It might have taken the Walt Disney company less than three years to overtake Netflix in streaming subscribers, but its road to domination started more than 15 years ago with a carefully planned $100bn (£81bn) strategy to reinvigorate its empire for 21st century viewers.
The combination of Netflix priming a global audience for the streaming era and the serendipitous launch of Disney+ at the start of the pandemic, a service populated with crown jewel franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel, transformed what had been viewed as Disney’s late mover disadvantage into unprecedented breakneck growth.
