Even Walt himself didn’t dream this big

In 1941, as his grand passion project Fantasia lost money hand over fist, Walt Disney found himself in a ruminative mood. His new film broke every artistic and technological boundary ndary it hit: hand-drawn animation tion dancing to the music of f Beethoven, Bach and Stravinsky, travinsky, recreated in then-revolutionaryutionary stereo sound. But Fantasia’s asia’s initial roadshow release e proved ruinously expensive, and nd all but one of the 13 cinemas that hat had upgraded their speakersrs to the “Fantasound” system later ater had them dismantled as parts rts were required for the war effort. ffort.

“I have never had the e faintest idea where this business would drag me e from one year to the next,” Disney wrote in a lengthy essay for Americanican Cinematographer, titledd “Growing Pains”.

“It’s at the controls, not me! But, as I said before, as long as we keep on growing, , the future will keep opening ng up… What I see way off there e is too nebulous to describe. But it looks big and glittering. . That’s what I like about t this business, the certainty that there is always something bigger and more exciting just around the bend; and the uncertainty of everything else.”

Disney, born on December 5 1901, at the dawn of the American century, wa was the embodiment of the write-y write-your-own-legend spirit of the age; h he died on December 15 1966, with i its brightest accomp accomplishments still ahead. But ev even the 39-year-old man sitting at his desk, postFanta Fantasia, and mulling his studi studio’s future with cautious optim optimism, couldn’t have poss possibly envisioned D23.

Th The D23 Expo is a biann biannual convention in Anah Anaheim, California, wher where Disneylover lovers from aroun around the world come together to celebr celebrate, dress up in the style of, and purchase g goods relating to, the studio’s pas past, present and future works. It’s b been running since 2009 and w while official attendance figures aren aren’t released, they’re thought to stand at around 65,000 over the co course of the three-day event.

D is for D Disney, 23 a nod to the year Walt and his brother Roy founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in their uncle’s garage. Over the intervening 94 years, this grew into The Walt Disney Company as it stands today: a multinational conglomerate that owns and operates five of the most lucrative film studios in the world – Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm – along with countless other media franchises, a cruise line, and seven parks and resorts.

For a sense of the mood, imagine an annual shareholders’ meeting crossed with an evangelical megachurch. The air crackles with the fist-clenching thrill of corporate triumph – during one presentation, Alan F Horn, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, proudly noted that the five most commercially successful films of 2016 – Finding Dory, Zootropolis, The Jungle Book, Captain America: Civil War, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – “were all from our studio”, to widespread whoops.

Halfway between a marketing exercisee and a religious experience, Disney’s D23 Expo makes Robbie Collin feel like a child againgain

The mouse that roared: among the attendees dressed to impress were Mickey, right

Expanding empire: in 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the studio behind StaStar Wars as