Belonging to the media sector means this company will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:

*First off, the cultural shift among Millennials and Gen Zs toward experiences over material goods will make travel, food, leisure, live events and especially media consumption increasingly desirable activities.

*By the late 2020s, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will reach a level of market penetration significant enough for media companies to start shifting sizeable resources into content production for these platforms.

*By the late 2030s, the widespread popularity of VR and AR will shift the public’s media consumption tastes away from voyeuristic storytelling (traditional movies and television shows) to participatory forms of storytelling that immerses the content consumer by allowing them to influence the content they experience—kind of like being an actor in the movie you’re watching.

*The shrinking cost and versatility of artificial intelligence systems, combined with the increasing computational capacity of future quantum computing systems, will drive down the cost of producing higher budget looking content, especially for future VR and AR platforms.

*All media will eventually be delivered primarily through subscription based platforms. Everyone will pay for the content they want to consume.

SCENARIOS

Probable

*Mobile robots, representing different Disney characters, will walk around entertainment parks. There will be shows featuring stunt robots for park visitors.

*Star Wars movies will be produced at least until 2030.

*Disney will launch its direct-to-customer streaming service.

*After going under a thorough transformation, including an improvement of user experience, the streaming app ESPN+ (Disney owns 80% of ESPN) will become a must-have for every sports fan.

Plausible

*Disney will acquire The Void - a company developing mixed reality experiences for entertainment - bringing large VR improvements into the global entertainment sphere, both to the theme parks attractions and VR home devices.

*The beginning of VR markets, similar to the one presented in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets movie (a tremendous, non-physical market situated in the middle of a dessert, accessed only by wearing a VR headset).

*Disney will open the first fully VR theme park.

*Actors will sell their image rights to Disney in order to enable shooting more movies with their characters without their physical presence or after they pass away.

*There will no longer be large movie premier events. Online streaming services will bring an end to the traditional movie theatres industry, moving the premiers from the red carpet onto the streaming apps, including the Disney app. The very first streamings of a film will be available to view at an additional cost.

Possible

*Stunt robots riot - Walt Disney Imagineering stunt robots, programmed to act as super-humans, escape the company headquarters.

*Disney proposes to build a theme park set on the Moon or Mars.