999th Happy Haunt
Well-Known Member
This is an insane claim.
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News 'Beyond Big Thunder Mountain' Blue Sky concept revealed for Magic Kingdom
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
999th Happy Haunt
Well-Known Member
It's good when it works. It usually doesn't.
DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
Armchair, based on the fact that they mentioned Pepita and it would seem like an easy plug/play ride. The tiger breathes between your legs, you fly around the afterworld, etc.
I am 100% a fan, no info. I would happily work for Disney haha.
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2bornot2be
Well-Known Member
If it was about increasing MK capacity, it would have been announced as something they're actually going to build.
How does announcing in the most general way possible with absolutely zero comitment, that they have some concepts they've been considering at D23 fix capacity?
They didn't even have the decency to announce these projects absolutely were coming before quietly shelving them like they did with the main street theater.
I'm not saying they are going to build this layout, I actually don’t like the current ideas they proposed. The Blue Sky concept is just an idea, and I understand that.
I'm just saying they are not worrying about Universal and they know the park needs capacity. They are literally turning people away because of overcrowding.
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SailorMercury
Well-Known Member
The take of all time
I'm just saying they are not worrying about Universal and they know the park needs capacity. They are literally turning people away because of overcrowding.
That is a misconception. They are not commonly turning paying people away. They are turning away the Annual Passholders who do not bring in as much revenue when they can sell more tickets.
No Name
Well-Known Member
Your numbers are wrong, Mario Kart alone has grossed well over 7 billion dollars, and all Mario games combined have grossed well over $30 billion. Winnie the Pooh sales over the last 97 years from various companies isn’t really all that relevant… no individual project has been very successful in at least the last decade. The horror movie this past weekend did a couple million though!
It’s just innately obvious that Mario is more popular.
MagicHappens1971
Well-Known Member
I followed this up in a later post, the numbers I was pulling from were for media franchises and I guess didn’t take into account video game sales. Either way my opinion stands that Mario simply does not have the same standing on pop culture that the other aforementioned franchises do. The Winnie the Pooh franchise numbers I found I believe only follows works produced by Disney and its original books
SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
I really don't get this arbitrary pop culture standing that keeps popping up across threads.
The Mario franchise and its collective products likely have engaged humans for a longer cumulative elapsed time than any media franchise excluding the holy books.
This whole conversation is laughable.
Mickey yields 427 million results on Google.
Mario yields 1.3 billion results
Perhaps you don't like that Mario is a human first name, and perhaps that's inflating the numbers. Let's get more specific.
Mickey Mouse yields 162 million results
Super Mario yields 503 million, which still beats the less specific "mickey"
I truly do not understand why this debate started, but it's incredibly silly.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
They're turning people away from the MK and using the park reservation system to try pushing them to the other three parks.I'm not saying they are going to build this layout, I actually don’t like the current ideas they proposed. The Blue Sky concept is just an idea, and I understand that.
I'm just saying they are not worrying about Universal and they know the park needs capacity. They are literally turning people away because of overcrowding.
One of Disney's parks has nothing to fear with Universal. Nothing they build is going to steal a day planned for the MK.
The problem is, Disney has three other parks that they consistently don't fill up.
As of 2023 estimated attendance for the US, #1 was Mk.
Guess which park is #2.
Epcot or Hollywood Studios?
Neither, it's IOA.
How about #3?
That would Be Universal Studios Orlando.
#4 Hollywood Studios
#5 Disneyland
#6 Epcot
#7 Ak
Just for fun, #8 is Universal Studios Hollywood followed up by California Adventure at #9.
So yeah, Universal is already beating 3 out of 4 Disney parks in Florida.
If you don't think Disney has much reason to worry about what a brand new Universal park is going to do, well, ask yourself where on that list you imagine the brand new shiny-shiny will be popping in. Will it dethrone MK? Probably not but do you think it'll be going in below any of the other three Orlando Disney properties?
For fun, consider what will be coming to the other three Disney parks in the next two years to compete. You think the Epcot Moana water walk through and the (hopeful) removal of the spine walls around the dirt pile are going to change the numbers?
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Rich Brownn
Well-Known Member
It's based on infrormation from the Themed Entertainment Association, so it's a legit source.
Yes, the numbers are correct; however, I would argue that they don't tell the entire story, since they are pulled from the 2021 calendar year, during part of which Disney was still heavily limiting attendance due to COVID and Universal was not.
It will be very interesting to see the 2022 numbers.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
How does it logically not make sense?
This is like the discussion on the impact of Mario in the new park.
Surprise, surprise, Disney super-fans who don’t care about Mario assume not many else in the world do, either, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Just go to Target and look on the Lego isle, is there more space for Mario sets or Star Wars?
In mine, Star Wars has a display but Mario has more shelf space for actual sets to buy.
Look at the fruit snacks in your grocery store. Do you see Mickey and friends branded ones? How about Mario?
