Star Wars Land announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

[doctornick]

My armchair analysis from a thousand miles away is that there just needs to be more "stuff" to do. Obviously not opening with the main headliner ride compounds this, but you can't have the most time occupying aspects of a land be shopping, food service and paid experiences. There needs to be constant/regular shows or streetmosphere. Something like Jedi training - if you don't want to do the Jedi, have something where kids (or adults) are recruited to be in the First Order or Resistance. They need walk through attractions. I know they have the "missions" on the phone, I'm not sure how popular they are. But they should have stuff that is simply/quick to access not require loading on your phone.

Losing the third relaxing ride really hurts. It would be ideal if they could retrofit and fasttrack something like it.

I'm very skeptical that any "problems" with GE have to do with using the ST or not having Darth Vader.

 

[mikejs78]

Star Wars products are selling less now than they did five years ago.

This actually isn't true. Merchandise sales are down substantially from the peak during the TFA craze, but they are still higher than they were 5 years ago.

More proof of this can be found at discount stores like Ollies, Ross and even Dollar Stores. Never heard of this prior to 2012.

Much more merchandise is being produced now than in 2012. Disney/Hasboro expected TFA merch to be sustained at TFA levels, and they've come down a bit since then - but still higher than the period before Disney bought Lucas and higher than before TFA.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Hey, if people are saying the price increases are cutting demand, then where are all our "inelastic demand" defenders? They've been saying that raising prices won't cut into crowds because people are willing to pay anything to go to Disney. They'll go into debt and risk bankruptcy all because they'll do anything to go to Disney. Thus, the "inelastic demand" and the futility of raising prices to cut crowds.

So... Did the elastic break?

 

[Rogue1138]

Regarding merch sales, it definitely has declined since TFA, by quite a bit. But still a *lot* more than pre-2015...

There are a lot of factors as to why. TFA represented pent-up demand that was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. The closing of Toys R Us did not help matters, and the decline in movie merchandising in general. Even within Disney, merchandise has declined significantly in pretty much all segments - including Marvel (and I don't see anyone claiming that Marvel is dead).

As someone who actually collects this stuff, as well as buy it for my boys, merchandising is down because it's completely mishandled now. Merchandise is released in "waves" throughout the year. So say in June, Target gets three cases of figures. In each case are five separate characters with a quantity of one per each. Now sometimes as a tie in to a movie, you might get duplicates of a more popular character like Rey or Kylo. What first happens are the scalpers rush in and grab the the characters expected to be in most demand. After that are casual fans like myself who will pick up certain characters within the first few days. After that you're left with a handful of figures that people have a ton of. Another Kylo, another Chewie, another Han. Now Target won't see another shipment for maybe 6 months or longer. So the shelves sit empty, people lose interest (when did you ever see the 80's styled toy commercial barrage?) and rinse, repeat. So when Force Friday returns in October this year, they will generally release almost all Rise of Skywalker merch and what doesn't get scooped up in the first week will sit on shelves until clearanced out in Jan.

Personally, I don't understand why "fans" are actively rooting for Star Wars to fail. Don't like the new stuff? So what? No one took away the old. I can't stand the Prequels or Clone Wars but I just don't watch them. Simple.

 

[Tavernacle12]

Generally speaking if someone starts complaining about ‘Disney Star Wars’ or the Last Jedi and starts spouting off all encompassing ‘facts’ with no evidence to support their claim you can go ahead and ignore everything they say. They may as well have gotten inside info from a bus driver.

If Galaxy’s Edge is not as successful as Disney hoped it’s because it’s 1/2 open, people want to avoid the anticipated crowds, and pass holders are blocked out.

Merchandise as in action figures - isn't moving like it did because the last film in particular drove away a generation of the segment that buys them most.
Boys.

