Biggest Disney Entertainment Stories of 2025

The Walt Disney Company has spent more than a century at the epicenter of Hollywood entertainment.

Since the inventions of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, Disney has dominated the media.

That point came into focus this past year, as several Disney headlines captivated audiences.

Here are the top ten Disney Entertainment Stories of 2025.

Avengers: Doomsday Plays Musical Chairs

In March 2025, Disney started its first viral marketing campaign for a December 2026 release.

That move may seem odd, but let’s remember that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is struggling right now. Disney wants to remind fans of how much they love the many, MANY actors in the MCU cast.

So, Disney posted a livestream video of its casting announcements for Avengers: Doomsday.

The above video doesn’t do this story justice, as it’s only about 90 seconds long.

What actually happened that day in March was that Disney showed a new chair about every 15 minutes.

For this reason, the entire cast of Avengers: Doomsday took like 12 hours to reveal.

Disney’s plan hasn’t seemed to help much thus far, as two Marvel movies released after this didn’t do especially well.

China Loooves Zootopia

This story is still unfolding, and it’s honestly a bit difficult to comprehend.

When Zootopia came out in theaters in 2016, Disney knew that it had a hit on its hands.

The film earned more than $1 billion at the box office, always the sign of a true blockbuster.

However, Zootopia’s sustained appeal in China stood out in Disney’s analytics.

That’s why the company built the first Zootopia themed land at Shanghai Disneyland.

Even then, I don’t think even Disney officials fully recognized the brand’s popularity in the Middle Kingdom.

That changed when Zootopia 2 debuted in theaters in November, earning $556 million during its five-day holiday.

Folks, $272 million of that total came from China alone. In five days!!!

Zootopia 2 has already surpassed the original’s box office, and it’s largely due to China.

Jimmy Kimmel Joke Backfires

Charlie Kirk, a popular podcaster, died from gunshot wounds in September 2025.

That evening, Jimmy Kimmel appeared on his talk show and made an ill-received joke.

Leaving all the politics out of the conversation, Kimmel’s comments triggered an unprecedented furor.

Two different major affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair, promptly refused to broadcast Kimmel’s show.

In the wake of their declarations, Disney benched Kimmel with a suspension.

People on both sides of the political aisle decried Disney’s treatment of Kimmel.

Some wanted him back on the air immediately, while others felt he should be fired.

Ultimately, Disney chose to bring back Kimmel, whose return earned epic television ratings.

Not coincidentally, Nexstar and Sinclair ended their boycotts of Kimmel’s show.

Also, Disney recently extended the comedian for at least another year.

Kim Possible Nearly Dies

As a diehard Kim Possible fan – I call my wife Kimmie Cub – this story bothers me a great deal, but it thankfully didn’t end in tragedy.

Christy Carlson Romano, the voice of Kim Possible and a popular podcaster, wanted to celebrate her husband’s birthday.

I’ll just let her tell the story, as the pictures are worth thousands of words here.

As the visuals show, a gun accident caused the actress to get shot in the face!

Thankfully, the actress survived and was already making jokes about it almost immediately afterward.

The moral of the story: when you plan to visit any sort of gun range, keep an eye on the other parties within shooting range of you.

King of the Hill Makes a Triumphant Return

In the early 2000s, the Fox Network developed a reputation as a bunch of bumbling yokels.

Seriously, they made the Three Stooges look competent. Fox canceled any number of great shows.

Remarkably, many of them later found a life on home video and, eventually, streaming.

In the case of Family Guy, Fox recognized its mistake almost immediately and brought the show back.

In the case of American Dad, it took more than a decade. The show is returning to Fox in 2026.

Then, we have the unusual example of King of the Hill, which Fox canceled in 2008.

Due to the network’s *ahem* unusual release schedule, new episodes aired into 2010.

That tells the whole story about Fox’s competence. But there’s more to it than that.

Disney noted that King of the Hill shared many of the same analytics as Futurama.

The latter show has found new life on Hulu after (repeatedly) being canceled on broadcast television.

