News Bob Iger is back! Chapek is out!!

[MisterPenguin]

The Atlantic has a depressing article titled:

"The [D+] Streaming Death Spiral Must End"

"This doubling down on exclusive streaming releases appears to have had a cost: Disney+ lost $1.5 billion over the past quarter, more than double what it had lost the year before, according to a recent earnings announcement. Reported revenue and earnings per share were also both below analysts’ expectations, practically unheard-of for the company."

Yes....D+ was thought to be the "savior" for Disney during the pandemic but they are dumping WAY.....W A Y too much money into it and they HAVE to pull back from it. 1.5 Billion loss...in just one quarter? They are feeding D+ money from parks profit and not using that parks money to maintain and grow the parks.

It seems to me that D+ is a massive black hole that is sucking too much resources from the rest of the company. Disney doesnt even expect D+ to break even for 3 more years?

D+ is doing its part to kill local theaters...and is not even able to sustain itself. Its just a nasty black hole swallowing valuable money from other divisions....

Or, D+ is priced at half its value.

 

[lazyboy97o]

It’s a shame Ron Miller is no longer with us to come back. The man really charged the course of Eisner and Wells’ early success.

 

[mightynine]

It’s not the Disney store that was the problem…it was the mall model that is close to dead already

They build medical clinics and hipster apartments in ours now.

The country basically over-malled itself and the closures were the market correction.

And then the ones that remain have anchor stores that are hanging on by a thread and open-air lifestyle centers take their place (and those will hit oversatuation at some point, if not close already).

You do have some online companies moving toward psychical locations - like Warby Parker for example - that at least give those places some new tenants as they discover that there’s a limit to online buyers as well.

As an aside, as someone in the Deep South, I hate open-air malls. Give me my air conditioning!

Or, D+ is priced at half its value.

Are you el Supe’s alter?

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

It’s a shame Ron Miller is no longer with us to come back. The man really charged the course of Eisner and Wells’ early success.

There was a lot of negativity surrounding his brief tenure at the company back in the Eisner era. But in hindsight and reading into the actual details, it seems like he was heavily responsible for setting up a lot of the successes that Disney would experience in the late 80s and early 90s. I think he was a particularly key figure in the Disney Channel and setting the groundwork for the animated "Renaissance".

He probably would have been a good choice to replace Wells.

 

[BobPar]

…I’ll answer you when you become a man, son

(I’m nobody famous…but I did move at “lightning” pace through a couple of management and business unit slots at a fairly young age. I just had an insight for what people think and how they apply that to what they want?…an incredibly useful skill in kiddie Mecca)

Thats awesome. Assuming you no longer work for them? Retired? Moved to better pastures? Did you ever get to deal w Eisner directly?

 

[MrPromey]

I think…and we have been talking about this for going on 30 years…is that 95-05 period is symbolic to a lot of fans…

It was kinda the end of the “innocence”. Eisner is really the figurehead for the transformation of the “family” company into the corporate…

And that is what happened. It’s a psychological transition that many never wanted.

The problem is it was going to happen. The reason Disney is the behemoth it is now…and not bought up like Warner or universal…is because they did make the transition then.

Even if they had to step on some land mines to do it.

Iger didn’t really do anything that wasn’t set up before. He gets far less shade. You build a house from the ground up…but the ground is never the “pretty part”

I’m sure we can go back to Eisner critique another time…not that anybody really wants to.

You make a good point.

Looking back, it's hard to remember that for how outsized it's place was in American culture, Disney really was a relatively small company back then when he started.

 

[HMF]

You don’t have to tell me that it was time to go on him…I worked for him in the “bad years”

But I also know that they went from a small potatoes operation to about ruling the world at an impressive pace.

Iger does nothing…he falls flat…if he didn’t have all that capital to use when he slid in.

You can separate the bad from the good.

Eisner did not light the place on fire…he stayed too long.

That’s an important lesson.

I believe 2 of Disney's greatest pieces of art, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and IllumiNations: Reflections Of Earth were created during the "Bad" years.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The country basically over-malled itself and the closures were the market correction.

And then the ones that remain have anchor stores that are hanging on by a thread and open-air lifestyle centers take their place (and those will hit oversatuation at some point, if not close already).

It’s not just that too many were built. How malls were designed changed and they became actively hostile towards their visitors. That’s part of what successful lifestyles centers have corrected. People like well designed, human-oriented spaces, they flock to them and even pay top dollar to experience them, especially in a place like the US where they are not common.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I believe 2 of Disney's greatest pieces of art The Hunchback of Notre Dame and IllumiNations: Reflections Of Earth were created during the "Bad" years.

Eisners main blunders…besides iron fist ruling and vendetta…was he had a hard time evolving with the web world, digital and a movement away from a captive consumer market.

But that was the time of his late tenure. Nobody else had to contend with an on demand, connected, non-captive audience world.

 

[MrPromey]

I'm quite possibly missing something here, but why were Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures a big loss to the company? They didn't seem to struggle to produce content or have box office hits without them.

Those were their "grown up" brands.

The idea was to keep it separate from the Disney name so that parents don't accidentally show up to Splash with their six year old that might see a little too much bare shoulder or leg and so that grown ups wouldn't avoid a movie because they assumed some animal in it was going to burst into song due to it being a Disney release.

That kind of all started to change with Curse of the Black Pearl when they suddenly had a movie under the Disney name that was at least as popular with the adults as with kids and there was more than a little controversy at the time around if it was too shocking to be branded as Disney what with the scary skeletons and Keira Knightley getting her corset cut open with a knife by Johnny Depp so she could breathe.

