Disney’s Enemies and Allies in 2026

The Walt Disney Company enters 2026 with something to prove.

After just a few days, it’s already clear that Disney’s concerns go all the way to the top.

Everyone wants to know who will succeed Bob Iger as CEO, and that’s not all.

An ambitious movie slate once again places Disney in Hollywood’s crosshairs.

Disney’s gonna need friends to make it through 2026. Do they have enough?

Let’s do a quick headcount. Here are Disney’s enemies and allies in 2026.

Enemy: AI Businesses

Over the past eight months, Disney has:

• Sued Midjourney for being a “bottomless pit of plagiarism”
• Sued MiniMax for “willful and brazen” copyright infringement
• Sent an aggressive cease-and-desist to Google over “massive scale” copyright infringement

Why is Disney behaving this way? Well, part of it is a business move, as we’ll discuss in a moment.

However, Disney also correctly views AI as an existential threat to its brands.

When someone can just create 30-second clips of Donald Duck and Goofy doing anything imaginable, that’s a problem.

As you well know, Disney is litigious anyway, but these actions proved especially essential.

Disney finds itself in real danger of losing control of the very characters it owns.

So, this story is just getting started, and it’s one that forced some sort of response.

Ally: OpenAI

Disney chose a legal approach for those three companies, but it took a different tactic with OpenAI.

In simplest terms, Disney picked a side in the AI Wars. Whether it picked the right team remains to be seen.

Still, Disney had to do something. AI copyright infringement was happening no matter what.

By making a deal with OpenAI, Disney gained at least control over arguably the biggest AI firm.

Now, Disney characters will appear on Sora and in some uses of ChatGPT.

In exchange, Disney gains the only AI ally it hopes it needs for the time being.

Is that true? Stay tuned in 2026 to find out, presuming we gain any real clarity.

AI is more unpredictable than a shake of the Magic 8-Ball.

Enemy: The Transfer Portal

This one blew your mind, right? You’re thinking this topic has nothing to do with Disney.

Sadly, you’re wrong. One of the reasons why ESPN earns so much money is the SEC.

In recent years, SEC football absolutely dominated the ratings, especially in 2025.

Similarly, SEC basketball proved historic in the 2024-2025 season and is trending well for 2025-2026.

However, as I type this, a Big Ten is guaranteed to play in the NCAA Championship for the third straight year.

Before then, the SEC held a mortal lock on the title thanks to Georgia, LSU, and Alabama.

What’s the determining factor? Teams can just buy players now, and it’s resetting the foundation.

As an example, Texas Tech, an absolute football nobody for decades, is cleaning up in the portal.

While eliminated, they were also one of the final eight teams in this year’s championship series.

Meanwhile, Indiana has been a laughingstock until recently, but now Mark Cuban is bankrolling its success.

For all its successes, the SEC doesn’t have as many billionaire boosters.

This lack of bottomless revenue more evenly distributes talent, which reduces the SEC’s dominance.

This behavior could cause a gradual erosion in excitement about the SEC, which is ESPN’s bread and butter.

Ally: The NFL

On the bright side, Disney just achieved a vital goal in 2025.

The company agreed to terms to take over the NFL’s media assets, including the NFL Network.

While this move still requires governmental approval, the belief is that it’ll get done.

In the process, ESPN and the NFL become locked at the hip, which is a critical relationship.

The NFL will own a stake in the Worldwide Leader, all but guaranteeing a long-term partnership.

As a byproduct of that union, ESPN and Disney should continue to acquire NFL rights.

If not for this deal, which wasn’t certain, trillion-dollar companies could outbid ESPN for sports licensing rights.

Thankfully, Disney has protected its interests indefinitely…as politics isn’t a problem. Speak of which…

Enemy: Politics. All Politics.

In 2022 and again in 2025, Disney somehow managed to do the impossible.

The company alienated people on both sides of America’s political aisle.

Only some truly incompetent, panicky decision-making can lead to that particular outcome.

Disney executives keep saying they want to keep the company out of politics.

I fully believe them, yet the fact that this has happened twice is problematic.