Who has their own Spaghetti O's?
Nah - Mario must not be popular with kids these days at all.
That's a few small examples but look at the retail space devoted to Nintendo stuff between Target and Walmart; not just in the electronics section but in toys, household goods, clothing (shirts and little boy's underoos), even the checkout line space.
WDW has a land and ultra expensive resort devoted to the least popular parts of their Star Wars IP and weirdly enough, nothing for their most popular which also happens to have more hours of content (Mando).
They have a new attraction based on Pixar's 10th most popular movie while half that rank as more popular aren't served in the parks because that one was cheaper to clone.
They just opened the Guardian's ride for a fairly popular segment of their marvel franchise that's about to see only it's third (and last) movie devoted to these characters.
Meanwhile, IOA has Velosicoaster based on the Jurassic World IP which as a franchise has trounced GOTG (the first Jurasic Word did 1.67 billion in box office compared to the original Guardians which did 773 million) despite being Transformers-level dumb.
They have Hagrids which is an insanely popular attraction (with reliable up-time) in an insanely popular land based on an insanely popular IP.
In terms of appeal to the masses, they've been getting a lot right lately while Disney's been saving money by cloning older attractions for IP the public hasn't been clamoring for and spending half a decade to build more affordable quasi-attractions like the Moana water walk-through and the center garden for Epcot.
Anyway, as for those attendance numbers, they’re compiled by the TEA and nobody in the industry ever disputes them, including Disney.
*I think the Transformers movies are junk just like I think the new Jurassic World movies are junk, just like I think the FATF movies are junk but I have to accept by their box office numbers that I'm not the target audience. Disney announces Toy Story 5 and the world cries "WHY?!". Meanwhile, Universal is probably cooking up something like FATF 100 featuring Vin Diesel and his turbo-charged walker with nitro-filled tennis balls on the feet where he races someone to save humanity on Pluto and people will be like "BRING IT!)
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MrPromey
Well-Known Member
It will be, especially since that limiting and social distancing people continue to hold onto didn't seem to prevent the MK from still being the top spot in those numbers.
I guess it's possible there were a whole lot more people clamoring to get into AK, Epcot and Hollywood Studios that were being turned away and who ended up at Universal... although based on availability, the MK was the one to max out pretty consistently so the numbers don't really seem to support that as being the case.
Prior to COVID (2019) we were already seeing Universal's parks trend up in attendance percentages at a rate well ahead of Disney's:
MK +0.5%
Epcot - no change
HS +2%
AK +1%
USO +2%
IOA +6%
You know, they say there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
It's always going to be possible to try rejigging things to re-frame the outcome but none of this should be overly-shocking since Disney hasn't been even remotely coy about focusing more on revenue per guest over raw attendance in recent years, anyway.
My thought (and I could be completely wrong) is that with Bob C in charge of the parks and then eventually the whole company, moving P&R in this direction, they failed to realize that they weren't just ceding a statistical number of guests with this approach but also re-forming consumer sentiment in the process.
We'll see how it ultimately plays out, though. Even if the trend is real, it's not too late for Disney to reverse it if they're ready to start treating guests like guests again instead of walking ATMs.
Bringing this back on topic, one thing they don't seem to need right now? A Beyond Big Thunder Mountain project.
The MK is the one park where they already have enough attractions to more than fill a day and its popularity is without question. It doesn't take rocket science or pixie dust to explain why that is far and away the most popular of their Florida parks with their next one not even coming close.
Trying to drive even more people to that one with major expansion in the form of new lands where walkways in Adventurland and Liberty Sqare already struggle doesn't make a ton of sense when the other three remain dramatically under-built by comparison, does it?
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Tha Realest
Well-Known Member
I think this dismissiveness towards Mario speaks to a generational divide that doesn’t appreciate how popular and vital video games are to younger audiences. Sure, Mandalorian gets my kids occasional attention when new episodes are airing, but Fortnite’s hold on them hasn’t waned. Many of their peers are much more likely to watch YT gamers or the like then conventional media.
Disney, for a variety of reasons, hasn’t been able to crack into gaming, and has a really bad blind spot in this regard. Universal has the Mickey Mouse of gaming, with Pokémon, Zelda, and other properties yet to be tapped.
Either way, we’ll know by summer how well the “niche” video game character does when he warps over to animated films and plays in what used to be Disney’s core competency.
Disney, for a variety of reasons, hasn’t been able to crack into gaming, and has a really bad blind spot in this regard. Universal has the Mickey Mouse of gaming, with Pokémon, Zelda, and other properties yet to be tapped.
Either way, we’ll know by summer how well the “niche” video game character does when he warps over to animated films and plays in what used to be Disney’s core competency.
As if the Walt Disney Company needs any more bad press caliing them "anti-American".
On Twitter it was derisively called "Diversity Land"
Liberty Square is tiny already.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
What would they do about the Hall of Presidents and the Riverboat?