the rights to “Bleach” and fans are panicking. Disney has undermined a company that “Bleach” would fit best on and that most people would support, and are invading even more media than they did before. If “Bleach” ends up wrecked by the influence of Disney, people will not be happy.

Disney has expanded constantly since its opening and gained a monopoly over the Marvel and superhero business, the Star Wars and sci-fi business, Twentieth Century Fox, and very possibly the anime industry. 

Disney will most likely keep purchasing the rights to different media, so all we can really hope for is that they will put all their money to good use and upstage other streaming companies. Until then, however, keep an eye on the rights to your favorite films, companies, and shows because Disney might just obtain them.