A Spirited Perfect Ten

[WDW1974]

Spirited Weekend Media Musing:

I wonder if Disney has contracted with Frank Luntz (yes, the guy who W got to change 'global warming' to 'climate change' in media) to spin their desire/plan to radically change their pricing structure.

I see 'stories' planted in 'reputable' media talking about something that just 48 hours ago was simply a tale that some guy named Turkey Leg Jeff (or Fred or Ted) had brought to the attention of Robert Niles after getting a survey from Disney.

Oh wait, right from the horse's mouth on the Twitter:

Turkey Leg Jeff ‏@TurkeyLegJeff 5h5 hours ago

@hintofspy 5 journalists contacted me this week about the survey. I'd rather have heard from them when we were raising money for GKTWV & MS.

(all this for someone with 1,944 followers ... yet, all these reporters knew where to go and went so quickly. Again, if you're ignorant about how Disney operates, then they were just doing their jobs. If you live in the real world, then this is really bad news for your future travel plans.)

You don't get stories in real media that quickly unless Zenia Mucha and her flying monkeys are pulling the strings (much like when they get a story 'cleansed' from the Internet). I was just told that 'Disney surge pricing' is one of the top trending items on the Facebook right now.

As to Luntz, I bring him up because 'surge' is the term Disney is leaking to the media to use to describe what is likely to be their largest price increase in history (and if people like myself and my buddy @flynnibus didn't like dynamic pricing when it suddenly meant surcharges to dining during holiday/peak seasons, just wait ...) ... A surge is something that needs to be dealt with because it can harm you. Think of all those flood waters SURGING in Texas. Disney is saving us all by dealing with this SURGE in Guests by helping to save us all (no, not by adding capacity -- they're doing that in Shanghai -- or adding attractions or even extending hours in all parks that don't have MAGIC in their names). Nope. Disney will raise prices yet again and convince you that they are protecting you. They are making your visits to WDW and DL even better.

Why add capacity? Why add new reasons to visit EPCOT, Disney-MGM and DAK here and DCA out west to take pressure off that SURGE in castle park attendance when you can simply raise prices to feed the corporate profiteering that is now part and parcel of The Walt Disney Company and 98% of other major American companies?

No longer will you be hearing about price hikes at Disney Parks or prices increasing, nope. You'll be hearing about 'surge pricing' ... that's what comes out of pricey focus groups. Just ask my friend, Frank. (In truth, the man can't stand me in the real world ... we once were working in the same conference room for two hours plus and he couldn't even look at me.)

I reached out to numerous people who might know about what Disney is doing. Only one responded cryptically with ''Changes are coming. Big changes.''

Something to think about as we celebrate another Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family!

PS: Would someone on the Twitter reach out to Mr. Turkey Leg Jeff and ask him the names and organizations/affiliations of the five reporters who reached out to him this week?

 

[Next Big Thing]

Not really, the only place of note left is Japan, and the remaining are like Poland and Brazil. It's doubtful they are going to change things significantly.

It's actually tracked below John Carter numbers (though John Carter did cost more, to be fair), industry publications are saying that it's Disney's worst performance since Prince of Persia in 2010.

Execs are already apologizing for it - ""Tomorrowland is an original movie and that's more of a challenge in this marketplace. We feel it's incredibly important for us as a company and as an industry to keep telling original stories." (Dave Hollis, WDP distribution chief)

I'll let the irony of that statement just simmer for a moment, LOL.

You know what I say to this? Oh well. That's life. You rise and you fall.

I'm pretty sure Disney isn't overly concerned about one flop When they already have one $1B+ movie this year with another virtually guaranteed (Star Wars). Inside Out likely won't do $1B, but it could easily do north of $800M and there's still another potential sleeper Marvel film to go in Ant-Man.

As I said, you rise and you fall. Disney happens to have the luxury of "falling" every once in awhile without really ever falling, because the rest of their roster performs so well.

 

[Funmeister]

Spirited Weekend Media Musing:

I wonder if Disney has contracted with Frank Luntz (yes, the guy who W got to change 'global warming' to 'climate change' in media) to spin their desire/plan to radically change their pricing structure.

