Walt Disney Pictures released under this brand. "Pirates of the Caribbean" is the studio's most successful franchise, with two of its sequels, released in and , earning over $1 billion in worldwide box office gross. The studio's predecessor (and the modern-day The Walt Disney Company's as a whole) was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, by filmmaker Walt Disney and his business partner and brother, Roy, in 1923. The creation of Mickey Mouse and subsequent short films and merchandise generated revenue for the studio which was renamed as The Walt Disney Studio at the Hyperion Studio in 1926. In 1929, it was
The Walt Disney Company Sword and the Rose" (1953), and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954). Disney ended its distribution contract with RKO in 1953, forming its own distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution. In December 1950, Walt Disney Productions and the Coca-Cola Company teamed up for Disney's first venture into television, the NBC television network special "An Hour in Wonderland". In October 1954, the ABC network launched Disney's first regular television series. In 1954, Walt Disney used his "Disneyland" series to unveil what would become Disneyland, an idea conceived out of a desire for a place where parents and children could both have fun