the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
1)Ike and JL have a lot of power within the TWDC machine
2)Tony didn't like JL for coming in - Little Mermaid has a distinctive plastic JL feel to it. Tony liked Pete Docter and had a good relationship with him not JL
3)If JL doesn't want it he will but his retirement on the line - combined with a refocused WDAS, Disney mangaemnt would mostly sacrifice Iger in order to JL.
TDO wanted CarsLand ... TDO could of said they wanted an exciting counter-point to Harry Potter and thy most likely would of been presented with something good, but they are risk adverse, hence them wanting Cars Land
Most of suits think there is no growth potential, hence timeshares and NextGen. TDO is systemic - they are the ones who like to value engineer. So Burbank might approve a $500million project that takes 2 years to complete and they decide to push it over 3 years and reduce it by $50million. Hence Car(d)s (Board)Land...
Good, well informed post.
Some added thoughts (Numbers do not correspond to previous post)
1)Pete Docter is heir apparent at Pixar/WDAS and The Inside Out may be his last film for a while.
2)Suits think there is no growth potential because Jay Rasulo hired them and he does not give a about the parks, it takes time to see the ripples.
3)WDI is really, really ed up. There is absolutely no way around this. If we go back to 2006 when Disney bought Pixar, WDFA was not as messed up as WDI. The main issue at WDFA was management's incompetence. They wanted to make "hip and edgy" CG films like Shrek and Madagascar and they didn't care if that meant they had to fire talent, a good amount of said talent was rehired by JL and some then fired recently. However, there still was talent there and he got lots of good talent fresh out of school that was headed straight to Pixar/Dreamworks to look at WDAS. (American Dog has been the exception of his leadership at WDAS and, much like Brave, was cold, hurtful and miscalculated) WDI then and now has a dearth of talent at all age levels, wastes lots of $$$ on master imagineers like Baxter and Rhode and doesn't let them really do anything substantial, has ditched AAs for cheap gimmicks like screens and interactive queues (ask Joe Rhode what he thinks of interactive queues), and has incompetent management.
To illustrate how far WDI has fallen, look at what Ray Bradbury said about WDI during the development of EPCOT CENTER
Do people feel that way towards the WDI of TODAY? WDI needs a group of people whose sole responsibility is to fix it, it was never going to be JL. Instead, JL and Steve should have fought to oust Rasulo, have Ouimet run P&R and cleaned house at WDI with experienced and passionate leadership.
The only way to save WDI is to destroy it.