I see 'stories' planted in 'reputable' media talking about something that just 48 hours ago was simply a tale that some guy named Turkey Leg Jeff (or Fred or Ted) had brought to the attention of Robert Niles after getting a survey from Disney.

Oh wait, right from the horse's mouth on the Twitter:

Turkey Leg Jeff ‏@TurkeyLegJeff 5h5 hours ago

@hintofspy 5 journalists contacted me this week about the survey. I'd rather have heard from them when we were raising money for GKTWV & MS.

(all this for someone with 1,944 followers ... yet, all these reporters knew where to go and went so quickly. Again, if you're ignorant about how Disney operates, then they were just doing their jobs. If you live in the real world, then this is really bad news for your future travel plans.)

You don't get stories in real media that quickly unless Zenia Mucha and her flying monkeys are pulling the strings (much like when they get a story 'cleansed' from the Internet). I was just told that 'Disney surge pricing' is one of the top trending items on the Facebook right now.

As to Luntz, I bring him up because 'surge' is the term Disney is leaking to the media to use to describe what is likely to be their largest price increase in history (and if people like myself and my buddy @flynnibus didn't like dynamic pricing when it suddenly meant surcharges to dining during holiday/peak seasons, just wait ...) ... A surge is something that needs to be dealt with because it can harm you. Think of all those flood waters SURGING in Texas. Disney is saving us all by dealing with this SURGE in Guests by helping to save us all (no, not by adding capacity -- they're doing that in Shanghai -- or adding attractions or even extending hours in all parks that don't have MAGIC in their names). Nope. Disney will raise prices yet again and convince you that they are protecting you. They are making your visits to WDW and DL even better.

Why add capacity? Why add new reasons to visit EPCOT, Disney-MGM and DAK here and DCA out west to take pressure off that SURGE in castle park attendance when you can simply raise prices to feed the corporate profiteering that is now part and parcel of The Walt Disney Company and 98% of other major American companies?

No longer will you be hearing about price hikes at Disney Parks or prices increasing, nope. You'll be hearing about 'surge pricing' ... that's what comes out of pricey focus groups. Just ask my friend, Frank. (In truth, the man can't stand me in the real world ... we once were working in the same conference room for two hours plus and he couldn't even look at me.)

I reached out to numerous people who might know about what Disney is doing. Only one responded cryptically with ''Changes are coming. Big changes.''

Something to think about as we celebrate another Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family!

PS: Would someone on the Twitter reach out to Mr. Turkey Leg Jeff and ask him the names and organizations/affiliations of the five reporters who reached out to him this week?

I am already hearing negative buzz from CM friends about potential impact on Maingate Passes and comp tickets. I have a feeling CMs are going to get shafted. Thoughts?

 

[WildcatDen]

is that a joke right?

HAH!
dont forget the "free' clip pin.

No, I think Lang played Pickett in Gettysburg and Stonewall Jackson in God's and Generals. No joke.

 

[Mike S]

Spirited Weekend Media Musing:

I wonder if Disney has contracted with Frank Luntz (yes, the guy who W got to change 'global warming' to 'climate change' in media) to spin their desire/plan to radically change their pricing structure.

I see 'stories' planted in 'reputable' media talking about something that just 48 hours ago was simply a tale that some guy named Turkey Leg Jeff (or Fred or Ted) had brought to the attention of Robert Niles after getting a survey from Disney.

Oh wait, right from the horse's mouth on the Twitter:

Turkey Leg Jeff ‏@TurkeyLegJeff 5h5 hours ago

@hintofspy 5 journalists contacted me this week about the survey. I'd rather have heard from them when we were raising money for GKTWV & MS.

(all this for someone with 1,944 followers ... yet, all these reporters knew where to go and went so quickly. Again, if you're ignorant about how Disney operates, then they were just doing their jobs. If you live in the real world, then this is really bad news for your future travel plans.)

You don't get stories in real media that quickly unless Zenia Mucha and her flying monkeys are pulling the strings (much like when they get a story 'cleansed' from the Internet). I was just told that 'Disney surge pricing' is one of the top trending items on the Facebook right now.

