News Disney plans to accelerate Parks investment to $60 billion over 10 years

[Jambo Dad]

This right here.

But how many DVC towers will it buy?
Bob wants to know

Asking for a friend…

 

[wannabeBelle]

That plus when they have the benefit of Star Wars Celebration being in Anahiem or Orlando around the same time...

That was actually prior to that Star Wars Celebration. It was a very good weekend of crazy. I was usually around for at least one of the weekends as it was held in May. I was usually down towards the end of the month, around Memorial Day so I managed to go to quite a few. I miss those!!! Marie

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Force Awakens is the 5th highest grossing movie of all time and The Last Jedi is the 19th - While I fully agree that their popularity doesn't match their box office success, "unproven" doesn't exactly paint the full picture. Which is part of what I mean by saying the situation is nuanced.

The stats look good. I’ll remind they looked really good for the phantom menace too. It’s not the tally…it’s the downward trajectory that is damning. They had all the good juju in the world leading up to 2015. And did…that…
It has been a huge failure from the metrics and fallout.

They threw 2 Billion dollars into the Galaxy's Edges because they genuinely thought people would want it, and had reason to think so, not because they figured guests would take whatever they gave them. GE was considered a prestige project and was intended to deliver, not to just throw guests a bone. There's a big difference between genuine miscalculation and an intentional whiff, and this was the former.

But they didn’t understand Star Wars. I don’t want to go too far off course so this will be the last I’ll say. But they didn’t get it because they didn’t think “getting it” was important. Just the label

It’s no coincidence that near everything they do is “Jedi +5” now. They’re trying to apologize without saying.

But hey…opinion vary

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

And yet they did the Star Wars Weekend years ago incredibly well. The park was always mobbed and from what I had heard, most people were very happy with the experience. Marie

Because it leaned in to what worked and was unapologetically for fans

 

[Jambo Dad]

Yes we have become sceptical and negative. However until there is evidence they are really turning this thing around it’s warranted. They have gutted their imagineers and need to rebuild that core to be able to use the spend wisely. Their “blue sky”” ideas aren’t even remotely fleshed out and are not serious. They don’t really even seem capable of understanding how to fix the problem at the moment. As I said in another thread - beg Joe Rohde and John Lassiter to come back. Identify other key imagineers that are now employed elsewhere and target there return. Go after the universal ex Disney contingent. Begin to rebuild the imagineering culture.

 

[Jrb1979]

Lucky for us, both of those things are less likely in the upcoming slate. They are looking to build quickly and are willing to pay handsomely to do it.

While building quickly will be good, it all depends on what is built. If they go back to their roots of immersive dark rides with lots of AAs I will be happy. If they continue with more Guardian rides it will be very Meh for me.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

While building quickly will be good, it all depends on what is built. If they go back to their roots of immersive dark rides with lots of AAs I will be happy. If they continue with more Guardian rides it will be very Meh for me.

Agreed. Which is why I'm looking forward to Tiana's. Hopefully it delivers.

Cosmic Rewind was the "Emperor Has No Clothes" moment of WDW for me. Truly it makes no sense how it took that much to build that little over that long. All that talk of the rotating vehicle for the "story coaster" but they couldn't even bother to give us a showscene, let alone an actual percievable story.

 

[flynnibus]

They threw 2 Billion dollars into the Galaxy's Edges because they genuinely thought people would want it, and had reason to think so, not because they figured guests would take whatever they gave them. GE was considered a prestige project and was intended to deliver, not to just throw guests a bone. There's a big difference between genuine miscalculation and an intentional whiff, and this was the former.

GE is like the rest of the prequels... scorned because the company was making a strategic choice to try to create new space for the stories with new characters... instead of just 'recreate the old movies'. They had aging characters from the OT, they banked on their new cast and new timeline. A move that was hobbled by the fact the public didn't embrace the new cast and timeline.

I applaud their direction, they just bet on the wrong horse. The leaders were going to force that team to win.. and the public wasn't having it.

Luckily we have new creative leads in SW who actually know what makes for good star wars content.

 

[ToTBellHop]

How many more times will they reiterate that they’re going to do this before they actually…do something?

