So, your challenge here is to have Disney (the House of Mouse) and Warner Bros. (the House of Wabbit) merge together at a plausible date to form one big mass media and entertainment conglomerate.
AHC: Have Disney and Warner Bros. Merge Together
- Thread starter CrashBandicam
- Start date
Not Disney and WB, but I did this with Paramount and Disney in my timeline.
My guess would be a corporate takeover of Disney sometime between 1979 and 1984, when Disney was struggling a bit, and then something like the Time-Warner merger IRL happens in the mid 80s. In 1984 a Wall Street hedge fund manager (Saul Steinberg) almost bought Disney out
My guess would be a corporate takeover of Disney sometime between 1979 and 1984, when Disney was struggling a bit, and then something like the Time-Warner merger IRL happens in the mid 80s. In 1984 a Wall Street hedge fund manager (Saul Steinberg) almost bought Disney out
Does it have to be after both have formed or can I do something like say Walt Disney works with the Warners and at some point runs the company, making the company a composite of the two.
How big of a merger does it have to be before the FTC turns up and goes "oh, hold on a sec..."?
What's the name of that TL to be specific?
Would that still happen if Walt Disney never smoked in his entire life and lived longer?
Time Inc. was an incredibly large media company in the 80s. IRL the 1989 Time Warner merger was the largest in US history when it happened, and it survived. So it's definitely possible that a similar merger could take place in the largely unregulated 80s and survive
The TL is in my signature: The Enterprise Completes its Five Year Mission
Disney between 1980 and 1984 had some board room turmoil. They went through three CEOs (Donn Tatum, Card Walker and Raymond Watson) before Michael Eisner came in and saved the company in 1984. I don't know if Walt Disney actually survives all the way into the 1980s if he didn't smoke. He would have been 79 years old in 1980. The smoking obviously didn't help
But would've a Disney-Warner Bros. merger in the mid 80s been possible if Walt Disney didn't smoke?
Assuming either of the Disney brothers (Walt + Roy) survived into the mid-80s, no. They would never sell the family business. Roy Disney Jr. (Roy E. Disney) was still an executive at the House of Mouse during the 80s though. In fact, it was Roy Disney Jr. who helped save the company from the 1984 corporate takeover attempt by Saul Steinberg.
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Generally most timelines with non smoking Disney have him live up to 1993 or 1994 at most. Main example being American Magic.
Roy Disney lived to 78 IRL, so perhaps a healthy Walt gets into his 80s
If Walt Disney worked with the Warners, would we still see Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures as two separate companies and would we still see Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny?
Before they bought Fox, there were rumors Disney was sniffing around to buy Warner Brothers - oddly enough, as part of a joint bid with Fox/NewsCorp that would have split Warner Bros assets between the two companies, along with a few concessions/swaps of IP and the like.
It fell through, with hindsight, because I'm sure that this is where the seeds for Newscorp offloading Fox for a king's ransom to Disney were first planted.
It fell through, with hindsight, because I'm sure that this is where the seeds for Newscorp offloading Fox for a king's ransom to Disney were first planted.
the opposite, Fox and WB tried a merger but because post buyout AT%T was a mess that one failed(seems ATT only wanted the cable and HBO channels) and give them the film studio but something happened and failed
WTF, where Paramount got all that money to begin with? that was after bludhorn died too
Gulf+Western sold off all their non-entertainment assets after Bluhdorn died in 1983
yet they loss it later on, damn a shame them, that purchase would have been something else
So how old would Walt Disney exactly be and what year would Walt live up to?
The problem is that Jack Warner thought that Walt had no real sense of humor, and to him (Jack), almost all the jokes in Disney cartoons (except Horace Horsecollar) fell flat, while Walt and Roy thought the Warner Brothers had no empathy, and that Bob Clampet, Fritz Freling, and Chuck Jones were absolute sociopaths.
The only way either would acquire the other would have been as a corporate raid.
The only way either would acquire the other would have been as a corporate raid.