A Spirited Perfect Ten

[WDW1974]

Oh, I agree with you about Eisner's appetite for acquisitions - in fact, I think he's the one who started the whole trend at TWDC. BUT...he was engaged with the studios and with the parks, it seems to me, in ways that Iger is not. And that, to me, is his saving grace.

I would only add that Eisner didn't acquire much when you compare it to Iger. And, again, his biggest acquisition was also his smartest (Cap Cities/ABC, which also brought the ESPN juggernaut!) Michael was always involved ... a hands-on leader, to his detriment say many of his critics (I'd disagree as I'd never want a CEO that doesn't know what is going on in all of his/her divisions!)

Bob simply delegates. And buys shiny new toys. And crows about his love for technology and his many BRANDS.

To take that Eisner tale about skulking around EPCOT after hours, not only would Iger never do that, but if he were forced to, I could see him getting hopelessly lost in simply one building and not having a clue where he was or how to leave it. That wouldn't happen with Michael at TODAY's EPCOT.

 

[BrerJon]

Now, I'm supposed to care about disparate BRANDS because Iger simply went out and bought them?

It's insane the amount of people who now love Star Wars or Marvel movies but had no interest in them whatsoever prior to the Disney purchase. It's almost as if they see Iger as a personal shopper, or an Amazon recommendation engine, curating brands they might like, so that they don't have to form their own opinions.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Great analysis, as usual, but I think a component of the state of WDW maintenance that's just as important as capex in the discussion is labor.

I don't have any direct knowledge of reduced hours in maintenance, but I believe it's been reported hours being cut all over property to help contain labor costs (so it's probably maintenance has been impacted).

In addition, around 2007 they offered early retirement packages to many of the tenured (ie expensive) maintenance guys, presumably to bring down labor costs. My dad had been at WDW 16 years, and though he had several more to NRA and full retirement from Disney, he, like many others, took the deal. The result was a drain on the knowledgeable and experienced staff (many of which, coincidentally, ended up "down the street.").

When you don't have as many people working in a given shift, and those who are aren't as skillful as those who once did, it's a recipe for declining show quality.

Labor is a vital component of maintenance. Typical day-to-day maintenance of facilities and attractions are part of operating expense (opex). However, like most companies, Disney does not publically disclose enough information in order to accurately gauge how reductions in opex have impacted maintenance.

Rest assured that Disney's underfunding of growth and maintenance capital expenditures are representative of underfunding that occurs in the much larger opex component.

Disney has been laying off or pushing out the door its more experienced technicians for decades.

It's what happens when a bunch of pencil-pushing executives who never have gotten their hands dirty start looking at spreadsheets in order to identify ways they think will reduce costs.

Gotta keep squeezing those pennies.

I wish I could say Disney was unique but this budgetary approach has been in vogue for some time now. Other companies do it but Disney has raised it to an art form, much to the detriment of WDW.

 

[WDW1974]

The 'What is Disney?' conversation continues in a fancier publication, The Atlantic.

Liked that too. Would have been better with ''puckish glad hander'' in there somewhere!

But very true. How many times will Disney go to the same well? We all know that answer: until dust and dirt are rising up.

This company, once and again, a creative powerhouse has become more meeker than the skinny kid in sixth grade who was bullied and afraid of his own shadow (and today would be a mass murderer, likely). You can't keep things going the same way unless you truly think that raising prices at WDW and converting hotels to timeshare will keep the cash registers ringing ... and unless you think that Thor 8: Gee, This Hammer is Heavy! and Star Wars Episode 14: Jar Jar Gets Laid on Tatooine and Picks Something Up and Cars 34: Mater Done Gets Scrapped will make billions each ... something has to change.

The easiest change: a new CEO in 2016 who doesn't come from the inside, but from the outside. New blood. It worked wonders in 1984 and it absolutely can again.

 

[WDW1974]

Eisner was the one who announced 2D was dead, and presided over some real clangers towards the end. If we're discussing Iger's merits as a CEO, and tearing apart his performance on the parks, we have to be fair and credit him for successes, and turning around WDFA - or at least giving Lasseter the freedom to do so - is one of them.

