Disney recouped just $325,000 on Fantasia's $2.3 million budget
Ben Gilbert · The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio) · Acquired · Jun 23, 2026 · at 2:13:49
Ben Gilbert describes the initial commercial failure of Disney's animated feature Fantasia and its expensive proprietary Fantasound audio technology.
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“The budget for Fantasia was 50% bigger than Snow White, and in the first run at the box office, they tried to use Fantasound, this new sound technology they had invented, and distributors didn't pick it up to do like a real first run, and so out of the 2.3 million dollar budget, In that first year it came out in 1941, they recouped 325,000.”
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