Exactly 100 years ago, on Oct. 16, 1923, cartoonist Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California. The company, which got its start with animated short films, went on to produce some of the biggest spectacles in cinema.
The Mouse House started working on its first feature-length animated film in 1934. It was a massive undertaking with 300 animators, and it surpassed its budget by 400%. However, when it was released in December 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became a huge hit, much to the studio’s relief.
The Walt Disney Company today is a multifaceted corporate behemoth, straddling filmmaking, TV and web series production, theme park operations, merchandise sales, and more. But media and entertainment remain its biggest revenue driver. Box office receipts for its biggest movies hover around the coveted $1 billion mark each, and one even breaches it.
After adjusting for inflation, contemporary Disney film classics like The Lion King, Toy Story, and Frozen—undoubtedly mega-hits in their own right—don’t make the US top 10 on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to film industry data website The Numbers. (Although, internationally, they do).
The names on the US top 10 aren’t entirely unpredictable, though. After all, the two big cinematic universes—Lucasfilm’s Star Wars and Marvel’s Avengers franchises—dominate.
