Mouse Gives Epic over One Billion Dollars

On February 7th 2024, The Walt Disney company announced a collaboration with Epic Games to create an all-new games and entertainment universe focusing on Disney (including Marvel,Star Wars, Avatar) experiences and stories. This collaboration will see the House of Mouse investing $1.5 billion (20 times what Disney paid to own The Muppets) to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games.

CEO Bob Iger had this to say:

“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe. This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.”

Josh D’Amaro, the Chairman of Disney Experiences added:

“This will enable us to bring together our incredible collection of stories and experiences from across the company for a broad audience in ways we have only dreamed of before. Epic Games’ industry-leading technology and Fortnite’s open ecosystem will help us reach consumers where they are so they can engage with Disney in the ways that are most relevant to them.”

Tim Sweeney, The CEO and Found of Epic Games said:

“Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio. Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”

Epic and Disney are no strangers to each other. The Marvel Nexus War with Galactus brought in more than 15.3 million concurrent players to Epics ever popular battle royale, Fortnite. Disney also uses Epic’s Unreal Engine in video game production, cinematic editing and animation and use it in 15+ park attractions.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.