SO, Disney gave King of the Hill new life, and the show has performed spectacularly well on streaming.

King of the Hill is one of the biggest new hits on Hulu this year and proof-positive that Fox was clueless.

Lilo & Stitch

My home doubles as a shrine to Stitch. Personally, I prefer Lilo, but I always lose a 1-1 vote on that.

My wife and I watched the original Lilo & Stitch in theaters on opening weekend.

Since then, we watched in bemusement as Disney did little with the property.

That was wild to us since the Stitch series performed VERY well on Disney Channel.

Over the past decade, it’s impossible to ignore how much Stitch merchandise is out there.

So, this has always struck me as a valuable brand Disney should have used more.

For its part, the best Disney could do was create a live-action remake for Disney+.

At some point, Bob Iger or somebody at Disney thought, “Hey, let’s release it in theaters. What could it hurt?”

That was more than $1 billion at the box office ago. Also, Stitch is one of the hottest toys this holiday season.

From the files of Duh!, Lilo & Stitch was a massive success all the way around. Unlike…

Snow White Is One Giant Poison Apple

I’m not about to relitigate this one. Life’s too short for that sort of pain.

All I’ll say is that Snow White had the kind of negative buzz generally reserved for stuff like Gigli.

People identified a bomb 18 months out, and history proved them correct.

The 2025 live-action remake of Snow White currently sits at 39 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

On IMDb, the movie got review-bombed and currently sits at a 2.2 out of 10.

That’s Plan 9 from Outer Space territory. No, wait, that historically bad film has a 3.9. So…

Look, people made up their minds about Snow White ages ago, which is a bit tragic.

This is THE most important film and story in Disney history, the one that laid the groundwork.

So, for the live-action remake to fail this miserably is genuinely depressing.

Streaming Fans Love Mormon Wives

A friend of mine hosts a podcast that is one of the most popular in the world.

His business model relies on Real Housewives of various cities and other Bravolebrities.

Reality show fans are obsessed with these trashy people willing to act awful on camera.

Disney got into this business with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in 2024.

However, the show didn’t level up until 2025, when several scandals played in its favor.

One of the guilty pleasures of MomTok, it’s fittingly also the beneficiary of a MomTok sex scandal.

That’s not a sentence I’ve ever typed before, but here we are. Welcome to Hulu in 2025!

The salacious nature of this show has led to epic ratings for Disney.

Oh, and one of the Mormon Wives was recently cast as the star of a Lifetime holiday movie.

The world just doesn’t make any sense any more, does it?

Thunderbolts* Changes Its Name after Three Days in Theaters

Speaking of oddities, Thunderbolts* debuted in theaters on Friday, May 2^nd, 2025.

On Monday, May 5^th, 2025, Disney renamed the film. I am not joking. That’s a real thing that happened.

For the first time in the 115-year history of Hollywood, a film rebranded after one weekend.

Disney had a plan for this project and pulled it off exactly as intended, albeit to middling results.

The company hoped to reignite the MCU’s popularity with this daring marketing gambit.

In reality, what happened was that most casual fans thought, “That’s weird.”

And the decision eliminated any plans these people had to watch the film in theaters.

That’s a shame because Thunderbolts* finished in my top three for 2025. It’s an excellent film.

Win Or Lose Doesn’t Make a Dent

Real talk: do you ever remember this one?

In case you’ve forgotten, Pixar (!!!) released a television series about a softball team THIS YEAR!

You have no recollection of this because it left no cultural footprint whatsoever, which is remarkable.

Again, this is a Pixar program! Since the 1990s, fans have begged for Pixar to do television.

When the studio finally took a crack at it, well, just look at the title and guess how it went.

Hint: They didn’t win. Also, my confession is that we watched two episodes of this.

Then, I kinda forgot about it, too. The show is well-reviewed, but it never made the Nielsen Streaming Ratings charts.

In combination with the box office dud, Elio, which I didn’t list here, Pixar had a really rough year.

Fortunately, Toy Story 5 will save the day on June 19^th, 2026.

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Feature Photo: Disney