The Mouse Empire grows

First, some numbers to chew on:
Title > Domestic Gross + Foreign Gross = Worldwide Gross
Frozen > $400,738,009 + $875,742,326 = $1,276,480,335
Minions > $336,045,770 + $823,352,627 = $1,159,398,397
Zootopia > $337,183,405 + $663,500,000 = $1,000,683,405
Inside Out > $356,461,711 + $500,966,000 = $857,427,711
The LEGO Movie > $257,760,692 + $211,400,000 = $469,160,692
* source = Box Office Mojo

Walt Disney Pictures has hit a bonanza with Frozen and with Zootopia. Pixar's Inside Out also scored well, and Disney is Pixar's distributor. That's gazoozles of cash in the Disney till. In fifth place among animated features is Warner Brothers' The LEGO Movie, at about half of fourth-place Inside Out's take.

Now consider that Disney's figurehead, Mickey Mouse, has six features / vignettes to his credit: Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, Mickey's Christmas Carol, The Prince and the Pauper, The Three Musketeers, and Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas. Mickey also had The Mickey Mouse Club and Mickey's House of Mouse, and currently has Mickey Mouse Club House and Mickey Mouse (the cartoon series). Also, there are the Kingdom Hearts and Epic Mickey video games. The mouse is alive and very well, being seen by viewers almost as soon as they fall out of the womb, and staying visible through childhood and on into adulthood.

Contrast ... oh, let's say, Bugs Bunny. That rabbit that used to have his own television show on ABC-TV, until Disney brought the network outright in 1994, and bulldozed the rabbit off the airwaves. There has been The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie, though that was merely the Chuck Jones cartoons stitched together; and The Looney ... Bugs Bunny Movie, which was merely the Friz Freleng shorts stitched together. There was also Space Jam and Looney Tunes Back In Action, the latter of which bombed massively. There was also the Loonatics Unleashed fiasco, if you want to count that. There were two seasons of The Looney Tunes Show, and currently Wabbit, which get air time mostly on Warner Brother's house network.

It seems Bugs Bunny is the ragtag rebel fighting uphill against the mighty Mouse Empire. Oh, yes, Disney also acquired Lucasfilm Limited, and the Star Wars properties, so the comparison is more apt than ever. So, let me ask: how long before Disney buys out / seizes / assimilates the drain-circling Looney Tunes?

The Disney machine simply rolls over all pretenders and wannabes. Cue The Imperial March.

"Minions:" And "The Lego Movie" were not produced by Disney/Pixar.

That's true; Minions by Dreamworks Animation and The LEGO Movie by Village Roadshow Pictures aren't part of Disney or Pixar. However, those two animated features are #2 and #5 on the list of all-time animated feature gross revenues, according to Box Office Mojo. I simply copy-pasted the BOM list whole. Minions clearly goes over big with overseas audiences, while The LEGO Movie strongly resonates with Americans. The movie industry has always been a guesswork-and-prayer venture.