... Different times.

Anyway, the dynamic and what was to be expected of a Disney movie changed dramatically after all that. I'm convinced it's part of why The Haunted Mansion bombed so badly. Eisner even warned that it wasn't made to be another Pirates and nobody - including me - really listened.

Suddenly, there were no more lower budget moves for adults OR kids anymore. Everything either had to be a tent-pole or it was something for a time slot on the Disney Channel.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The country basically over-malled itself and the closures were the market correction.

And then the ones that remain have anchor stores that are hanging on by a thread and open-air lifestyle centers take their place (and those will hit oversatuation at some point, if not close already).

You do have some online companies moving toward psychical locations - like Warby Parker for example - that at least give those places some new tenants as they discover that there’s a limit to online buyers as well.

As an aside, as someone in the Deep South, I hate open-air malls. Give me my air conditioning!

Retail has always built on outdated data…an example is that circuit city built stores from 1995-2005 based on marketing studies from the late 80’s.

Buy the time they opened, they were obselete.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

It’s not just that too many were built. How malls were designed changed and they became actively hostile towards their visitors. That’s part of what successful lifestyles centers have corrected. People like well designed, human-oriented spaces, they flock to them and even pay top dollar to experience them, especially in a place like the US where they are not common.

Us Americans are so bizarre. We will pay through the nose to go visit some cute, charming resort town with human-scaled buildings close to narrow streets and limited parking, but try to build that near where people live their day-to-day lives and the pitchforks come out. So many want that authentic small town feel but refuse to allow the built form that is necessary to foster it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'm quite possibly missing something here, but why were Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures a big loss to the company? They didn't seem to struggle to produce content or have box office hits without them.

They in no way were a mistake…

It allowed them to grow their influence in Hollywood and provide future opportunities that a cartoon studio with one premium kid content station would never have had the legitimacy to get.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Us Americans are so bizarre. We will pay through the nose to go visit some cute, charming resort town with human-scaled buildings close to narrow streets and limited parking, but try to build that near where live their day to day lives and the pitchforks come out. So many want that authentic small town feel but refuse to allow the built form that is necessary to foster it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Or, D+ is priced at half its value.

There’s is zero precedent or business evidence to make that assertion.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I believe 2 of Disney's greatest pieces of art The Hunchback of Notre Dame and IllumiNations: Reflections Of Earth were created during the "Bad" years.

It's hard to say whether you can give much credit to the "bad years" having too much of an effect on the latter half of the 90s content. The thing is that animated hand drawn movies take a LONG time to make. From what I gather, Hunchback's production began before the death of Wells and and before Katzenberg left and took a bunch of the animation department with him. So you could argue there was some remnant spillover from the good years there.

I feel that the "renaissance" lasted full-on until 1999's Tarzan, and even had some scraps left over with Atlantis and Treasure Planet (hell arguably Brother Bear for its animation quality at least). And for Treasure Planet in particular, that had been an on-and-off concept being tossed around as early as the mid-late 80s. So as flawed as it was, some degree of quality that it contains might still be traceable back to the "good era".

It was Home on the Range and Chicken Little that REALLY started to show the stench of the latter Eisner era. Also, most of the direct to video sequel movies.

This probably won't be a popular opinion, but I vastly prefer the original 1988 version of Illuminations to Reflections of Earth (though RoF is obviously vastly better than Harmonious). I liked the traditional classical music and how the countries got their own "segments" in the show.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

Below are responses to a tweet from the site that shall not be named (which is why I didn't paste it in a cleaner format). The content of the tweet being responded to was the going rate for Genie+ today. I imagine Eddie is not an insider but still interesting. He responded to a few others, noting that Universal has executed their system much better and use it as an incentive to stay on their property.

Eddie Sotto
@boss_angeles

"The App-iest place on Earth?" I believe @RobertIger will address the "class system" that is eroding the equality of the shared Disney experience. Every standby guest leaves feeling "less than". Bad long term. Less "have nots", more "having fun".


Replying to
@boss_angeles
The trick will be to include Apps into hotel stays and more upfront with admission to maintain the revenue, but not nickel and dime the guest as it is now. It needs a global review.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Thats awesome. Assuming you no longer work for them? Retired? Moved to better pastures? Did you ever get to deal w Eisner directly?

I left young to go to the “real world”. I just wasn’t meant to be in what amount to sales, logistics and/Or mass labor allocation for a long time. That’s what Disney ultimately is in Orlando. Didn’t have the inclination or patience.

I met/mixed with cast member Michael and cast member Bob a few times - briefly. The action was in LA and Manhattan.

Also that evil gremlin from the netherworld Paul pressler. I did have some direct loose contact on occasion with a certain former CEO

…been laughing about that for 48 hours.

 

[fgmnt]

I'm sorry, but Eisner had run out of time to make corrections. And, honestly, when he did at the time it was things like tacking on A Bug's Land and a lesser clone of ToT on to DCA. If there was a come to Jesus moment for him, we never saw evidence of it publicly.

Even if he would have started to run the parks better than he had been, he didn't seem very good at running the rest of the company, particularly adapting to changing trends and technology or managing relationships.

I think rolling out a value-engineered version of the best attraction WDI had built to date to the two struggling Disney-held parks, while also billing OLC for it, is an example of pretty deft management of capital commitments to the parks division as the global economy had the company lurching from one external crisis (dot com bust) to another (9/11). Tomayto-Tomahto.

 

[JohnD]

Yeah, I went there:

What do you call men with no arms and no legs, one is fired by Disney, and another is re-hired by Disney, floating in the ocean?

Bob