Disney reigns supreme over the film industry

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY trades in stories of transformation. “Cinderella” tells the tale of a maligned servant turned beloved princess. “Mulan” stars a young woman who becomes a fearsome warrior. “Beauty and the Beast” follows a selfish prince, cursed to take the form of a loathsome creature, who turns back into a (repentant) royal.

Disney’s own story over the past decade has resembled a fairy-tale. In 2010 the firm claimed 14% of revenue from the North American box office, and became the first film studio to release two $1bn pictures—“Toy Story 3” and “Alice In Wonderland”—in a single year. By 2019 its share of the market had more than doubled, to 34%, according to Comscore, an analytics company (that figure rises to 38% when films made by 20th Century Fox, which Disney bought in March 2019, are included).