That's not remotely true.

Disney bought ESPN in 1996, Marvel in 2009 (literally had 2 movies released here and one of them flopped) and Pixar in 2006.

For Pixar, they and Disney were joined at the hip even before acquisition. Besides distribution rights, Disney had full sequel rights to almost all of Pixar's catalogue at the time. Disney could have made a sequel to Finding Nemo, The Incredibles etc even without Pixar's blessing or involvement. There is quite literally no Pixar without Disney.

Marvel? Their most successful years were under Disney. ESPN did not become the media empire you know it as until well after Disney's acquisition either.

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slg 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I specifically said reputation. Disney has a history of buying properties and squeezing every last dollar out of them until nothing is left but a husk of what they were at their peak. Disney certainly got their money’s worth out of those purchases. I’m not denying that. But the reputation of all of them has been on a steep decline even if there were temporary spikes after the acquisition.

I’ll grant you that “soon after” might have been a stretch for ESPN, but it’s obviously true for the others. Almost all of Pixar’s most enduring films had their start before Disney bought the company. The same is true with Marvel. Sure, Disney’s fanfare might have played before the Avengers films, but those movies were the brainchild of Kevin Fiege, who was already in charge before the Disney purchase. You can maybe claim Disney has a good eye for finding companies on an upward trajectory, but these are all examples of Disney management’s failure to be a long-term steward of their acquisitions.

	▲	famouswaffles 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>Disney has a history of buying properties and squeezing every last dollar out of them until nothing is left but a husk of what they were at their peak Only if you don't know what you're talking about. >But the reputation of all of them has been on a steep decline even if there were temporary spikes after the acquisition. None of these were 'temporary spikes'. Marvel was on an unprecedented high for a decade. If that is a temporary spike then almost every company’s successful era would count as a temporary spike. >Almost all of Pixar’s most enduring films had their start before Disney bought the company. Did you not read what I said? Pixar’s pre-acquisition slate was already deeply tied to Disney. Disney co-produced and distributed those films, and the relationship was so significant that Disney had rights to continue all but one of their properties even without Pixar’s involvement. That's pretty much unheard of. Any success you can attribute to Pixar pre-acquisition, you can attribute to Disney as well. Moreover, it would be silly to claim Pixar has been mismanaged simply because arguably the most succesfull animation run in history did not go on forever. Pixar has been managed fine. >Sure, Disney’s fanfare might have played before the Avengers films, but those movies were the brainchild of Kevin Fiege, who was already in charge before the Disney purchase. Feige was in charge of Marvel Studios, not all of Marvel Entertainment, and his position was not necessarily secure under the old structure. He had well-known conflicts with Ike Perlmutter, who had significant authority over Marvel at the time. It was Disney who re-structured Marvel Studios to be semi autonomous, answering only to Alan Horn and the Walt Disney Film Studios Division. Regardless, Kevin is still in charge of Marvel Studios and Disney has left the arrangement largely the same, so blaming the current situation on Disney specific mismanagement would be very strange.