Ally: Calm Waters

Thankfully, Disney has at least resolved the problem at the two locations that matter most.

Disney has made peace with Anaheim’s City Council and Florida’s local government.

While the current setup with the Central Florida Tourist Oversight District isn’t ideal, it’s tolerable.

As of right now, Disney is friends with the leader of this district and has a majority of allies in Anaheim politics.

So, this situation appears stable, and I hope it will remain that way. However, 2026 is an election year…            

Enemy: Star Wars and Marvel “Fans”

There’s a running joke on the internet that nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.

During the 2020s, the same statement applies to Marvel fans as well.

Everyone has become hypercritical of both products, pointing to a phantom bygone era when everything was perfect.

Personally, I’d argue that Star Wars has released three genuinely good movies in nearly 50 years.

So, the idea that things were better during the era of Ewoks or Jar-Jar Binks is laughable to me.

This seems like a good time to mention that the entire Star Wars community once threatened me personally.

I’ve been fascinated to watch the same phenomenon develop with Marvel fans.

Yes, Avengers: Endgame was amazing, but we’ve had plenty of exceptional titles since then.

In 2025 alone, Thunderbolts* and Daredevil: Born Again provided exceptional entertainment.

Fans don’t care, though. Once the majority opinion is that something is no longer popular, it enters a cooling period.

Then, at some random interval, the public will suddenly forgive all and celebrate greatness again.

See: Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping followed by the reception to Top Gun: Maverick years later.

Allies: Baby Yoda and Robert Downey Jr.

Disney doesn’t want to wait on Star Wars and Marvel, though. There’s too much money at stake.

So, Disney has stacked the deck in 2026 with A-list titles and characters to microwave the process.

Rather than spending years in purgatory, Disney has spent a fortune to get the band together.

Most of the MCU characters you know from the Avengers film franchise will return in December.

Disney has already ramped up the marketing campaign for Avengers: Doomsday.

The idea is that one blockbuster will make everyone forget about all the mistakes.

Hey, it worked for Tom Cruise! And it may work for Star Wars, too.

Disney has sagely chosen the one character people want to see for its next Star Wars film.

The Mandalorian & Grogu is the closest thing Disney has to a surefire blockbuster right now.

I fully believe that the combination of Baby Yoda and a returning Robert Downey Jr. will make a difference.

These two anchors should reverse the fortunes of the MCU and Star Wars franchises.

But if that doesn’t happen…uh-oh.

Enemy: Universal Studios. Again.

So, it’s no secret that the first year of Universal Epic Universe could have gone better.

The park suffered one heartbreaking tragedy and faces several other lawsuits about the same ride.

Still, I presume that park officials will correct Stardust Racers, just as Disney fixed Mission: SPACE.

The two issues are eerily similar in that neither ride technically malfunctioned, according to park officials.

Both proved too intense for many guests at the start. That’s (hopefully) correctable.

The bigger issue is that Epic Universe doesn’t appear to handle the flow of traffic well.

With even a moderate number of guests in the park, gridlock occurs in attraction line queues.

So, that’s Universal’s homework right now, but it doesn’t negate the larger point here.

Epic Universe exists to siphon traffic from Walt Disney World, and it’s not the only place.

Universal will open Universal Kids Resort in 2026 and is working on a theme park in England, too.

The company’s underlying goal is to even the playing field with Disney, the current theme park overlord.

Ally: The Cruise Industry. Again.

For the second straight year, Disney will overlook all of Universal’s presumably pointless attempts.

Universal is fighting for a distant second, while Disney only cares about earning more money.

Disney Cruise Line has evolved into a vital financial pipeline during the 2020s.

With the Disney Destiny now setting sail and the Disney Adventure joining it soon, that’s even more incoming tourist cash.

These two ships vastly increase the number of cabins Disney can book each year.

As soon as Disney pays for these vessels, which rarely takes long, that’s just bonus income.

On a seemingly unrelated note, Universal should announce its own cruise line over the next few years.

That’s where all the money is in tourism these days.

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Feature Photo: Rokas – Adobe