This is entirely moronic and complete hogwash. Yes, a female lead is why Toys don’t sell as well as they did twenty years ago, it’s *totally* not the existence of iPads, online gaming, social media, and overall a completely different play style for kids today than existed back when the prequels were out, let alone the originals. Not to mention Hasbro’s bungling of the license since the Clone Wars cartoon premiered, with the loss of collectors to the recession and their own poor ability to get products out in a timely manner.

Also the ‘last’ film was Solo, get your complaints right if you’re going to whine incoherently on things you know nothing about.

As someone who actually collects this stuff, as well as buy it for my boys, merchandising is down because it's completely mishandled now. Merchandise is released in "waves" throughout the year. So say in June, Target gets three cases of figures. In each case are five separate characters with a quantity of one per each. Now sometimes as a tie in to a movie, you might get duplicates of a more popular character like Rey or Kylo. What first happens are the scalpers rush in and grab the the characters expected to be in most demand. After that are casual fans like myself who will pick up certain characters within the first few days. After that you're left with a handful of figures that people have a ton of. Another Kylo, another Chewie, another Han. Now Target won't see another shipment for maybe 6 months or longer. So the shelves sit empty, people lose interest (when did you ever see the 80's styled toy commercial barrage?) and rinse, repeat. So when Force Friday returns in October this year, they will generally release almost all Rise of Skywalker merch and what doesn't get scooped up in the first week will sit on shelves until clearanced out in Jan.

Personally, I don't understand why "fans" are actively rooting for Star Wars to fail. Don't like the new stuff? So what? No one took away the old. I can't stand the Prequels or Clone Wars but I just don't watch them. Simple.

I like you. Agreed.

 

[monothingie]

Personally, I don't understand why "fans" are actively rooting for Star Wars to fail. Don't like the new stuff? So what? No one took away the old. I can't stand the Prequels or Clone Wars but I just don't watch them. Simple.

The only true Star Wars fans are the ones that hate it the most. You should know that by now.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I said this before the land ever opened - SWL merch will never move like HPL merch because buying cheap- to mid-range goods is a key element in Potter in a way it isn’t in Star Wars. Fans of Potter read about and watched their heroes buy robes, books, brooms, wands, etc. in stores - HPL can offer fans the chance to recreate this activity at a relatively affordable rate. In SW, we see Uncle Owen buy a droid from a black market caravan and Qui-gonn visiting a junk dealer locking for engine components. Movie-accurate droids or starships are not in most visitors budgets. We see no conventional retail stores in the SW movies. The most Iconic SW item, the lightsaber, is extremely rare and custom built by the specific individual who will use it. Plopping that into a store, regardless of the narrative contortions you undertake, doesn’t work. Most of the above is true of food in the two franchises as well - HP emphasizes mass-produced food a theme park can easily replicate, SW doesn’t.

What do SW fans want to do? They want to fly a spaceship, but I don’t know that they specifically want to fly the Falcon - it seems more likely that they would want to fly a fighter. In any case, Disney attempted to offer this experience, but for design reasons it doesn't seem to be a tremendous success. Fans want to have a lightsaber battle. Disney didn’t find a way to offer this. Fans want to eat in an alien cantina. Disney cut this from their plans at the last minute.

A lot of factors have contributed to SWL’s underperformance. Some have to do with Disney’s long term mismanagement of the parks - raising prices exponentially and refusing to increase infrastructure to meet growing crowds. Some have to do with the peculiar, savvy, local nature of DL crowds. Some have to do with the mishandled roll out of a land without a headliner.

But a big part is that Disney tried to simply copy Unis approach to HPL. Franchises are different from one another. What makes one franchise-based Land truly immersive may not work for another. It’s fairly indisputable that the architecture and design of SWL is magnificent. What seems lacking is the experience offered.