 

[doctornick]

How many more times will they reiterate that they’re going to do this before they actually…do something?

That's the thing, they can start actually "doing something" now. You don't even have to have a formal announcement - that can wait for D23 - but no reason they couldn't start working on whatever they plan to work on. Take a page from Uni's book and just build and deny anything for now.

 

[JD80]

Honestly I don't mind the blue sky stuff. I enjoy seeing concepts and ideas.

The issue is that when it's the only news you have, people negatively focus on it. I hope we continue to see blue sky stuff along the way.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

GE is like the rest of the prequels... scorned because the company was making a strategic choice to try to create new space for the stories with new characters... instead of just 'recreate the old movies'. They had aging characters from the OT, they banked on their new cast and new timeline. A move that was hobbled by the fact the public didn't embrace the new cast and timeline.

I applaud their direction, they just bet on the wrong horse. The leaders were going to force that team to win.. and the public wasn't having it.

Luckily we have new creative leads in SW who actually know what makes for good star wars content.

It was a terrible business decision

One of a lack of understanding and hubris

The record is written now

 

[MisterPenguin]

How many more times will they reiterate that they’re going to do this before they actually…do something?

They're saying what they're saying now in response to Peltz saying they don't have a plan. This is all for investors who want to hear that the cash cow of parks and ships will be more heavily invested in.

This is not at all to appease park fans.

This is why this all appears as a slide show on Vote Disney rather than show up in the Disney Park Blogs.

Of course, Peltz has less of a plan except this (which he said)... first do a cost analyses of any new builds in the parks to make sure that there will be a return of income on those builds. If a project doesn't look guaranteed to bring in significantly more people, it will be killed. Under Peltz, everything's coming up We Don't Talk About Bruno.

Looking at Disney's free cash squeeze between investing in streaming and buying Hulu, they didn't have the cash to start this already (except for all what they were already doing: EPCOT refresh, GotG, Ratatouille, the new mini-lands in the international parks, 2 new ships). But that will be changing soon as streaming becomes net positive and the Hulu deal is done.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Honestly I don't mind the blue sky stuff. I enjoy seeing concepts and ideas.

The issue is that when it's the only news you have, people negatively focus on it. I hope we continue to see blue sky stuff along the way.

Well you’d have to build to get credit for it

Something not being done except for bad timeshares in the US parks

 

[MisterPenguin]

Wouldn’t the $17B for WDW follow the same over arching formula (minus the DCL allocation)? That would translate to $6.4B set aside for tech/maintenance at WDW, with $10.6B left for expansion/refreshes. As Andrew25 points out above, hotels, water park, and other non-theme park alterations could also slice that $10.6B down further.

Still a substantial allocation.

The $17B for WDW was mentioned apart from the $60B announcement.

How the $17B is apportioned is unknown.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So now they’re gonna clean $60 billion off she hulk to pay for parks?

That’s GENIUS. Queue the Palmolive ads!!

 

[peter11435]

You really just post to hear yourself talk these day.

So now they’re gonna clean $60 billion off she hulk to pay for parks?

That’s GENIUS. Queue the Palmolive ads!!

Like I was saying….

 

[Tha Realest]

Imagine spending nearly $1 billion for just 1 ride and a land based on a pentology turned trilogy that clearly had no real direction.

If you believe Alicia Stella’s reporting, it seems they course-corrected and are basing their feature attraction around the trial of Dolores Umbridge for the events which took place in the mainline series.

So glad some of these creatives have the capacity to abandon rigid timelines and give guests what they want!

 

[MisterPenguin]

If you believe Alicia Stella’s reporting, it seems they course-corrected and are basing their feature attraction around the trial of Dolores Umbridge for the events which took place in the mainline series.

So glad some of these creatives have the capacity to abandon rigid timelines and give guests what they want!

Why, they went out of their way to abandon a whole second ride in the land. It's what guests want!

 

[Disstevefan1]

Honestly I don't mind the blue sky stuff. I enjoy seeing concepts and ideas.

The issue is that when it's the only news you have, people negatively focus on it. I hope we continue to see blue sky stuff along the way.

At least we get to look at cool stuff we know will never happen and the YouTubers like to talk about it, so there’s that too.