“Why do we have to grow up?” Walt Disney once ____. As it launches its ____ celebrations on January 27th, the Walt Disney Company has sustained its ____ to the young and young-at-heart. This year Hollywood’s biggest studio will invest more in original content than any other firm. It dominates the global box office, with four of last year’s ten biggest hits, and has more streaming ____ than anyone else. Its intellectual property (ip) is turned into merchandise ranging from lunchboxes to lightsabers, and ____ in theme parks that are ____ ____ healthy profits even as covid-19 lingers. More than just a business, Disney is perhaps the most successful culture factory the world has ever known. So the ____ rocking the company today has ____ far beyond its empire. Uncertainty about the future profitability of Disney’s enormous entertainment portfolio has caused a ____ ____ in its share price. It threw out its chief executive in November and will soon replace its chairman. It also faces a ____ from an activist investment firm that wants a board seat in what could turn into the biggest ____-____ since Michael Eisner, a previous ceo, was forced out in 2005. Disney’s trials are not just a boardroom drama. Similar crises are ____ at other leading culture factories, from Warner Bros to Netflix. The reason is a technological revolution that is turning Hollywood upside down. The continuing pre-____ of a centenarian like Disney has ____ many predictions. Since the days of “Steamboat Willie”, Mickey Mouse’s first ____ in 1928, there has been an explosion in the supply of video entertainment. Television, cable, home video and then the internet have offered increasing amounts of choice. Anyone with a phone can record video and make it ____ to billions of people, free of charge. More content is uploaded to YouTube every hour than Disney+ holds in its entire streaming catalogue. Many predicted that this ____ of niche content would ____ ____ mainstream hit-makers. They were mostly wrong. ____ choice in entertainment has ruined the companies which produced ____ content that people watched because there was nothing else on—witness the collapse in broadcast-television ratings. But those at the very top of the business have ____. When anyone can watch anything, people ____ to the best. Global streamers like Netflix and Amazon have more than 200m direct subscribers, once an ____ number. Those who have ____ best at a shrinking ____ ____ are the owners of ip that is already popular. As people visit cinemas less often and competition ____, studios have ____ money ____ films people will turn out to see even when they go only three or four times a year. America’s ten biggest films last year were all sequels or parts of a franchise; Disney’s ____ slate includes an 80-year-old Harrison Ford ____ for a fifth outing as Indiana Jones. It has not been a golden age for cinema, but for those at the top it has been a profitable one. Now technology is shaking things up again. Online distribution has ____ tech firms that make the hardware and software used for streaming. Hollywood initially ____ ____ the nerds. But the nerds have enough money to take creative risks. The more fine content these new producers make and sell below cost, the greater the risk that older studios will fall from the ____ ____ of media into the ____ middle. At the same time, new technology is allowing those lower down the “long tail” a better chance of reaching the profitable top. Inventions like game engines, which help with the creation of virtual sets, are ____ barriers to entry. Generative artificial intelligence, which can already make ____ video, may eventually lower them further. The first ____ have been non-American film studios, which until recently ____ to nail first-class special effects. No longer. Two of the world’s highest-____ films last year were Chinese—and when covid ____ in China, expect that number to rise. China has yet to ____ foreign audiences to hits like “Wolf Warrior 2” (tagline: “Anyone who offends China, wherever they are, must die”). But don’t ____ that this will always be the case. China already has a globally ____ social-media app in TikTok and produces video games that are international hits, including Tencent’s “Honour of Kings”, which is the world’s highest-earning mobile game. Perhaps the most ____ way technology could disrupt the culture business is by creating new categories of entertainment. Young adults in rich countries already ____ more time to gaming than to ____ television. Hollywood has been slow to ____ on, but its Silicon Valley rivals are ____ up gaming ip. Microsoft’s proposed ____ of Activision-Blizzard, whose games include “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush”, is worth nearly ten times what Amazon paid for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, home of James Bond and Rocky Balboa. Movies based on games are becoming as popular as games based on movies. A series ____ ____ “The Last of Us”, a post-apocalyptic game, seems to be a critical success. Sonic the Hedgehog was among last year’s biggest films and Mario is likely to be among this year’s. Nintendo is opening a new Mario theme park next month—in Hollywood, no ____. The great creative factories of Hollywood will have to ____ if they want to survive. Another successful era is not beyond their ____. Disney’s century has been one of ____ reinvention, in business terms as well as ____ ones, as the company has moved its ____ from projectors to cables to cassettes and now bytes. It will probably continue to innovate. Still, there are already signs that much of the coming century’s popular culture will be dreamt up in places other than Hollywood. For audiences ____ of sequels, that may be a welcome ____. ■

Disney’s troubles show how technology has changed the business of culture

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