 

[AEfx]

As someone who actually collects this stuff, as well as buy it for my boys, merchandising is down because it's completely mishandled now. Merchandise is released in "waves" throughout the year. So say in June, Target gets three cases of figures. In each case are five separate characters with a quantity of one per each. Now sometimes as a tie in to a movie, you might get duplicates of a more popular character like Rey or Kylo. What first happens are the scalpers rush in and grab the the characters expected to be in most demand. After that are casual fans like myself who will pick up certain characters within the first few days. After that you're left with a handful of figures that people have a ton of. Another Kylo, another Chewie, another Han. Now Target won't see another shipment for maybe 6 months or longer. So the shelves sit empty, people lose interest (when did you ever see the 80's styled toy commercial barrage?) and rinse, repeat. So when Force Friday returns in October this year, they will generally release almost all Rise of Skywalker merch and what doesn't get scooped up in the first week will sit on shelves until clearanced out in Jan.

This is how toys have been released since the 1980’s. “Waves” is nothing new.

Stores don’t order more until what they have on the shelves is selling. When they can’t even move a single full case of action figures because so few people care about the ST characters, no, they don’t order more.

It’s even more obvious in the higher end collectibles (Sideshow, etc). They put up a OT themed Han Solo or Vader product and it’s sold out in preorders, yet even the “big” characters from the ST just sit there for months after release and eventually get couponed/discounted.

BTW, no one is “hoping” for failure. It’s just the facts. The ST products just aren’t selling, and the “whales” who spend the most money and have kept Star Wars products continually available since their resurgence in the mid-90’s just aren’t buying this stuff. If they were buying it, they would be putting out a whole lot more - but they can’t even sell the small amount they are making.

The new breed of characters simply have not caught on in the way the OT and even some PT characters did.

 

[mikejs78]

This is how toys have been released since the 1980’s. “Waves” is nothing new.

Stores don’t order more until what they have on the shelves is selling. When they can’t even move a single full case of action figures because so few people care about the ST characters, no, they don’t order more.

It’s even more obvious in the higher end collectibles (Sideshow, etc). They put up a OT themed Han Solo or Vader product and it’s sold out in preorders, yet even the “big” characters from the ST just sit there for months after release and eventually get couponed/discounted.

BTW, no one is “hoping” for failure. It’s just the facts. The ST products just aren’t selling, and the “whales” who spend the most money and have kept Star Wars products continually available since their resurgence in the mid-90’s just aren’t buying this stuff. If they were buying it, they would be putting out a whole lot more - but they can’t even sell the small amount they are making.

The new breed of characters simply have not caught on in the way the OT and even some PT characters did.

This is a completely inaccurate picture of what is going on with merchandise sales.

 

[TP2000]

Darth was doing M&G last month at DL, but in Launch Bay not SW:GE.

How perfectly that sums up the Star Wars problems at least at Disneyland, but likely at DHS.

They build a Billion dollar Star Wars Land and the most famous Star Wars villain of all time is left out, stuck on the other side of the park doing meet n' greets in front of a plywood set inside an abandoned pavilion from 1967.

That tells me they have the same plan for Launch Bay at DHS. Two months ago they probably thought that was a smart move to provide extra Star Wars experiences for all the people who couldn't get into the land via the Virtual Queue, which is why Disneyland also brought back Hyperspace Mountain for the summer. But now they've got a land that's wide open and the Virtual Queue hasn't been used since opening day, with one very expensive yet merely okay ride that only has a 45 minute wait, and the result is just a muddy mess of a marketing message with Darth Vader stuck on the other side of the park. Dumb!

You could probably write a great business book about how this entire multi Billion dollar plan has backfired on Disney.

A lot of factors have contributed to SWL’s underperformance. Some have to do with Disney’s long term mismanagement of the parks - raising prices exponentially and refusing to increase infrastructure to meet growing crowds. Some have to do with the peculiar, savvy, local nature of DL crowds. Some have to do with the mishandled roll out of a land without a headliner.

Hey, I'm savvy and local and also peculiar, and I also have been to Star Wars Land, so I'll weigh in here!