I give him credit for buying Pixar, truly a no-brainer. I don't give him credit for almost allowing John to walk over Rich Ross (a punk who had very little talent beyond taking credit for the work of others). But sure, put animation as a check in the Iger Isn't Totally Worthless column.

Eisner's last five years gave us Atlantis, Brother Bear, Lilo & Stitch, Home on the Range and Chicken Little - average at best, terrible at worst - while Iger has given us Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and Big Hero 6, as well as another shot at 2D with Frog and Pooh. Not a bad one in the bunch.

Oh gawd ... are we gonna get bogged down into debating films? Atlantis. Very underrated and had 20 minutes lopped off to save money. Lilo & Stitch. Huge financial and creative success that added characters that were exploited across almost every business unit. Brother Bear. Moderately successful film that had nice music, nice setting and was so-so in plot. Home on the Range looked nice, but was lousy. Chicken Little was just lousy.

And ... yeah, I don't want a back and forth, so you can have the point. ... With one caveat, and that is I have yet to see one WDFA film in the 21st century that comes close to being as good as ANY film Disney put out during the entire decade of the 1990s. With that, I'll let it go ...

 

[the.dreamfinder]

With that, I'll let it go ...

Belt it out Spirit!!

 

[lazyboy97o]

I give him credit for buying Pixar, truly a no-brainer. I don't give him credit for almost allowing John to walk over Rich Ross (a punk who had very little talent beyond taking credit for the work of others). But sure, put animation as a check in the Iger Isn't Totally Worthless column.

But that's just it, all of Iger's big successes do not take any sort of real cunning or clever thinking. You're not a great leader if you're going down the path that every half wit can see. Everyone was talking about how Disney should buy Pixar instead of letting them walk. It was pretty well known that Lucas had a soft spot for Disney and was only really interested in selling to them. Star Wars remains big and new theme park attractions is just as painfully obvious. Marvel was seen as being too big a price tag, but not an otherwise bad idea in terms of their box office numbers.

For me, the biggest gamble and most creative thing to come out of Iger's tenure, and also live up to his self delusions of a being a technologist, is Disney Movies Anywhere. It is very forward embrace of digital content and letting consumers purchase once for content, versus the love of costumers buying titles again in a new format.

 

[Quinnmac000]

Eisner was the one who announced 2D was dead, and presided over some real clangers towards the end. If we're discussing Iger's merits as a CEO, and tearing apart his performance on the parks, we have to be fair and credit him for successes, and turning around WDFA - or at least giving Lasseter the freedom to do so - is one of them.

Eisner's last five years gave us Atlantis, Brother Bear, Lilo & Stitch, Home on the Range and Chicken Little - average at best, terrible at worst - while Iger has given us Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and Big Hero 6, as well as another shot at 2D with Frog and Pooh. Not a bad one in the bunch.

Lilo and Stitch is so underrated...and not even close to be an average movie. Maybe it didn't do well at the box office but neither did Hunchback of Notre Dame and most people would also agree how underrated of a film that is.

 

[BrerJon]

And ... yeah, I don't want a back and forth, so you can have the point. ... With one caveat, and that is I have yet to see one WDFA film in the 21st century that comes close to being as good as ANY film Disney put out during the entire decade of the 1990s. With that, I'll let it go ...

Oh I totally agree with you on that last point, don't worry! I'm just trying to play devil's advocate to find good things to say about poor old Bob in his hour of need!

 

[BrerJon]

For me, the biggest gamble and most creative thing to come out of Iger's tenure, and also live up to his self delusions of a being a technologist, is Disney Movies Anywhere. It is very forward embrace of digital content and letting consumers purchase once for content, versus the love of costumers buying titles again in a new format.

And even Disney Movies Anywhere was purely a result of Jobs being Disney's largest shareholder, and Iger being on the board of Apple. Almost all the technological initiatives have just been ways for Apple and Disney to help each other out, convenient for shareholders in both like Iger.

 

[lazyboy97o]

And even Disney Movies Anywhere was purely a result of Jobs being Disney's largest shareholder, and Iger being on the board of Apple. Almost all the technological initiatives have just been ways for Apple and Disney to help each other out, convenient for shareholders in both like Iger.

