Disney is more than just a film and animation studio the company operates everything from a TV network (multiple TV networks, actually) and an amusement park (multiple amusement parks, in fact) to a whole chain of Disney-branded stores, among other ventures.

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Lasseter, 52, helped create Pixar, which in recent years has overtaken Disney's internal animation division as the most important animation studio in the country.

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Disney has virtually abandoned old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation it is closing its Florida studio and the feature-animation business will pare down to 600 employees, compared with 2, 200 at the peak in 1999.

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Uniquely in Hollywood, many of Disney's movies come not from its namesake studio but corporate siblings including Marvel Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, and, soon, Lucasfilm, the company behind "Star Wars" that Disney acquired last year.

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