Two weeks ago when day after day the Disneyland App said the wait times were 30 minutes or less, I jumped in an Uber and went to Disneyland for the evening to see Star Wars Land for myself. I spent three hours inside Star Wars Land, and rode the Falcon three times. Every time on the Falcon I was flying with tourists from foreign countries or different states. None of us knew what we were doing, and the CM's kept rushing us around and weren't much help.

Star Wars Land was visually impressive, but the land felt dead and lifeless. There was no music, there were no bands, there were no droids zipping around going beep-boop-beep like WDI told us there would be. In three hours in a land with no crowds, I saw two (2) bored Stormtroopers wandering around as the lone "characters". And apparently Chewbacca had the night off.

There were no weird and wacky aliens creeping up to tourist moms and rifling through the diaper bag while the kids laughed and dad fumbled for a picture. There were no bad guys trash talking good guys to tourists eating their dinner on the huge patios.

All of the CM's staffed in the stores and snack bars and Falcon ride wore these gorgeously designed uniforms that reminded me of DisneySea CM's, but they were all just standing around talking to each other about their July 4th schedule and Katie's party last weekend, ignoring what few visitors were there.

There were big upper balconies and extensive catwalks above you that were obviously designed for the stunt shows and wild characters WDI had told us would happen in the land, but all were entirely abandoned and devoid of life. Apparently on Batuu no one knows how to get up to the second floor? There were beautifully designed back alleys and elaborate courtyards, all entirely devoid of interaction, where a lone alien musician could have been playing a weird wind instrument that would have sent exotic music wafting through the nooks and crannies of this village.

Maybe they are rushing a bunch of new characters into production for the land, and maybe they are hiring alien bands and some sort of entertainment? And maybe these things can also get into production and be at DHS six weeks from now? But as the Disneyland version was originally designed to operate and interact with paying visitors by TDA and Burbank for its opening summer, the land is dead and lifeless.

In short, the land was impressively designed, obviously budgeted lavishly, and aesthetically a home run. But the Falcon ride was just sort of Star Tours 3.0, and the entire land felt dead and lifeless and devoid of soul and charm. They deserve to panic a bit.

 

[WDW Pro]

Absolutely agree on the Kessel Run and the non-pilot positions. I'm just not sure how solvable that problem is, however. They can't retrofit the cabins with swivel chairs and real gunner controls, and if you give the engineers actual tools they'll show up on eBay in ten minutes.

A very, very wise decision from WDI at this point would be to get rid of this convoluted name (Millenium Falcon: Smuggler's Run), and just rename the ride "Kessel Run". Have the story be that you've been hired to try to beat the original run in the Falcon. Pay whatever it takes to get Harrison Ford to record a video giving you tips and reminiscing about when he and Chewy did it originally. Fix the Engineer and Gunner positions so that they're meaningful and intuitive... enough so that guests aren't pulling their eyes from the screen to the buttons.

They neither thought they would need to nor wanted to have discounts from August 29-on.

They will be releasing discounts for Fall.

Take that as you will. I will say this: DHS will be busy into early September, but the other parks should be manageable. Maybe a slight uptick over prior Septembers. Bookings are not impressive in the least.

This is really the big story inside Disney that many people are missing. They were expecting at least 4 hour waits for MFSR at Disneyland for months, and they were ready for Boarding Pass throughout the summer. But regardless if that didn't materialize, what has them all deeply concerned is that the hotel bookings for the fall at WDW are not good. And what that means is that something is going on with this Star Wars expansion that may be a harbinger for some real course corrections. From Disney's perspective, a property that had seen its moment in the sun dissipate (Avatar) managed to pull in huge crowds for an incredible land that served up the best fast service in any park, gave the best ride in any park, and was incredibly immersive. And here's one of their absolute biggest properties they own not pulling in anybody to DLR after a larger budget was blown and some of the most valuable acreage on the planet was devoted to it. Add to that it looks like that narrative is continuing on to WDW and you've got a major problem that spans a lot of departments within the company. Maybe even moreso than Marvel, Star Wars is not a property that Disney can afford to fail; there is way too much invested in it.

