[9] That same decade, the studio began producing nature documentaries with the release of Seal Island (1948), the first of the True-Life Adventures series and a subsequent Academy Award winner for Best Live-Action Short Film.

[14] By the 1980s, the Walt Disney Company's collection of film units emerged as one of Hollywood's major film studios, mostly due to newly designed efforts in branding strategies, a resurgence of Walt Disney Productions' animated releases and unprecedented box office successes, particularly from Touchstone Pictures.

[20] In late 1984, Fred Silverman and his InterMedia production company has struck a deal with the Walt Disney Studios.

[23] In 1987, the Walt Disney Studios, which until now, had sporadically acquired independently produced films, has plans to aggressively pick up properties for distribution in an effort to become "more of a full-service company", and hired former Circle Films executive Chris Zarpass to the newly created position as vice president of production and acquisitions, and acquisitions had taken on new importance for the company, citing two purchases, which are Benji the Hunted, and Ernest Goes to Camp.

[24] That year, In June 1987, the Walt Disney Studios decided to restructure their divisions at parent company, which included the financial and administrative divisions of Walt Disney Pictures and Television, appointing four directors to the newly created vice president positions, included were John Covas, Linda Stefansen, Anne Waldeck and Lloyd Wendkos, although Covas became the new vice president of administration for Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, while Linda Stefansen was promoted from director of finance at Walt Disney Pictures' marketing division to vice president of administration at the same company, Anne Waldeck was moved into the vice president administrative position for Buena Vista Home Video, and Lloyd Wendkos was named vice president of administration at Buena Vista International.

[25] In April 1988, Touchstone became a unit of Walt Disney Pictures with newly appointed head Ricardo Mestres.

On October 23, 1990, Disney formed Touchwood Pacific Partners I to supplant the Silver Screen Partnership series as their movie studios' primary funding source.

[32] In 1992, Walt Disney Studios agreed to fund a production company, Caravan Pictures, for exiting 20th Century Fox chairman Joe Roth.

[36] Instead Pineland agreed to an unsolicited bid in May from Chris-Craft Industries thus ending the planned business merger with Disney's KCAL.

[39] Hoberman stepped down as president in January 1995 to take a five-year, multi-film deal for his production company, Mandeville Films.

[42] In late 1997, Disney bid on CDR's Epic movie library but lost to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.

In August 1998, Roger Birnbaum, Caravan's co-founder, left at Roth's prompting to co-found Spyglass Entertainment with former Morgan Creek Productions vice chairman and COO Gary Barber, in which Disney gave Caravan's development slate, a five-year distribution agreement and an advance to Spyglass.

[51] Roth left to form his own production company in January 2000,[48] with Schneider moving to a studio chairman role.

While no successor had been named, Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group (distribution); Thomas Schumacher, president of Walt Disney Animation; and Nina Jacobson, president of the Buena Vista Motion Picture Group (production) would take on the responsibilities of Schneider while continuing in their current positions.

[54] In January 2003, Disney initiated a reorganization of its theatrical and animation units to improve resource usage and continued focus on new characters and franchise development.

[68] The Studio launched its Kingdom Comics division in May, led by writer-actor Ahmet Zappa, television executive Harris Katleman and writer-editor Christian Beranek.

[77][78] Disney closed a deal with Paramount Pictures to transfer worldwide marketing and the distribution rights to Marvel's The Avengers and Iron Man 3 in October 2010.

[84] On October 30, 2012, Lucasfilm agreed to be purchased by the Walt Disney Company and a new Star Wars trilogy was announced.

[87] In April 2013, the Walt Disney Studios laid off 150 workers, including staff from its marketing and home entertainment units.

[90] In December of that same year, Disney purchased the distribution and marketing rights to future Indiana Jones films from Paramount.

After a boycott effort emerged among several notable critics and publications (including Washington Post blogger Alyssa Rosenberg, The New York Times, and Boston Globe critic Ty Burr), and several major film critic societies threatened to disqualify Disney films from their year-end awards in retaliation, Disney stated that the company "had productive discussions with the newly installed leadership at the Los Angeles Times regarding our specific concerns", and had reversed its ban.

[103][104] On June 8, 2018, Disney announced Lasseter would be leaving the company by the end of the year, but would take on a consulting role until then.

[105] On June 19, 2018, Pete Docter and Jennifer Lee were announced as Lasseter's replacements as chief creative officers of Pixar and Disney Animation, respectively.

Fox executives Emma Watts, Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula joined the Walt Disney Company on March 20, 2019.

[2] On March 21, 2019, Disney announced that the Fox 2000 label would be shut down by the end of the year after releasing its films in production.

[112] Disney announced a round of layoffs for the studio, mostly from 20th Century Fox, in the production and visual effects departments.

[114] In August 2019, Disney became the first studio to have five films to gross over $1 billion at the worldwide box office in a single year.

[7] Disney achieved this on the strength of Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Captain Marvel, Toy Story 4, Aladdin, Frozen II, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker all earning over $1 billion.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the content produced by the aforementioned studios for both theatrical exhibition and the company's streaming services, with the exception of the Searchlight label, which operates its own autonomous theatrical distribution and marketing unit.

Their shows include: Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aida, Tarzan, Mary Poppins, Newsies and numerous incarnations of Disney on Ice.