KINGDOM HEARTS Is Officially a $1 Billion Franchise, Now Can Disney Avoid Running It Into the Ground?
Disney has finally realized just how valuable Kingdom Hearts is, and that could be both awesome and a little scary.
Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe started throwing superheroes from different corners of its universe together, Kingdom Hearts was pulling off one of the wildest crossovers imaginable.
The 2002 SquareSoft game put Final Fantasy characters in the same universe as Disney icons from Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, and countless other classics, then built an original mythology around Sora, Riku, Kairi, and the wonderfully complicated imagination of co-creator Tetsuya Nomura.
Nearly 25 years later, Disney says Kingdom Hearts has grown into a $1 billion franchise. Suddenly, the Mouse seems very interested.
The milestone arrived shortly before Disney showed new Kingdom Hearts 4 footage and announced an original Disney+ anime series as part of the franchise's 25th anniversary celebration at D23. More importantly, Disney apparently sees those projects as only the beginning.
Disney director of games Nana Gadd recently discussed the company's plans for the franchise, saying: “Even though Kingdom Hearts has been around for 25 years, there are so many things we want to do. […] The announcement of the animated series is truly just the first step.”
For fans who have spent decades waiting for Disney to give Kingdom Hearts more attention outside of video games, that's exciting. This is a franchise designed for expansion. Disney+ projects, theme park attractions, collectibles, animated movies, and other experiences all seem like natural possibilities.
Disney has barely scratched that surface during the past 25 years. Despite the popularity of Kingdom Hearts, its presence inside Disney theme parks has been minimal, official merchandise hasn't reflected the size of its audience, and the franchise has largely remained confined to gaming.
There's plenty of room to change that. The concern is what happens when Disney decides it has found another franchise worth mining. Disney needs dependable hits, and Kingdom Hearts has officially proven itself as a major business.
The company has scored recent successes with Toy Story 5 and the live-action Lilo & Stitch, but it has also dealt with major disappointments including Tron: Ares, the live-action Snow White, and the underperformance of The Mandalorian & Grogu and Moana.
A billion-dollar franchise sitting in its own backyard suddenly looks pretty attractive. The problem is that Disney's recent history offers plenty of examples of what can happen when one of its properties becomes too valuable to leave alone.
After Avengers: Endgame, Marvel content poured onto Disney+ alongside the theatrical releases. Keeping up with the MCU eventually became homework for some viewers, and Avengers: Doomsday now carries enormous expectations as Marvel attempts to bring audiences back in force.
Pixar has increasingly leaned on familiar properties as original movies have struggled to match the commercial performance of sequels. Toy Story 5, Inside Out 2, and Incredibles 2 show exactly why Disney keeps returning to recognizable names.
Star Wars went through a similar cycle. After the divisive sequel trilogy, The Mandalorian helped give the franchise new life on television. Rebuilding that same excitement at the theatrical box office has proved considerably harder.
That's the danger facing Kingdom Hearts. Its success wasn't created by pumping out as much content as possible. It took decades.
Nomura and Shinji Hashimoto helped create something wonderfully strange that somehow worked. Kingdom Hearts mixed Final Fantasy melodrama, Disney optimism, and original characters, and a ton of interesting lore.
The balance between Square Enix and Disney has always been essential to that identity, which makes the franchise's gradual movement away from Final Fantasy somewhat concerning.
Kingdom Hearts 3 notably left familiar Final Fantasy characters such as Cloud and Leon, better known as Squall, out of the main adventure despite their importance to earlier games. Based on what has been revealed so far, Kingdom Hearts 4 also doesn't appear to be making Final Fantasy characters a major part of its story.
At the same time, Disney's presence around Kingdom Hearts is becoming much larger. The franchise is now being showcased at D23 and expanding onto Disney+.
Nomura remains directly involved with Kingdom Hearts 4 and the upcoming anime, which should give fans some confidence. The bigger question concerns what happens years from now if Nomura reduces his involvement or eventually walks away.
Disney executives would then inherit a franchise whose appeal comes from a very specific creative chemistry. Turning Kingdom Hearts into simply another vehicle for Disney characters would miss what made the games special in the first place.
Disney continues investing heavily in proven brands. Frozen 3, Incredibles 3, a live-action Lilo & Stitch 2, and a live-action Tangled are among the projects extending established franchises.
It's easy to imagine Kingdom Hearts joining that strategy now that Disney knows exactly how much money is attached to the Keyblade.
More Kingdom Hearts isn't inherently a bad thing. An anime could be awesome. A properly designed theme park attraction feels overdue. Better merchandise would probably have fans throwing money at Disney before it could finish stocking the shelves.
The franchise absolutely deserves a bigger spotlight. It just doesn't need to become content wallpaper. Disney has spent 25 years mostly allowing Kingdom Hearts to exist on its own terms, and that helped create a billion-dollar franchise with a fiercely dedicated fanbase.
The smartest thing the company can do now is make sure its identity survives whatever comes next.