Walt Disney Pictures

On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney signed a contract with distributor Margaret J. Winkler to produce a series of live-action/animated shorts starring a girl named Alice. That deal marked the birth of what would become Walt Disney Pictures, the flagship film production label of The Walt Disney Company. From the start, Walt handled the creative side while his brother Roy O. Disney managed the finances, a partnership that carried the studio through the creation of Mickey Mouse in 1928, the first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, and the expansion into live-action films like Treasure Island (1950).

After Walt's death in 1966, the studio struggled to find its footing, but hits like The Jungle Book (1967) and The Love Bug (1969) kept the lights on. In 1984, with family film audiences shrinking, the company brought in Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, who established Touchstone Pictures for more adult fare and formalized Walt Disney Pictures as the studio's live-action banner. Under Eisner, the label produced a string of commercial successes including Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994).

Today, Walt Disney Pictures releases a mix of live-action remakes of its animated classics, original family films, and franchise entries like Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure. The studio operates out of the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California, and its films are distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. With a brand value estimated at $52.2 billion by Forbes, Walt Disney Pictures remains one of the most commercially powerful labels in cinema, its stories and characters driving theme park attractions, merchandise, and streaming content across Disney+. [edit]