Gilbert: Toy Story franchise generated at least $3.5B in direct revenue for Disney
Ben Gilbert · Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire · Acquired · Aug 10, 2026 · at 2:44:51
Ben Gilbert, co-host of Acquired, calculates the direct financial return on Disney's $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar through the Toy Story franchise alone.
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“Toy Story alone did over four billion at the box office, which means one and a half to two billion to Disney. Thirty billion in retail sales so far. Lifetime of all Toy Story consumer goods. So with Disney's five percent licensing fee on that, that's another two billion. So that's three and a half billion dollars Conservatively, in very high margin revenue to Disney before you even start thinking about the contribution to Disney Parks.”
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