Okay, so here are my thoughts. Sorry if some is repetative from before, but since those previous posts are a jumbled mess worth forgetting about, I'll lay my thoughts out nicely here:
Good thing we aren't having this discussion on Twitter you would have needed about 76 tweets to get all that out. I'll try to break out my comments into sections to make it easier to follow. Here goes:
Bob Iger likes synergy. Synergy, if anyone doesn't know, is basically different parts of the company promoting eachother to create greater value in the end. So, for example, the Frozen ride in Norway will not only being popularity to that pavillion, but the ride will also bring popularity to the Frozen francise, and in the end, that means dollar bills for Bob. But Avatar is problematic, because synergy doesn't work both ways here. Avatar is supposed to make the land more popular, but in return, the land (if done well) will inevitably bring more popularity to Avatar. And especially now that the first sequel is coming out after the land opens, I feel like Bob Iger thinks "how unfair, our land is basically a real-life advertisement for your sequel!" He expected the land to open after the sequel in 2011, and could not foresee that Cameron would delay it 4 times.
This is a valid point. Avatarland does not present an opportunity to capitalize on synergy across multiple business segments. It's not unprecedented for Disney in the theme park arena since they have gone outside of Disney owned IP for things like Star Tours, Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone, the Muppets and The great movie ride. Disney did eventually end up buying Star Wars, Indy and the Muppets but at the time they were added to DL or WDW they did not. None of this happened under Iger so it would be a first for him.
I'm not sure that the delay of the sequels is as big a deal as some people make it out to be. This isn't a temporary exhibit or a show that can be easily changed out. Theme park attractions are long term investments. The fixed assets associated with this land will be slowly depreciated over 30+ years. Even if it's disappointing for the land to open before the sequels that will only be the case for the first year or 2. If anything it's actually perfect timing. If the land opens in 2017 it will be packed because it's new. Just when the newness starts to wear off the first sequel comes out to prop up interest in the IP again.
And on top of that, Avatar is in somewhat of a competition with Star Wars. Or with Marvel. Or with Disney's movie division as a whole. So does Bob Iger really want Avatar 2 to succeed? If it does, that means a competing studio and a competing company's francise is succeeding in Bob's favorite division. If Avatar 2 doesn't succeed, then it likely spells doom for Avatar land in Iger's mind. Sure, realistically the land should be able to do just fine without the movie, but Bob places such a high importance on the value of IP that I doubt he'd see that.
So basically those two paragraphs are saying that Avatar is a double-edged sword. Does he want it to succeed or not? I don't think that Bob Iger foresaw in 2011 how much competition Disney would be in with Avatar years later, directly or indirectly. It's like, do you root for your lifelong favorite NFL team, or the one that your brother plays on? Tough call, and in the end, you probably wish that your brother could just be on your favorite team.
I don't think Iger is concerned about Avatar competing with Star Wars or Marvel releases. Jurassic World was a massive success in 2015 and had no impact on the Avenger or Star Wars movies doing great too. I don't think either side would want their releases to come out at the same time to compete for screens but you can ask Quentin Tarantino what happens when your film opens against a Star Wars movie
Another big concern is fans. Fans of Avatar, I mean. Oh wait, you can't find them? Yeah neither can I, and neither can Bob, because there are so very few die-hard Avatar fans. Bob is probably comparing Pandora to WWoHP in his head since this is his "revenge" or "comback" project in a certain way (at least I think so). So he's probably been thinking about WWoHP's opening day quite a bit. If you recall, that opening day had so many fans packed everywhere, there were lines and backups across the entire resort. A lot of these people were superfans (dare I say, geeks?) of Harry Poter who came in droves to be there at opening. But for Avatar, I don't see those same type of people. I don't see, other than theme park entusiasts, who would make that type of effort to visit on opening day. I think Iger is definitely concerned that the news won't see pictures of a huge crowd of dressed up superfans on opening day, but rather, a normal day's crowd of normal looking people. And that that lack of momentum and lack of true fans might carry over how popular the land is. In 2011, I don't think enough time had passed for him to see how few potter-caliber fans there are for Avatar.
If the Disney execs are looking at Avatar and thinking it will be like Potterland then they will be disappointed. It's not going to be that. If we are comparing it to a Universal land or ride it's probably more on par with Jurrasic Park or maybe Transformers or King Kong. All IPs based on popular or Classic movies but without the fanboy following. Look at it this way, did IOA see a massive surge of people coming to Jurrasic Park Island when Jurassic World premiered and was a massive worldwide hit? Not that I've heard. The same will be true with Avatar. Even if the sequels match the first movie at the box office it won't make Avatarland into A Harry Potter type addition. I don't think they are expecting the IP to drive attendance like that. It's just another thing for people to do. Remember too that WWoHP really put Universal on the map and elevated the park's status. WDW doesn't need that kind of lift or massive attendance boost. Actually, a 30% attendance boost like Universal got from Potter would be freightening to see. WDW isn't ready for that many additional people.