They had more hype and longer lines for Frozen Ever After at Epcot, which was a reskin of Maelstrom and cost them a fraction of a fraction of SWGE. They're concerned and getting more concerned by the day. They're actively cutting seasonal employee hours, they're cutting back Monorail operation, they're cutting back vehicles on rides... they're literally doing everything at this point to save money.

They look at guest satisfaction and spending. Both are “okay” but given the budgets for these lands, they expected “exceptional.”

I would expect repercussions within WDI.

RotR and MMRR are demanded ASAP.

There may be some repercussions within WDI, but they're a bit safe right now coming off of so many excellent executions of prior expansions. WDI is absolutely going to point their fingers at Lucasfilm and say "they pigeonholed us" with the requirement all the eggs be placed in a trilogy that had yet to even debut when plans were made.

What they have right now is the equivalent of Universal dropping 1.5 billion on a Harry Potter land, but instead of basing it on Harry Potter or the similar characters/settings, the park was forced to make a land for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's still Harry Potter, but you'd be in big trouble basing a land on that part of the fiction.

I know I keep using this visual, but it's important because we're talking about numbers so big people don't understand (and then consequentially they think Disney's just fine if crowds stay the same or are even a little lower):

Disney Parks spent down the equivalent of 14 Mount Everests on the most valuable 14 acres they own. Disney Parks put down 11 Mount Everests on Hollywood Studios, basically locking in the park's ability to expand for the next decade. They built ONE Mount Everest to transform Animal Kingdom and draw crowds to the park, and it was wildly successful. They've invested about 25 Mount Everests, and incurred huge annual operating costs on Galaxy's Edge, and as of now there is no discernible Return on Investment.

I really don't think this is it. Star wars conventions, Celebrations, etc, still sell out and command hefty figures. The merchandise issue had less to do with lifesrylers than with average people. Merchandising is low compared to when TFA was released but higher than before that. The issue is, how many Kylo Ren action figures do you need?

Rise of Skywalker interest is tracking very high. Lifesrylers make up a tiny minority of SW fans. TLJ still tracked extremely high in popularity after it's release, despite the Internet saying otherwise. The backlash is overblown IMO and not shared by ordinary people who make up the vast majority of SW fans.

Star Wars movies, park expansions, and streaming productions need at least tens of millions of consumers. Conventions and "SW Celebration" need thousands. But conventions and "Celebration" do not keep the franchise afloat... movies do. Toys do. Park expansions do. When you have Hasbro losing 11% of their stock value in the same year as TLJ and Solo because toy sales were far below projections, when you have Solo losing hundreds of millions of dollars, and when you have a billion dollar + expansion thus far not showing any signs of ROI, it's time to admit something serious is going on. You may believe Rise of Skywalker is tracking "very high", but Sony has one crown jewel left in their crown, and it's Jumanji. And they're putting it head-to-head against Rise of Skywalker. They wouldn't be doing that unless they smell blood in the water.

Everything is confusing and requires obtuse explanations until you drop the cognitive dissonance and accept that the narrative you held might not be the most accurate.

 

[AEfx]

This is a completely inaccurate picture of what is going on with merchandise sales.

Yes, I have read your rose-colored posts and I’m sorry, you just don’t know what you are talking about. The OT merchandise was outselling even TFA stuff during the “peak”. There is a reason Hasbro brought back the retired “Vintage Collection” from pre-TFA.

How many Star Wars collecting sites are you a part of? And do you follow aftermarket prices? If you were, you would know (and the after-market prices show) that new releases of “random character from background of Jabba’s Palace” is in more demand than anything from the ST, and why they can’t even get retail prices for most anything ST related.

