News Chapek FIRED, Iger New CEO

fgmnt

Well-Known Member
Eisner closed 20K 9 years before he left.

The water park closed under Eisner

The 20K closure bit bad but we'll never know if the EuroDisney false start mothballed that ride.

River Country was never replaced but I genuinely do not know if it should have stayed open past the opening of Blizzard Beach, and 9/11 really torched anything not completely necessary to operations.

The SGE site sits empty because they can get away with it. Imagination languishes because they can get away with it. The Tomorrowland Amphitheater site sits empty because they can get away with it. The WoL pavilion is going on 2 decades of incomplete operation because they can get away with it. There is no nighttime parade at the castle park, the most attended park in the world, because they can get away with it. The monorails are allowed to rot on public display because they can get away with it. The RoL pavilion has no known replacement because they can get away with it. They shut down attractions during festivals at EPCOT because they can get away with it. The 2008 crash was the only externality on the parks division Iger had to grapple with. To my knowledge, there is no attraction decision you can earnestly point to under the Iger regime that suffered from that externality because nothing was gonna get built anyway.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
My sense is that iger’s “goals” when it came to park investment we’re antithetical to what actually made for good park investment. I don’t know if that’s him or the culture be fostered?
The product is an emphasis on the IP labeling and tie ins for marketing pop and not for longterm appeal and operational assets.

Just how it looks.
 

peter11435

Well-Known Member
Different mistakes…not necessarily “lesser” ones

Different mistakes…not necessarily “lesser” ones
You claimed that Iger was the first to close things without a replacement. Not that his closures were greater or lesser.
20K was “replaced”…temporarily….such that it was. Lots of rumors of the how’s and whys

River country closed and was mothballed…true…
And needed to go…true. I won’t put that on Bob.

Let’s talk pleasure island, wonders of life, and half of studios, shall we?
I don’t know what “replacement” you think 20k had under Eisner. If you’re referring to the playground thrown in a decade later then you are clearly grasping.

Wonders certainly closed permanently under Iger but the death sentence came under Eisner when the pavilion went seasonal.

What closed at studios without a replacement in planning?

Not that it really matters. I agree that things closed under Iger without a replacement. The issue is that you claim that didn’t happen before him.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
I find it harder to lay single projects like BOG that were perhaps poorly executed at his feet. The concept was good and I'm sure it had a healthy budget, but the execution was... not great. That, to me, is very different from something like DCA or WDSP in which the CEO clearly had to have signed off on a major project designed and planned to be a budget version of a Disney theme park with the theming stripped down to a minimum.

I think TSL fits into this category -- it's not much better than opening day DCA or WDSP in terms of quality design/theming.

The rest of the projects don't, though.
 

DopeyRunner

Active Member
It’s pretty clear that Eisner without Wells just didn’t have the same spark. There is a reason that the history of WDC has done well with 2 people at the helm (one on the creative side, one on the finance side), and that was carried through until Wells’s passing. Sadly, I think most companies today are lead by egocentric people who wouldn’t dare share the spot light (I’m looking at you Iger, you wouldn’t even wear a Mickey Mouse tie…), and this is how things turn out. The job is jus too big for one person to do, but no one would dare admit it, because that would mean a slightly smaller bonus and salary. I was genuinely glad to hear bob1 was stepping down, since I didn’t think bob2 could be any worse, but sadly I was wrong.

You could say some of the quality concerns may be tied to WDI but the buck stops at the leadership. They have to trust and give their people the room to create, or you end up with low quality cookie cutter products that die hards will pick apart.
 

TsWade2

Well-Known Member
He is a horrible person, but:

-He created the computer animated feature the same way Walt created the animated feature
-He was on the main creative team for 90% of Pixar’s greatest movies and helmed the studio during its golden era.
-He is responsible for Cars Land
-He brought back WDFA from being dissolved and help right it’s course and helped guide it through its modern resurgence
-Pixar and WDFA had a noticeable drop in quality when he left

This does not change the fact that he is a horrible person.
I agree. I used to like him and I still love the movies he made, but he is nothing but a total hypocritical psychopath! He kills hand drawn animation for his selfish games and he’s a nuisance! Thank God for Jennifer Lee! She’s going to bring back hand drawn animation even though it takes time.
 