As to Luntz, I bring him up because 'surge' is the term Disney is leaking to the media to use to describe what is likely to be their largest price increase in history (and if people like myself and my buddy @flynnibus didn't like dynamic pricing when it suddenly meant surcharges to dining during holiday/peak seasons, just wait ...) ... A surge is something that needs to be dealt with because it can harm you. Think of all those flood waters SURGING in Texas. Disney is saving us all by dealing with this SURGE in Guests by helping to save us all (no, not by adding capacity -- they're doing that in Shanghai -- or adding attractions or even extending hours in all parks that don't have MAGIC in their names). Nope. Disney will raise prices yet again and convince you that they are protecting you. They are making your visits to WDW and DL even better.

Why add capacity? Why add new reasons to visit EPCOT, Disney-MGM and DAK here and DCA out west to take pressure off that SURGE in castle park attendance when you can simply raise prices to feed the corporate profiteering that is now part and parcel of The Walt Disney Company and 98% of other major American companies?

No longer will you be hearing about price hikes at Disney Parks or prices increasing, nope. You'll be hearing about 'surge pricing' ... that's what comes out of pricey focus groups. Just ask my friend, Frank. (In truth, the man can't stand me in the real world ... we once were working in the same conference room for two hours plus and he couldn't even look at me.)

I reached out to numerous people who might know about what Disney is doing. Only one responded cryptically with ''Changes are coming. Big changes.''

Something to think about as we celebrate another Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family!

PS: Would someone on the Twitter reach out to Mr. Turkey Leg Jeff and ask him the names and organizations/affiliations of the five reporters who reached out to him this week?

I'm going to take a guess and say that the changes coming aren't Spirited in any way (whatever happened to the "Big Spirited Change" anyway?).

Oh Disney, why does it seem you're actively trying to push us away?

 

[ford91exploder]

I am already hearing negative buzz from CM friends about potential impact on Maingate Passes and comp tickets. I have a feeling CMs are going to get shafted. Thoughts?

I'm thinking the maingate pass and comp tickets are headed for the dustbin of history. Or in our case Yesterland. Remember any CM is taking the place of a PAYING customer and at $140/day in gold season that ain't chump change. Of course MANAGEMENT will still retain those benefits...

Of course the reason WHY CM's have those benefits is lost on Glendale, For the uninitiated Walt set up that program so the CM's would have first hand knowledge of the parks as they were meant to encourage the CM's to visit on their days off.

Of course Walt and successors up to the late 90's actually paid CM's a middle class wage so the workforce was not an immigrant workforce with limited skills living in a Igerville.

 

[NearTheEars]

"Desperate" was the word that also came to my mind when I saw this. They were literally having Parks Blog readers recruit people to go see Tomorrowland. All hands on deck!

Did you see the new film “Tomorrowland” over the weekend? On Friday, May 22, 500 Disney Parks Blog readers were treated to a special screening of the film – and were then made honorary Tomorrowland recruiters. Armed with Tomorrowland pins, our group returned to Magic Kingdom Park to search for brilliant minds and optimistic people who could shape the future.

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/bl...blog-readers-recruit-guests-for-tomorrowland/

Actually, this sounds kinda cool, so I won't knock them for this.
Haven't seen the film yet, but looking forward to it.

 

[Funmeister]

I'm thinking the maingate pass and comp tickets are headed for the dustbin of history. Or in our case Yesterland. Remember any CM is taking the place of a PAYING customer and at $140/day in gold season that ain't chump change. Of course MANAGEMENT will still retain those benefits...

Of course the reason WHY CM's have those benefits is lost on Glendale, For the uninitiated Walt set up that program so the CM's would have first hand knowledge of the parks as they were meant to encourage the CM's to visit on their days off.

Of course Walt and successors up to the late 90's actually paid CM's a middle class wage so the workforce was not an immigrant workforce with limited skills living in a Igerville.

I am thinking the only ones who will have a Silver Maingate will be those with little gold footballs on their windshield.

 

[AEfx]

You know what I say to this? Oh F'ing well. That's life. The rise and you fall.

I'm pretty sure Disney is overly concerned about one flop When they already have one $1B+ movie this year with another virtually guaranteed (Star Wars). Inside Out likely won't do $1B, but it could easily do north of $800M and there's still another potential sleeper Marvel film to go in Ant-Man.