Look at the last Toy Fair and how much product is OT related and how much is ST. For the most part, the ST stuff are the lowest end stuff (5POA) directed at little kids and not collectors, and they can’t even move that stuff.

People don’t give a flip about Poe or Finn or even Kylo Ren. Let alone Rose or any other ST stuff. At least the people who spend money.

I realize this is difficult for you to understand or admit, so I am not going to keep going back and forth with you - the thread has derailed enough. The lines for SW land should be out onto Harbor Blvd, but they aren’t - and the lack of interest in the ST by the die-hards is clearly part of the equation as to why.

 

[mikejs78]

How perfectly that sums up the Star Wars problems at least at Disneyland, but likely at DHS.

They build a Billion dollar Star Wars Land and the most famous Star Wars villain of all time is left out, stuck on the other side of the park doing meet n' greets in front of a plywood set inside an abandoned pavilion from 1967.

That tells me they have the same plan for Launch Bay at DHS. Two months ago they probably thought that was a smart move to provide extra Star Wars experiences for all the people who couldn't get into the land via the Virtual Queue, which is why Disneyland also brought back Hyperspace Mountain for the summer. But now they've got a land that's wide open and the Virtual Queue hasn't been used since opening day, with one very expensive yet merely okay ride that only has a 45 minute wait, and the result is just a muddy mess of a marketing message with Darth Vader stuck on the other side of the park. Dumb!

You could probably write a great business book about how this entire multi Billion dollar plan has backfired on Disney.



Hey, I'm savvy and local and also peculiar, and I also have been to Star Wars Land, so I'll weigh in here!

Two weeks ago when day after day the Disneyland App said the wait times were 30 minutes or less, I jumped in an Uber and went to Disneyland for the evening to see Star Wars Land for myself. I spent three hours inside Star Wars Land, and rode the Falcon three times. Every time on the Falcon I was flying with tourists from foreign countries or different states. None of us knew what we were doing, and the CM's kept rushing us around and weren't much help.

Star Wars Land was visually impressive, but the land felt dead and lifeless. There was no music, there were no bands, there were no droids zipping around going beep-boop-beep like WDI told us there would be. In three hours in a land with no crowds, I saw two (2) bored Stormtroopers wandering around as the lone "characters". And apparently Chewbacca had the night off.

There were no weird and wacky aliens creeping up to tourist moms and rifling through the diaper bag while the kids laughed and dad fumbled for a picture. There were no bad guys trash talking good guys to tourists eating their dinner on the huge patios.

All of the CM's staffed in the stores and snack bars and Falcon ride wore these gorgeously designed uniforms that reminded me of DisneySea CM's, but they were all just standing around talking to each other about their July 4th schedule and Katie's party last weekend, ignoring what few visitors were there.

There were big upper balconies and extensive catwalks above you that were obviously designed for the stunt shows and wild characters WDI had told us would happen in the land, but all were entirely abandoned and devoid of life. Apparently on Batuu no one knows how to get up to the second floor? There were beautifully designed back alleys and elaborate courtyards, all entirely devoid of interaction, where a lone alien musician could have been playing a weird wind instrument that would have sent exotic music wafting through the nooks and crannies of this village.

Maybe they are rushing a bunch of new characters into production for the land, and maybe they are hiring alien bands and some sort of entertainment? And maybe these things can also get into production and be at DHS six weeks from now? But as the Disneyland version was originally designed to operate and interact with paying visitors by TDA and Burbank for its opening summer, the land is dead and lifeless.

In short, the land was impressively designed, obviously budgeted lavishly, and aesthetically a home run. But the Falcon ride was just sort of Star Tours 3.0, and the entire land felt dead and lifeless and devoid of soul and charm. They deserve to panic a bit.

