Disney Princess, also called the Princess Line, is a media franchise and toy-line owned by The Walt Disney Company. Created by Disney Consumer Products chairman Andy Mooney in the early 2000s, the franchise features a line-up of fictional female protagonists who have appeared in various Disney franchises.
The franchise does not include all princess characters from the whole of Disney-owned media, but rather refers to select specific characters from the company's animated films and series. The 12 characters considered part of the franchise are Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, and Moana.
The franchise has released dolls, sing-along videos, apparel, beauty products, home decor, toys and a variety of other products featuring some of the Disney Princesses. Licensees for the franchise include Glidden (wall paint), Stride Rite (sparkly shoes), Hasbro (games and dolls), and Fisher-Price (plastic figurines).
History
Conception
The original line-up consisted of princesses Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan and Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell was soon removed from the line-up; she would go on to headline the sister franchise Disney Fairies. This was the first time the characters would be marketed in a separate franchise to their original films. Mooney decided that, when featured on marketing advertisements such as posters, the princesses should never make eye contact with each other in an attempt to keep their individual "mythologies" intact. "[Each] stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others' presence." Former Nike, Inc. executive Andy Mooney was appointed chairman of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Consumer Products division in the late 1990s. While attending his first Disney on Ice show, Mooney noticed that several young girls attending the show were dressed in princess attire—though not authentic Disney merchandise. "They were generic princess products they’d appended to a Halloween costume," Mooney told The New York Times. Concerned by this, Mooney addressed the company the following morning and encouraged them to commence work on a legitimate Disney Princess franchise in January 2000. Walt's nephew, Roy E. Disney, objected to the creation of the line, as the company has long "avoided mingling characters from its classic fairy tales in other narratives, worrying that it would weaken the individual mythologies".
In an unconventional manner, Mooney and his team launched the Disney Princess line without utilizing any focus groups and with minimal marketing. By 2001, Disney Consumer Products (DCP) had generated about 300 million dollars, but by 2012, the division had increased revenue to 3 billion dollars, making it the top seller of consumer entertainment products globally. DCP issued princess product licenses to Hasbro for games, Mattel for dolls, and Fisher-Price for plastic figurines in 2000, allowing the franchise to meet the $1 billion mark in revenue in three years.
Expansions
Tiana became the first additional character to the Princess franchise officially on March 14, 2010, taking Tinker Bell's short-lived place as the ninth member. Her "coronation" took place at the New York Palace. Tinker Bell was already heading up another franchise started in 2005, Disney Fairies. Rapunzel was crowned and inducted into the Disney Princess franchise as the tenth member on October 2, 2011, at Kensington Palace in London, England. On May 11, 2013, Disney added the first Pixar character Merida as the 11th Princess to the franchise in a coronation ceremony in front of Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. By March 21, 2019, Moana was added to the line-up without having a coronation ceremony.
A line of Disney Fairy Tale Wedding gowns were designed by Kirstie Kelly, based on the Princesses and available in January 2008.
With Target Corporation as its marketing partner, Disney held the first National Princess Week the week of April 22, 2012. During the week, there was the release of The Princess Diaries Blu-ray and The Very Fairy Princess book. Harrod, already have a Disney stores within, followed with their Christmas theme being Disney Princess by having Oscar de la Renta designed dress for the Princess on display. In August, the dress were on display at D23 Expo before being auctioned on November 13 to benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.
Mattel added a Barbie princess-themed line in late-2010 then the fairy tale based Ever After High in 2013.With these competing lines and an expiration of the brand license at the end of 2015, Disney offered Hasbro a chance to gain the license given their work on Star Wars, which led to a Descendants license. DCP was also attempting to evolve the brand by marketing them less as damsels and more as heroines. In September 2014, Disney announced that Hasbro would be the licensed doll maker for the Disney Princess line starting on January 1, 2016.
The June 2013 release of the Disney Princess Palace Pets app from Disney Publishing, led DCP to turn Palace Pets into a Disney Princess franchise extension, with the release of The Palace Pets toy line in August from licensee Blip Toys. The line was also selected by TimetoPlayMag.com for its Most Wanted List Holiday 2013. In 2015 Disney Publishing released animated shorts series Whisker Haven Tales with the Palace Pets. The shorts journey to a magical world of Whisker Haven, a secret realm located in a fairy-tale space between the Disney Princess kingdoms.
Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media launched the Princess Comics line, which was started with Princess Comics graphic novels by Joe Book, in August 2018 at Target with Hasbro figures and Hybrid Promotions apparel. This expansion featured Belle, Jasmine, Ariel, Rapunzel and Pocahontas.
Disney Princesses
Princesses were given an official number in the franchise lineup starting with Snow White as the first and original Disney princess, with Cinderella being the second, followed by Aurora and so on.