As I said, you rise and you fall. Disney happens to have the luxury of "falling" every once in awhile without really ever falling, because the rest of their roster performs so well.

You seem a bit oddly...invested in this topic. Not sure why you are so defensive about it.

You went from "It's not that bad yet" to swearing about it being irrelevant when you realized how bad it was, in the span of two posts there, LOL.

FWIW, you seem to agree precisely on my point - Marvel and Star Wars are going to save the day, making their purchases brilliant business moves when many fans decry them as "unnecessary". I think it's quite possible that Episode VII is going to replace Avaturd as the #1 grossing film of all time, and with the rest of the Marvel and Lucasfilm pictures in the pipeline, it's a pretty good bet that Disney will end up the #1 grossing studio of the decade.

If Disney were just depending on its "original" (*guffaw*) properties, there fortunes would be completely opposite.

 

[AEfx]

I am already hearing negative buzz from CM friends about potential impact on Maingate Passes and comp tickets. I have a feeling CMs are going to get shafted. Thoughts?

Didn't that already happen? I thought in the recent past (2-3 years) they had already quite downgraded the comps that CM's were getting.

That's really what we want...even less benefits to attract employees who actually care about Disney...NOT.

 

[Funmeister]

Didn't that already happen? I thought in the recent past (2-3 years) they had already quite downgraded the comps that CM's were getting.

That's really what we want...even less benefits to attract employees who actually care about Disney...NOT.

Right, but with these potential changes there will be a possible deeper impact (negative) on comps and maingate passes.

 

[Next Big Thing]

You seem a bit oddly...invested in this topic. Not sure why you are so defensive about it.

You went from "It's not that bad yet" to swearing about it being irrelevant when you realized how bad it was, in the span of two posts there, LOL.

FWIW, you seem to agree precisely on my point - Marvel and Star Wars are going to save the day, making their purchases brilliant business moves when many fans decry them as "unnecessary". I think it's quite possible that Episode VII is going to replace Avaturd as the #1 grossing film of all time, and with the rest of the Marvel and Lucasfilm pictures in the pipeline, it's a pretty good bet that Disney will end up the #1 grossing studio of the decade.

If Disney were just depending on its "original" (*guffaw*) properties, there fortunes would be completely opposite.

I don't care one way or the other. I don't own stock in Disney, so I could care less.

I'm honestly still getting over the loss of Tron 3 and still pretending it's Tomorrowland's fault. But either way, what I said is completely true. This company isn't going down becausea film will lose some millions of dollars. TBH, it still has plenty of chance to break even with home video, I just don't think it will gross enough overseas for it to.

 

[AEfx]

I don't care one way or the other. I don't own stock in Disney, so I could care less.

I'm honestly still getting over the loss of Tron 3 and still pretending it's Tomorrowland's fault. But either way, what I said is completely true. This company isn't going down becausea film will lose some millions of dollars. TBH, it still has plenty of chance to break even with home video, I just don't think it will gross enough overseas for it to.

Like I said, no one said the company was going down - Lucasfilm and Marvel are saving the day, Tomorrowland just becomes another film on the list of why those purchases were vital to the survival of Disney's live action film business.

Unfortunately, it's doubtful that Tomorrowland will "break even" in terms of it's production budget, let alone actual cost. Technically, according to it's production budget, John Carter "broke even" - made about 280M vs. 260M budget - but that's only half the story.

The general rule is that on big studio pictures like this they spend at least as much on promotion as the production itself, which is why John Carter and it appears now Tomorrowland are considered pretty epic failures. With the amount of promotion they put into it, I'm sure they easily matched the 180M budget with promotional costs making the effective cost double. A prime time 30-second spot on a major show costs about $400K - each time they show the commercial.

I'm pretty shocked, to be honest, as I said in the beginning - as the Variety article points out, while one could spin the film as "original", it's based on a very-well known Disney IP. They keep trying to re-create PotC and they just don't realize that PotC is successful because of Johnny Depp, not the base concept - and unfortunately Tomorrowland is going to be another Haunted Mansion/Country Bears fiasco.

Lesson? Thinly-plotted theme park concepts don't make good motion pictures.

