Background
In 1997, Disney and Sony Pictures formed a film distribution joint venture in Southeast Asia which covered five countries.[4] From 1999 to 2000, Bob Iger was president of Walt Disney International and chairman of ABC TV Group.[5] until he was promoted to president and chief operating officer of the Walt Disney Company.[6]
Michael O. Johnson, later CEO of Herbalife, was president of Walt Disney International from 2000 - 2003.[7]
Andy Bird became the next president of Walt Disney International in 2004.[8][9] At the time of Bird's appointment, most countries' units except in Latin America operated independently. He took the Latin America-integrated operation as a guide for other regions. Strategically, Bird wanted their companies to be the Walt Disney Company of India and other countries, not the Walt Disney Company of a certain country, basically tailoring the company to the country with, for example, localization of programming.[10] Diego Lerner, who led Disney Latin America, was thus named President of Disney Europe, Middle East & Africa in 2009.[11]
Buena Vista International and Sony Pictures Releasing International formed fourteen distribution joint ventures, including in Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Another Buena Vista-Sony distribution joint venture was set up in Russia in December 2006.[12]
The Walt Disney Company's CIS office in Russia opened in 2006.[13] The company's original plan was for to release three films per year.[14] In 2009, Disney CIS released its first Russian language-film, The Book of Masters which took in 10.8 million on a budget of $8 million. By April 2011, the company announced that director Vladimir Grammatikov was hired by the company as creative producer, while two more Russian films were placed into production: A fairy tale and a youth story.[15] Instead, the country's unit took a seven-year hiatus until they announced the production on The Last Knight in April 2016.[13][16] On November 26, 2017, the film became the highest-grossing local-language release of all time in Russia, with a gross of 1.68 billion rubles ($28.8 million).[16]
In 2014, Walt Disney International appointed Luke Kang to head its Greater China unit.[17] Disney's South East Asia managing director Rob Gilby appointed three managers for Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, who were Herry Salim, Veronica Espinosa-Cabalinan, and Subha-Orn Rathanamongkolmas (Soupy) respectively, in May 2017.[18]
Paul Candland was promoted from president of Walt Disney Japan to president of The Walt Disney Company Asia, consisting of Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Greater China in July 2014. Stanley Cheung was also promoted from managing director to chairman of TWDC Greater China. Both reported to Andy Bird, chairman of Walt Disney International.[19]
With the retirement of the Asia unit's head Paul Candland after 19 years in September 2017, Disney split the Asia unit into two: North Asia and South Asia. North Asia consists of Japan, South Korea and Greater China and is headed by Kang, while South Asia combined India and South East Asia. The India unit's head Mahesh Samat would assume leadership of the South Asia unit by October 1, and the South East Asia unit's head Gilby left the company.[17] Later in September, Lerner was transferred to a new position within Walt Disney International, with Rebecca Campbell, the then-president of ABC Daytime and ABC Owned Television Stations, named to replace him as president of Disney EMEA.[11] In February 2017, Sony Pictures withdrew from the Philippines-distribution joint venture, followed by a withdrawing in August 2017 from the remainder of the Southeast Asian distribution joint venture with Disney.[4]
In November 2015, Disney UK started Disney's test streaming service, DisneyLife, with Disney films, TV series, books and music tracks, under general manager Paul Brown.[20] The original plan had the service spreading to other countries in Europe, including France, Spain, Italy and Germany in 2016.[21] In October 2017, the Republic of Ireland was the second country where DisneyLife was made available.[22] DisneyLife was launched in China in December 2017 through a partnership between Disney and Alibaba Digital Entertainment, only to have the Chinese government shut it down in August 2018 because of foreign content rules.[23] Instead, in February 2018, Disney and Alibaba reached a new deal that placed Disney content on Alibaba's Youku streaming platform.[24] On May 25, 2018, DisneyLife was expanded to the Philippines, making it the third country where the service was available.[25]
In August 2016, The Walt Disney Company acquired a 1/3 stake in BAMTech for $1 billion, with an option to acquire a majority stake in the said company the future.[27] On August 8, 2017, Disney announced that it would increase its ownership in the company to a 75% controlling stake for $1.58 billion.[28] Disney also reiterated its plan to launch an ESPN-branded over-the-top service in early-2018, followed by a Disney-branded direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019.[29]
