Bob Iger at WDW now ... BoD to Follow?

[Matt_Black]

She's the best hope this company has for future leadership.

No... There is another....

 

[Cesar R M]

Whoa!!! Listen up you freedom hating foreigner. Two modern Americans equal 4 Europeans, at most.

I still wonder why the need of that cheap insult.
Besides, I was annoyed to see that they never filled the boats to capacity.
Infact, I HAD THE BOAT FOR MYSELF and many pairs were left alone in a single boat.
so instead of filling them correctly, they were just putting one "group" (aka family or party) per boat, regardless of size.

 

[ford91exploder]

I'll second that vote

Instead TWDC will get someone from Goldman Sachs

 

[Hakunamatata]

I knew him well. Actually, he's me. Reincarnated, you see. One of earliest memories as a kid was the EPCOT City shape and structure etched into my "memory". It drove me crazy until I was older and saw Walt's plan for EPCOT and then I understood what those shapes were!

 

[ford91exploder]

Thing i don't get about Iger ... is that 10-15 years down the line, he'll be bringing his grand kids perhaps to Disney. Wouldn't it be great to say to them, and feel, that he built this amazing world for the world that would last decades, even when he's long gone. But no, he'd rather say to his grand son 'hey son, look at this fat cheque book, it's all mine'.

I mean can you imagine any of us being in charge of a company like Disney, look at the posters of the imagineer board - the ideas, the creativity - yet Iger just wants to make money and build nothing.

He's the complete polar opposite of Walt.

Iger will bring his grandkids to Jackson Hole in the winter and the Hamptons in summer, He'd never be caught DEAD at a theme park.

 

[doctornick]

A concern I have is, if this redo actually shrinks total on-stage space, what happens when people actually visit DHS? It was uncomfortably crowded during SWW. Having less space after expansions to Star Wars and Pixar Place is crazy. The crowd levels will increase.

Just bulldoze the place and start from scratch.

There's a lot of land that is "on stage" that can be used. The Backlot Tour, for example, has a very big footprint. Just using that space and keeping it "on stage" could markedly increase the places-guests-can-walk space in DHS. Same goes if they remove the Animation building (the actual old animation studio that is now just offices) and put guest stuff there.

They don't have to delve into areas that have always been backstage to sensible expand the park.

I agree that the park has a notoriously horrible layout. Comes from not having an actual master plan for the park.

 

[doctornick]

It wasn't so bad 20 years ago when it was still a working studio. But ever since they demolished residential street to built Lights Motors Action the backlot tour was pointless.

To each their own, but I would argue that DHS has always sucked. The "working studio" stuff was a novelty, but it was the vast majority of the park experience and IMHO not that great -- nothing like going to an actual backlot with real history like Uni in California. And the park had little else to do in the early days. In the early 90's, my opinion of the park was like "this sucks, let's go back to MK and Epcot". We had a class trip to Disney where they took us to Universal Studios rather than Disney-MGM (which cost more to do because it was a different ticket) because previous classes always preferred Universal.

There was probably a period after Sunset Blvd was built (esp with RNR added) where the park was probably passable, but that was brief and it certainly has never hit the heights of other good theme parks.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Jay and Tom are finance guys and are very versed in that area. Jay is a JPMorgan Chase alumnus (just Chase back then) and Tom is Morgan Stanley alumnus. They are good at M&A and cutting costs. Sometimes you can have way too much of that and we have reached the peak here with Disney.

That being said Kathleen Kennedy is a legitimate superstar and deserves the chance to lead a creative company like Disney.

No matter who becomes CEO, I'm rooting for Kennedy like yourself, the real problem will be purging Disney's executive ranks; particularly in its most problematic division, Parks & Resorts. To get Disney to be its best again, its going to need a firehose of an enema to clean out all the junk. The hundreds of execs who you or I have never heard that have had a tremendously negative effect on the company. At the same time, the next CEO will need to clearly outline what Disney as a company should be, something Bob has never done.

 

[ford91exploder]

No matter who becomes CEO, I'm rooting for Kennedy like yourself, the real problem will be purging Disney's executive ranks; particularly in its most problematic division, Parks & Resorts. To get Disney to be its best again, its going to need a firehose of an enema to clean out all the junk. The hundreds of execs who you or I have never heard that have had a tremendously negative effect on the company. At the same time, the next CEO will need to clearly outline what Disney as a company should be, something Bob has never done.

Oh Bob has indeed set forth what the company should be, A penny pinching organization who seeks to maximize profit at the expense of all other functions of a high performing business i.e. reinvestment and organic growth.

 

[ford91exploder]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

Nooooooope.

 

[invader]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

What.

 

[Mouse Trap]

What.

While I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, here is the TLDR.

TLDR 30+ Pages: Iger and BoD are at WDW on the verge (it seems) of approving a budget for a massive overhaul of Hollywood Studios which should include Cars and Star Wars (could've just read page 1 for that). The next 25 pages or so were rather unimportant.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

No, this is being classified as a retreat so you naturally have to go away somewhere. If the main focus is going to be on WDW, it's going to be at WDW. Whether anything of substance actually comes out of this is another question.

 

[George]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

Security isn't that good to be honest. Snacks are OK, but I've had better. I'm kind of surprised that everyone wants to karaoke. Really, I'm starting to wonder if crashing this gathering was worth it.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Has anyone considered that Iger and BoD are meeting at WDW for security reasons, Perhaps it's not WDW that's the target of the spending... I seem to recall there is another Disney park on the west coast.

Meeting at WDW minimizes the possibility of leaks from resort staff especially since WDW resort staff tend to be recent immigrants with limited knowledge of Disney, So they have no idea that there would be people interested in the waste paper from the meeting or photos of the meeting rooms.

Strong weed tonight?

 

[ford91exploder]

No, this is being classified as a retreat so you naturally have to go away somewhere. If the main focus is going to be on WDW, it's going to be at WDW. Whether anything of substance actually comes out of this is another question.

Most 'Retreats' that I've personally been part of have deliberately gone anywhere but the subject of said retreat...

 

[ford91exploder]

Strong weed tonight?

No, just an alternate thought process as to why BoD at WDW other than to sell the joint.

 

[doctornick]

Fixed that before it starts a whole new tangent none of us want to get into.

Good catch, though I guess the DHS plans could include GotG/Big Hero 6....

 

[ford91exploder]

Nooooooope.

Hope you are right and I'm wrong but Wall St does not LIKE theme park investments so I'm having a problem thinking that TWDC would invest in something Wall St does not like especially in light of the guidance in EVERY earnings call that TWDC will be reducing P&R CAPEX.

I can see a sale of P&R assets, I can see them buying a cable company to ensure a distribution outlet, I CANT see them investing in theme parks, I can even see them spending money on Star Wars in Anaheim as Anaheim seems to get a pass on the 'Street. I can even see them mothballing Pandora.

I can't see them spending major money on WDW.