Disney Movies Anywhere fits into comments Iger was making before Pixar was purchased. The service has also expanded beyond those using iTunes and the Apple ecosystem with availability through Google Play. It's underlying framework, KeyChest, was even developed in-house by Disney.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The reason people like the Marvel movies isn't because of Iger; it's because of the content within the movies. It has great acting, even better scripts, and amazing footage. All work done by *le gasp* NOT Iger.

Look around the Disney community and you will find plenty of people who suddenly liked the content on December 31, 2009. A few are rather honest about it, admitting their lack of interest until acquired by Disney and deciding they have to watch because "Marvel is Disney."

 

[HMF]

Look around the Disney community and you will find plenty of people who suddenly liked the content on December 31, 2009. A few are rather honest about it, admitting their lack of interest until acquired by Disney and deciding they have to watch because "Marvel is Disney."

Marvel will never be Disney to me. To this day I still don't understand the logic behind the acquisition outside of pure finance but I used to believe that Disney was above that and that brand integrity was more important than that.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Marvel will never be Disney to me. To this day I still don't understand the logic behind the acquisition outside of pure finance but I used to believe that Disney was above that and that brand integrity was more important than that.

So was Poppins, Pooh, and others bad choices as well?

 

[lazyboy97o]

I agree with you that there are a handful of people who did start liking the Marvel movies because Disney bought it, but most people like movies for the movie...not because of the name attached to it. Before I started to learn more about Disney (starting a couple of years ago, but I was still a Disney fan before that, just didn't research in my spare time), I enjoyed the Marvel movies for their content and didn't even realize that they were owned by Disney until a couple of movies.

Just because Disney produces a movie, doesn't mean people will automatically like it. A lot of Marvel fans are comic book fans or are fans because they are actually enjoyable movies.

My point does not hinge on what you like. It is a trend that has repeated itself with the Muppets, Pixar and even Lucasfilm.

 

[asianway]

You do realize that Star Wars was one of the most popular movies (had no ties to Disney) of the world AND Marvel comics was not established by Disney. A lot of people like the movies for the sake of the movies.

You do realize that Disney doesn't even own half of the Marvel Universe (i.e. Spiderman)

Disney owns the entire Marvel universe. Educate yourself

 

[spacemt354]

My point does not hinge on what you like. It is a trend that has repeated itself with the Muppets, Pixar and even Lucasfilm.

I would say that it's the vocal minority that profess their brand advocacy as a catalyst for their sudden interest in Marvel. Lifestylers as an example. Average Disney fans can be movie fans as well. The main reason for the sudden popularity of the MCU after 2009 wasn't necessarily because of Disney's acquisition, but because of the wide success of The Avengers. I would argue it wasn't until after that film that average Disney fans discovered that it was Disney property. And at that point, it depends on the fan whether they simply like the MCU because of Disney or because they are simply great films. Also, X-Men and Spider-Man are two popular film franchises that have had large followings since the early 2000s without being associated to Disney

Pixar and especially Star Wars was already popular before the Disney name became synonymous with them, so any influx of popularity shouldn't be considered as big a skewed trend shift.

 

[spacemt354]

Disney owns the entire Marvel universe. Educate yourself

Who produced X-Men: Days of Future Past again? Disney? or Fox? I think she was talking about the movies not comics. So no Disney does not own the entire Marvel Universe.

 

[wogwog]

As we seem to be speaking of animation... I just returned from a faux 5% Magic cruise where they were screening Lucasfilms "Strange Magic". I see few movies so I am not sure if this is in anyway a Disney project or just Lucas. But you can see a trailer on Youtube of course if you like. I lasted seven minutes, due to a horrid beginning for my taste, but even in that short time I was impressed with the animation. Disney? Lucas? Pixar? I would be curious if anyone knows who is more of a movie geek than myself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3IWDBcWoMY

 

[the.dreamfinder]

So was Poppins, Pooh, and others bad choices as well?

But those properties were persued out of interest to DEVELOP them into something uniquely Disney, not to address a perceived "Boys Problem".