Snow White
Cinderella
Aurora
Ariel
Belle
Jasmine
Pocahontas
Mulan
Tiana - first addition
Rapunzel
Merida
Moana[13]
Meet-and-greets and live events
Disneyland
Currently, all the princesses are available for meet-and-greets in Disneyland Resort in California. Additionally, In 2006, as part of the "Year of Million Dreams" celebration, the Fantasyland Theater began hosting the Disneyland Princess Fantasy Faire, a show featuring Lords and Ladies that taught young boys and girls the proper etiquette to be a prince or princess and features appearances from the Disney Princesses. In 2010, Rapunzel was given a Tangled meet-and-greet location. The Carnation Plaza Gardens bandstand, adjacent to Sleeping Beauty Castle, was closed to be replaced by a new Fantasy Faire area in the Spring of 2013.
Fantasy Faire
The Fantasy Faire area in Disneyland officially opened on March 12, 2013, as the permanent home for the Disney Princesses and consists of a Royal Hall, a Royal Theatre, Maurice's Treats food cart and Fairytale Treasures gift shop. The theater features two small shows based on Beauty and the Beast and Tangled. The hall is used for meet and greets with the princesses, which have a rotation schedule with three princesses scheduled to appear at a time.
Walt Disney World
At Walt Disney World Resort, the princesses are available for meet-and-greets in more specific locations. Cinderella-based character dining and interaction, located at Cinderella's Royal Table in her Magic Kingdom castle, as well as "Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner," (formerly known as the Cinderella's Gala Feast Dinner) at 1900 Park Fare in the Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa are common places for Cinderella and other Disney characters to appear. The Princesses also can be found at the Princess Storybook meal at Epcot. On September 18, 2013, a new meet-and-greet attraction called Princess Fairytale Hall opened at the Magic Kingdom.
Shanghai Disneyland
A Princess meet-and-greet location called Once Upon a Time was operational at Shanghai Disneyland's opening and is located at Storybook Castle.
Media
Films and television
Princess Party Palace (formerly known as The Princess Power Hour) was a programming block on Toon Disney from 2000 until 2007 and where it used to air episodes of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.
The Disney Princesses' television appearances were compiled into the Disney Princess Collection, a series of compilation DVDs containing episodes from Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and two Beauty and the Beast specials. A later DVD series was released, entitled Disney Princess Stories, featuring content similar to the previous release.
Belle had her own live-action television series titled Sing Me a Story with Belle. The first eight Disney Princesses also made appearances on the animated TV series House of Mouse and Belle also made an appearance (along with her husband, Beast) on a short episode from the TV animated series Mickey Mouse. The television special The Little Mermaid Live! starred Auliʻi Cravalho as Ariel.
In early 2007, Disney announced Disney Princess Enchanted Tales, a new series of direct-to-video features that feature new stories for the Disney Princesses. The first movie in the series entitled Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams, was released on September 4, 2007. It is a musical film featuring new tales about Princess Jasmine and the first new tale about Princess Aurora since the original Sleeping Beauty.
Originally, Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: A Kingdom of Kindness was announced as the first film in the series, which contained a different Princess Aurora story, and had a Belle story rather than a Princess Jasmine story. Disney made this change without any sort of notice. Currently, the series is cancelled and only "Follow Your Dreams" exists.
The TV series Once Upon a Time that airs on the Disney-owned ABC, featured live-action versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, Mulan, Ariel, Rapunzel, Merida, Jasmine and Tiana in addition to Anna and Elsa. Snow White and Belle were main characters while the rest made recurring and or guest appearances. Beginning in season 7, Cinderella, Tiana and Rapunzel were main characters. Many of these characters are patterned after the Disney versions, but a few draw inspiration from older stories.
The TV series Sofia the First premiered on January 11, 2013, on Disney Junior. Cinderella appeared in the first movie Once Upon A Princess. Jasmine, Belle, Aurora, Snow White, Mulan, Tiana, and Merida have appeared on the show, and Ariel and Rapunzel appeared in the TV Specials The Floating Palace and The Curse of Princess Ivy, respectively. However, Sofia is a minor princess and not in the royal court. She is voiced by Modern Family star Ariel Winter. In 2017, the TV series Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure debuted with the made-for-television movie Tangled: Before Ever After serving as the pilot.
In the 2014 and 2019 films Maleficent and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Elle Fanning plays Aurora. Lily James portrays Cinderella in the 2015 film of the same name. Emma Watson is seen as Belle in the 2017 film Beauty and the Beast. Naomi Scott stars as Jasmine in the 2019 film Aladdin. Liu Yifei will appear as Mulan in the 2020 film of the same name. Halle Bailey has been cast as Ariel in a live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid.
The Princesses, along with Anna and Elsa from Frozen both make guest appearances in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. This film marks the first direct interaction between the characters in an animated Disney feature. Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the directors of Ralph Breaks the Internet, said that a film focusing on the Disney Princesses could be made depending on the audience's response and "if there's a good story to be told".