They do. But these are all solvable problems. The positive thing for Disney here is that they actually get a second chance to launch the land when Rise of the Resistance is ready. But that will be there last chance, I think. If the land is as great as you say, then what it needs is a little bit more life. They need some more entertainment, some sudden music playing throughout the land, the droids, and anything else that they had originally planned to be in the land actually be there. part of me wonders if it wasn't just rise of the resistance that wasn't ready, but much of the rest of the land as well, And if Disney rushed things in order to try to maximize their profits for the year. If that's the case, man did it backfire

 

[mikejs78]

Yes, I have read your rose-colored posts and I’m sorry, you just don’t know what you are talking about. The OT merchandise was outselling even TFA stuff during the “peak”. There is a reason Hasbro brought back the retired “Vintage Collection” from pre-TFA.

How many Star Wars collecting sites are you a part of? And do you follow aftermarket prices? If you were, you would know (and the after-market prices show) that new releases of “random character from background of Jabba’s Palace” is in more demand than anything from the ST, and why they can’t even get retail prices for most anything ST related.

Look at the last Toy Fair and how much product is OT related and how much is ST. For the most part, the ST stuff are the lowest end stuff (5POA) directed at little kids and not collectors, and they can’t even move that stuff.

People don’t give a flip about Poe or Finn or even Kylo Ren. Let alone Rose or any other ST stuff. At least the people who spend money.

I realize this is difficult for you to understand or admit, so I am not going to keep going back and forth with you - the thread has derailed enough. The lines for SW land should be out onto Harbor Blvd, but they aren’t - and the lack of interest in the ST by the die-hards is clearly part of the equation as to why.

We are talking about different markets. You are talking about the collectable market, which represents a very small subset of the overall merchandise market. I'm talking about the general purpose retail markets which appeals to 99% of fans.

 

[CinematicFusion]

How perfectly that sums up the Star Wars problems at least at Disneyland, but likely at DHS.

They build a Billion dollar Star Wars Land and the most famous Star Wars villain of all time is left out, stuck on the other side of the park doing meet n' greets in front of a plywood set inside an abandoned pavilion from 1967.

Unbelievable... I agree
Disney has given its audience New Coke but everyone wants the Classic.

 

[LSLS]

So is anyone debating this stuff have actual inside knowledge of sales, or is everyone just making guesses?

 

[WDW Pro]

So is anyone debating this stuff have actual inside knowledge of sales, or is everyone just making guesses?

Google "hasbro star wars sales" for the toys numbers. For the box office revenues, look up thenumbers.com . You can view wait times and crowd estimates in real time for Disneyland Resort at https://www.isitpacked.com/live-crowd-trackers/disneyland/ .

Those are some of the public spots for quick references.

 

[CinematicFusion]

So is anyone debating this stuff have actual inside knowledge of sales, or is everyone just making guesses?

Star Wars toy sale in decline
Link above

Star Wars isn’t going anywhere but it needs to capture the public’s imagination again.
Maybe JJ can do it.

After Empire strikes back, the audience was in love with Han,Luke,Leia, Vader, 3po, R2, yoda, Chewie. It captured everyone’s imagination and continued the amazing journey started in A New Hope.

How many characters are the average fan in madly in love with after Last Jedi? Rey, BB8, Ren and that’s it. They aren’t close to the same level as Han,Luke Leia.

Yet Disney spent billions on a land for these new characters.

Heck... Disney opened Galaxy’s Edge with OT characters.

Stranger Things is doing what Potter and OT Star Wars did. Creating characters the audience loves.
Last Jedi didn't grab the older audience like it should have.
After Last Jedi, the audience should have been madly in love with these characters like Empire did... it hasn’t happened. Disney has bet all on a themed land with none of the main characters from the OT... the characters people love.

I’m not sure Disney’s game plan right now.

 

[NormC]

So how is the construction of SW:GE in DHS going?

 

[monothingie]

So how is the construction of SW:GE in DHS going?

Canceled. They’re going to convert one space into a designer cupcake store, and then the rest as Future World Epcot 2019. (aka abandoned buildings)