They may not have the lines like Potter's opening, but don't discount the Disney lifestylers who will all want to be there. Opening day will draw quite a crowd I'm sure.
Very few people 18 and under have seen Avatar, and in an effort to attract all ages, that's gotta be concerning to him a bit. If children do not have much interest or have no knowledge of the IP, will parents be inclined to book a trip for it? I don't know if Bob thinks like that but his spreadsheets and pie charts must indicate this concern somehow. After all, Disney made such an effort in 2009 and 2010 to appeal to boys, with buying marvel, taking Cinderella's name out of the carousel and replacing it with Prince Charming, and then finally, changing their plans for New Fantasyland by getting rid of the snow white ride and adding a seven dwarfs ride instead. Sure, this age issue with Avatar hasn't changed much since 2011, but I don't think Iger saw every problem clearly back then.
I think he's worried about merchandise as well, especially that the merchandise sales won't be high enough to make up for that percentage (still don't know how much) Disney is giving to Cameron. But that's been discussed and I have no evidence or thoughts to prove this one, so I'll skip it.
This land will be geared more towards older kids and adults for sure. It's a welcome change from some of the recent additions that have been more kid focused (FLE, Carsland, etc). The sequels will also introduce kids who were too young for the original to the movie too. Kids are a lot easier to please than us cranky adults anyway. If the ride is fun and the land is interesting and visually stimulating they will be happy. Plus, I'm sure it will have a big gift shop
When my kids first rode Peter Pan at MK neither had seen the movie. They asked to watch it after going on the ride. The same with Indiana Jones. The rides did make them want to see the movies. I still haven't found a copy of Song of the South but they were asking to see that too since they love Splash Mountain.
Bob doesn't understand theme parks very well, and doesn't understand what makes a certain thing in a park popular. I think his main motivation to sign that deal was Avatar's glowing theater numbers. However, and you may disagree, but I truly think it's shocking and unpredictable to him and many others how the top-grossing movie of all time (by a landslide) has completely disappeared from people's radars. Not saying people hate the movie, but nobody really talks about it in normal conversation. It feels gone. Finding Nemo wasn't the top-grossing film, but it's one movie and yet it's still highly known and talked about today. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory flopped in theaters and yet everyone uses it for memes. Avatar is dead, in my opinion, and I don't think Bob is optimistic enough to put a ton of faith in it being revived,
We all know what happens when we're angry. Sometimes it comes out, but other times, we just move swiftly and in our own path, and we don't look at the full picture. Not saying Bob reached what we can call anger, but I think Harry Potter's success came at such a surprise to him that he was thrown off, and so he responded. I believe the newness of the situation and his lack of theme park knowledge caused him to look at it all with foggy glasses when he was signing his name in 2011, but now he's had time to sit back and think about whether it was a good idea. And the things I said above lead me to believe he isn't totally happy.
I can't disagree that Iger doesn't understand the parks like he should. I also agree that they miscalculated the success of WWoHP. If they knew it was going to be that big they would have worked out a deal to have it. I do think that Disney's buying Avatar's rights was partially a reaction to Potter's success at Universal. Not because they thought Avatar would be as big as Potter but because they wanted to block Universal from going after the rights. I don't think that was the entire motivation, but it played a part. I do think that Iger saw an opportunity to capitalize on James Cameron's creative genius by buying these rights. He has been very successful in acquiring creative talent and other people's IPs (Pixar, Marvel, Lucas Films). It's what Iger does best and this was no different.
So your points are good and I didn't attack them because, to be honest, they are true and I don't have anything to say against them. I don't agree with them personally but Bob Iger probably still does, and that's what we're talking about here. I just think that the negatives are more overwhelming. My argument is putting a lot of faith in Bob Iger (and his executive minions) having time to sit back and think, as well as now being able to see the double-edged sword that might've been too far off in 2011. So yeah, that's my (very long) argument, and I hope I have talked in terms of Bob and Disney execs' opinions rather than my own. I hope what I've said is discussable if anyone wants to take a stab at it.
Amen. This is what I was trying to say for a bunch of my posts. If the question is does Disney/Iger regret the decision, the answer is probably no. If the question is should they regret it, the answer may very well be yes. I think for me it is still yet to be seen whether we will look back at this project and view it as a mistake or a huge success. A small piece depends on the success of the sequels, but It mostly depends on the quality of the land. I'll end with a thought that has been repeated continuously throughout the Avatar threads, Song of the South is a marginal movie at best with next to no following but it's still the basis for my favorite attraction at WDW. The IP is irrelevant because the ride is so well done.
