The same people who claimed Galaxys Edge would make the parks insufferable to visit for years due to large crowds are now the same ones predicting doom and gloom over a few months of lower than expected numbers.
This is like the talking heads predicting winners/losers in sports games each week ad naseum when clearly no one knows jack squat about anything.
Disney is still making
🖐 over
. Because management and “investors” wanted a billion in profit and only got 900 million, doesn’t equate to “bad”, just means corporate greed knows no end.
Just to argue back a bit:
I was saying long ago that I thought that SW was a sunsetting IP. I often compared it to Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter, which I still think has 20 years of life in it but then it'll have the same issue).
That being said, I've also pointed out that Disney has worked hard to kill this IP with their SJW nonsense in the latest movies plus you could argue that SWGE is more "latest movies" focused than "original trilogies" focused.
Lastly, Disney has a problem and they know it and have admitted as such. There's a problem with attendance. They made a $1B/park investment, raised prices, and expected people to come in droves. Then the excuse was, "Well.. DL is a local park so lift the AP blackout dates..." and while attendance did return some, it wasn't to the levels it was at previously nor was there this huge bulk of people coming in because of Star Wars.
The fans have given excuse after excuse for and I'd argue that it was the fans who were arguing with me that -I- was crazy for saying it's wasn't going to be the automatic hit that they thought it was. They told me I was insane because: Star Wars!
I think that there are a lot more elements at play here than and that they're all working together to make this a bad time for Disney.
It doesn't help that in recent years Disney has:
- increased prices dramatically
- cutback on staff and in-park entertainment
- stuck band-aids on things like the Monorail
- Looked for any possible ways to get another $1 out of a guest's pocket (resort fees, cabanas, ice cream parties at abandoned food locations where people used to stand to watch fireworks for free)..
- Doesn't even touch upon other theming aspects like shoving IPs in where they don't belong ("breaks" the parks) and other items like no longer caring about sight lines.
...It's all left a bad taste in many Disney-fan's mouths (horribly worded).
Yes, revenue is up per customer. That's good. Ticket receipts are down. They're offering all sorts of incentives on both coasts to try to get people to come. There have been numerous long-time Disney bloggers that have reported, "Yeah.. something is wrong". Lots of people here seem to have drunk the Kool Aid with, "I went Thursday and saw people so it seemed busy to me!"
I also think that there is this naive idea that Disney is too big to fail. I don't want them to fail. They've bought A LOT of properties over the last few years and their debt load reflects this. They're going to have to come up with some idea of how to make money with those properties. At the same time, they need to fix their parks and their service.
Getting back to Star Wars for a moment: I was 7 when it came out. I probably should be the target audience for it but I really don't give a crap about it. It was a great movie when I was a kid. I, II, & III left me with "WTH is happening?" I saw VII & VIII and that left me with, "yeah - I'm done." Outside of the SJW nonsense, I really don't care about this franchise. The SJW nonsense added to it but it's a 40yo story being told again and again. I don't think I'm alone. Yes, I, like everyone else, am aware of SW and that makes it a well-known brand. That doesn't translate into a huge market for it, though - not that there aren't huge fans of SWs but these fans are a small percentage of the population. There's a big different for someone who's grown up with SW and thinking, "I'll go down the street to watch the latest movie" vs "I'll go down to FL/CA to see SWGE."
Back to Disney: With all of the penny pinching / money grabbing nonsense (I once equated it to Mr. Haney from Green Acres) plus my experiences a few years back when they really started to ramp up on the penny pinching.. I probably won't ever be back. Long time Disney fan here but there are so many negatives to going back that I'll just find somewhere else to go. I don't think I'm alone with that either and that is where I think Disney has a problem. Everything about their model was centered around nostalgia and passing that down from parent to child and I think that is a huge problem going forward.
"Disney can't fail"... Yeah.. I can not only point out when Disney was failing in the past but also when they were thinking about selling off parks or even to other companies "too big to fail" that failed tremendously. Typically when companies go on buying binges they pay the price a few years out.
I think Disney has trouble now and going forward based on all of this. I don't have a crystal ball and I'm just some guy typing at a keyboard. It's just observances and seeing previous patterns with other companies.
