Walt Disney : Disney News This Week: Disney Ranked No. 6 on Fortune’s List of Most-Admired Companies
February 23, 2015 at 02:48 pm EST
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On Tuesday, Walt Disney Studios announced that production has commenced on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth entry in the blockbuster franchise inspired by the classic Disney theme parks attraction. The feature will film entirely at Village Roadshow Studios and on locations within Queensland, Australia. Johnny Depp returns to his iconic, Academy Award®-nominated role of Captain Jack Sparrow, and is joined by Oscar® winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), rising young stars Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) and Brenton Thwaites (Maleficent) and Golshifteh Farahani (The Patience Stone). Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush reprises his role of Barbossa, as do Kevin R. McNally as Joshamee Gibbs and Stephen Graham as Scrum. The epic comedy adventure is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can); and is directed by Espen Sandberg & Joachim Rønning.
This week The Walt Disney Company was ranked No. 6 on Fortune's list of the top 10 Most-Admired Companies this year, moving up one spot from last year. Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger continues to focus on high-level innovation and the results only get more impressive, with new innovative technologies like MagicBands at Walt Disney World, which are RFID-enabled wristbands that let guests get into and around the parks and buy merchandise. And the unprecedented popularity of 2013's Frozen can be traced to the Company's use of technology: Each snow particle was designed using an algorithm, making the winterscape scenes more realistic. In 2014, the Company's Interactive division saw the viral success of mobile game Tsum Tsum with 21 million downloads.
ABC News has launched the first U.S. news app for the popular gaming console Xbox One. The ABC News app will offer immediate access to multiple simultaneous streams of live video as well as on-demand content, entertainment news, original programming and highlights from ABC News programs. "The app for Xbox One is a major step forward in our efforts to develop new creative forms of storytelling and put ABC News everywhere people get their news and information," said ABC News Vice President of Digital Colby Smith. "The ability to choose from multiple live streams, especially during breaking news and special events, will provide an unparalleled viewing experience for the audience."
The Walt Disney Company is a media and entertainment group. Net sales (including intragroup) break down by activity as follows:
- operation of theme parks and hotel resorts (33.9%): operation, as of 01/10/2022, of 10 theme parks (35 hotels) located in the United States (Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort and Aulani; 6 theme parks and 23 hotels), France (Disneyland Paris; 2 theme parks and 7 hotels), Japan (Tokyo Disney Resort; 2 theme parks and 5 hotels), Hong Kong (Hong Kong Disneyland; 1 theme park and 3 hotels) and China (Shanghai Disney Resort; 1 theme park and 2 hotels). The group is also involved in cruise sales (Disney Cruise Line), travel organization (Disney Vacation Club and Adventures By Disney), design and development of parks and other real estate properties, and sale of consumer products (children's books, toys, game software, films, etc.);
- operation of TV and radio channels (33.4%): domestic channels (Disney Channels, ESPN, ESPN Radio, Freeform, FX Channels and National Geographic Channels) and international channels (Disney, ESPN, Fox, National Geographic and Star). The group is also developing film post-production and website operation businesses;
- video streaming (23.1%);
- audiovisual content production and distribution (9.6%): TV programs, animated films, TV series, music, live entertainment, etc.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Americas (81.5%), Europe (10.4%) and Asia/Pacific (8.1%).
WALT DISNEY COMPANY (THE) 