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brb1006

Well-Known Member
He is a horrible person, but:

-He created the computer animated feature the same way Walt created the animated feature
-He was on the main creative team for 90% of Pixar’s greatest movies and helmed the studio during its golden era.
-He is responsible for Cars Land
-He brought back WDFA from being dissolved and help right it’s course and helped guide it through its modern resurgence
-Pixar and WDFA had a noticeable drop in quality when he left

This does not change the fact that he is a horrible person.
I'm really curious to see how the reception of Luck by Skydance Animation will be once it hits Apple+ in a few weeks. Since Skydance gotten a couple former Pixar and Disney recently (such as Brad Bird and John Ratzenberger).
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
You claimed that Iger was the first to close things without a replacement. Not that his closures were greater or lesser.

I don’t know what “replacement” you think 20k had under Eisner. If you’re referring to the playground thrown in a decade later then you are clearly grasping.

Wonders certainly closed permanently under Iger but the death sentence came under Eisner when the pavilion went seasonal.

What closed at studios without a replacement in planning?

Not that it really matters. I agree that things closed under Iger without a replacement. The issue is that you claim that didn’t happen before him.
I don’t know if any of the closures prior to Iger were accepted as “permanent”…I think they always intended on circling back around on them. Bobs never seemed to care much. Whatever spark started that…it’s been awful since. You don’t lose capacity with expanding attendance if you care about quality. So then you don’t. we just have to live with it I guess.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
Didn't Eisner do this with 20K?

I suppose there may have been some long-term replacement plan, but when that attraction closed it's not like they suddenly went to work on a replacement. It was just mostly unused land for a long time.

Iger certainly did it far more, though.
I talked to a couple of me old “mates” about the sub lagoon…and they reminded me that was considered “prime” Eisner real estate and it was considered for one of those “project x” type grasps…
But it was also the spot where a certain wizard thing - that Disney completely bombed - was to be shoe horned in.

Forgotten that
 

matt9112

Well-Known Member
This is more or less my impression, too. Feel a bit sorry for Miller in all of this being dealt a bad hand in terms of timing.

I know I keep saying this, but Eisner alone was really terrible toward the end. The whole company was jumping after cheap cash grabs, whether it be in the parks, DTV sequels, crappy animated features, rushed poor quality transfers of animated classics to DVD, etc., etc. The company went very quickly from being the gold standard to being cheap and nasty in most areas. People say he at least had some respect and sensibility for the parks, but I really didn't see much of that. I don't think anything they've done at the parks under Iger was as bad as DCA 1.0, WDSP, and stuff like the Epcot Wand and BAH at Hollywood Studios. All those Epcot classics you love were also torn out under his watch and Mr Toad's Wild Ride was replaced with Pooh.

As for this article, the interesting thing for me is how invested Iger seems to be in raining on Chapek's parade. It's interesting because Chapek seems perfectly capable of causing his own problems and Iger could have chosen to just sit back and let people draw their own conclusions while he sleeps on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies. Something in him (ego, I suppose) isn't letting him do that. One thing this does tell us is that he and the people around him are very good at managing politics and perceptions while Chapek is very bad at it. That's not irrelevant when it comes to running a company as huge and with as large a cultural presence as Disney.

I just want to know who put a teen night club in the parks…..
 

mary2013

Active Member
Well, yes, he did. Unfortunately, he set Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh to fail at the box office. Or was it Bob Iger?

It was likely both of them.
How did both of them set up Princess and the Frog to fail? Weren't they so determined for the movie to be a success that they left it playing in theatres until it hit $100million? Which was the threshold then to be considered a hit?
 

mikejs78

Premium Member
Okay. I know you all going to disagree with me, but in my honest opinion, I am so proud of Bob Chapek firing Peter Rice for making the company very political. This political nonsense has to end, so they can go back being entertainment for kids and families for all ages without being political. i'm not saying Bob Chapek is a perfect CEO, in fact, no CEO is, but I think what he did to Peter Rice and why he was extended for three more years is a step in the right direction. it may take a few years to get Disney back to normal, but I think getting Disney back to normal is on it's way, day by day. And if you guys disagree with me and make fun of me, that fine. Because this time, I'm not going to go doom and gloom that Disney will be gone forever crap. Disney may be tanking for awhile, but they won't be bankrupt. Disney will survive and it'll shall pass.
Not the reason Rice was canned. Disney has ways been political and always will be.
 

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