 

[Tigger1988]

Lesson? Thinly-plotted theme park concepts don't make good motion pictures.

The movie has nothing to do with the theme park land. Like...literally nothing besides the name.

Other than 5 minutes at the beginning of the film the movie has nothing to do with Disney either.

 

[AEfx]

The movie has nothing to do with the theme park land. Like...literally nothing besides the name.

Other than 5 minutes at the beginning of the film the movie has nothing to do with Disney either.

Right, but no one is going to know that until they sit down in the theater.

"Tomorrowland" is arguably the most unique/well-known Disney park land, as even "Fantasyland" can be used as a generic term ("he's living in fantasy land..." etc.) and they certainly used a lot of Disney parks imagery in the promotional materials.

From the Variety article:

"Even calling “Tomorrowland” an original movie points to the way that adjective has become neutered in today’s movie business. It’s not a remake or another installment in a long-running franchise, but its storyline and title references Disney theme parks, making it instantly recognizable to most of the population. Would Disney have greenlit the film, however bold Bird’s futuristic vision had been, had it not seen an opportunity to burnish its theme park brands?"

So one could argue that "Haunted Mansion" was "original" as well, as it has almost nothing to do with the theme park attraction, but we can't pretend the entire point wasn't to exploit and further brand a theme park concept.

 

[Next Big Thing]

I'm pretty shocked, to be honest, as I said in the beginning - as the Variety article points out, while one could spin the film as "original", it's based on a very-well known Disney IP.

That's just it. It's an original film based off of a Disney Theme Park Land. The only things within Tomorrowland that even link the movie and theme park are the segments shot for CoP and IASW. The entire story is original (well, the young female heroine story-line actually isn't all that original anymore, but I digress).

 

[englanddg]

That's just it. It's an original film based off of a Disney Theme Park Land. The only things within Tomorrowland that even link the movie and theme park are the segments shot for CoP and IASW. The entire story is original.

I quite agree.

And Space Mountain...though that's just a backdrop...and the Spaceport / rockets sortof resemble the old Astro Blaster and Moonliner rockets.

But, then again, these styles were rather common in sci-fi pop culture, and not really unique to Disney.

That said, the ending credits had a peek at Space Mountain, trains that strongly resembled Mark VI monorails, and the rest of it was Jetsons (or the ending scenes from the animation you create on Spaceship Earth).

I'd hardly say it's more than loosely and somewhat stylistically (very somewhat) based on Tomorrowland (certainly not the modern "Pixar/Marvel" version of it).

It has less to do with the area of the park than, say, Pirates did. Where they flat out snagged characters from the ride as well as creating new ones and wrapping it with a plot.

Tomorrowland is far more original than that.

 

[AEfx]

That's just it. It's an original film based off of a Disney Theme Park Land. The only things within Tomorrowland that even link the movie and theme park are the segments shot for CoP and IASW. The entire story is original.

See above.

Original is something created from scratch. Not loosely based or inspired by an existing, well-known IP.

I think folks are just so used to almost nothing original coming from Disney that somehow it's not registering that yes, this is a theme park-based film, or at least - that's what it was sold as.

 

[englanddg]

See above.

Original is something created from scratch. Not loosely based or inspired by an existing, well-known IP.

I think folks are just so used to almost nothing original coming from Disney that somehow it's not registering that yes, this is a theme park-based film, or at least - that's what it was sold as.

And yet, they never touch on Disneyland at all, and Walt isn't mentioned once. Even the "Imagination is more important than knowledge" quote is from Albert Einstein (it would have been a good place to slide in a Walt quote, but they didn't).

The CoP and Small World take place at the 64 World's Fair. And, it's arguable, it's based more off that than the Theme Park lands.

 

[Next Big Thing]

See above.

Original is something created from scratch. Not loosely based or inspired by an existing, well-known IP.

I think folks are just so used to almost nothing original coming from Disney that somehow it's not registering that yes, this is a theme park-based film, or at least - that's what it was sold as.

You don't seem to be grasping the idea of "original" and "based on" in the same context.

Tomorrowland is based on a Walt Disney created idea, but the story/script/characters were all 100% original to the movie.

There's a very distinct difference. I'm sorry if you don't understand it.