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

[yensidtlaw1969]

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.

In fairness, what exactly were they supposed to do? As you said, the OT characters were aging. The Force Awakens basically was a recreation of A New Hope, to a fault - much more shared DNA there than any of the prequels had. Agreed that bad writing let down the newer generation cast and people didn't actually take to them, but when tickets were selling and toys were selling it wasn't irrational for Disney to think they had something.

The other factor is that they nearly overcome this with Rise of the Resistance, which is (by all accounts other than one or two) an absolute smash. As if the answer is, as ever, to make a thing that's so good on its own it transcends the source material. A version of Rise based around the original trilogy would certainly also be popular, Rise as built is so popular that the needle doesn't have much space to move. It's really everything else in the land that's the problem because none of it hits the way Rise does.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

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!

That's not really a course-correction - the ride was always planned to do that.

The course-correction is that they revealed that on park announcement to assure guests there'd be something worthwhile over there. The plan initially was to keep the jump secret until you were on the ride.

It does help that this property in particular features elements of magical travel across space and time. Not every property has that built in.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

$60B in investments.

yep…that’s what they’ve said

70% in Experiences growing capacity. That's $42B for all the parks and cruise lines.

is that what they’ve said?

WDW gets $17B. That's 40% of the $42B for all the parks and cruise lines.

is that what they’ve said?

Star Wars Land was $1B. So... that's 17 more lands on the order of SWL. And even if only half of that is spent on new park footprint, that's at least 8 new mega-lands in the next decade. Much more lands if they're mini-lands.

that’s NOT what they’ve said.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Honestly I don't think the skepticism is that misplaced. And it's really Disney's doing. When you go two straight years where your big announcements for WDW (which is what most here care about) have been "Wouldn't it be cool if we did something like this. No plans, and it's not even approved, but imagine," people are skeptical about all this new stuff. Add on the Iger speak of (again) "We have enough land we COULD do 7 parks," and the construction people are seeing right now being DVC and one rethemed ride, and people just aren't jumping up and down at the numbers yet.

I will say I personally have no doubt they are intending to spend that money (like has been said, it's been filed, they HAVE to have intention), but I don't think you can discount things change (proxy fight could be a major thing), especially when nothing has been announced or even started. People just don't believe in the company to do things they say at this point.

The vague blue sky stuff bothers me far less than the announced stuff that simply never gets done.

Still waiting on the Mary Poppins area, still waiting on the Play pavilion, still waiting on the Primeval whirl replacement, still waiting on the Avengers e-ticket, still waiting on the SSE overhaul…

Covid derailed a lot of things but it’s been 3.5 years and they still haven’t restarted any of the delayed projects, instead we got Tiana (something that wasn’t announced) and they’re now announcing “new” projects… there’s a reason a lot of us won’t get excited until we see dirt moving, we’ve been burned too many times before.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The vague blue sky stuff bothers me far less than the announced stuff that simply never gets done.

Still waiting on the Mary Poppins area, still waiting on the Play pavilion, still waiting on the Primeval whirl replacement, still waiting on the Avengers e-ticket, still waiting on the SSE overhaul…

Covid derailed a lot of things but it’s been 3.5 years and they still haven’t restarted any of the delayed projects, instead we got Tiana (something that wasn’t announced) and they’re now announcing “new” projects… there’s a reason a lot of us won’t get excited until we see dirt moving, we’ve been burned too many times before.

The play pavilion is the one

They literally lied they were working on something to mask a roof replacement and a gut for storage

The “we need to find the money” from Slaphead on the quinjet at Disneyland was a Beaut too

 

[peter11435]

The play pavilion is the one

They literally lied they were working on something to mask a roof replacement and a gut for storage

The “we need to find the money” from Slaphead on the quinjet at Disneyland was a Beaut too

The play pavilion was not a lie. You really need to stop making things up.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The play pavilion was not a lie. You really need to stop making things up.

I haven’t walked into it…so you need to stop carrying the bucket for bad management…if you can?

That’s standard middle management/low level WDI nonsense…”it was real…but…”

We’ve been at this far too long to coddle that stuff

 

[peter11435]

I haven’t walked into it…so you need to stop carrying the bucket for bad management…if you can?

You haven’t walked in to it because the project was cancelled. That doesn’t mean it was a lie. Again… you think you know things when you really don’t.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You haven’t walked in to it because the project was cancelled. That doesn’t mean it was a lie. Again… you think you know things when you really don’t.

A lot of things are “cancelled” without replacement

It’s still a mothballed eyesore right smack in view in a park.

Explain to me how getting a few nametags worked up years ago matters?

It doesn’t…never did

I’ll take up a collection so we can afford it? Who’s got $0.25 to give?

 

[lazyboy97o]

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

Could you imagine if Disney replaced two attractions with one small roller coaster?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Like I was saying….

We’re all hear to hear ourselves talk to a certain degree

Some just do it to spray opinions

Some do it to try to lead a double life as a James Bond embedded “secret insider”

Both can be tedious

 

[Jrb1979]

Could you imagine if Disney replaced two attractions with one small roller coaster?

Different type of guests. I have always felt if you can only do family coasters than don't bother. Coasters aren't and will never be for story telling.

 

[peter11435]

A lot of things are “cancelled” without replacement

It’s still a mothballed eyesore right smack in view in a park.

Explain to me how getting a few nametags worked up years ago matters?

It doesn’t…never did

I’ll take up a collection so we can afford it? Who’s got $0.25 to give?

I never said there was a replacement for the cancelled project or that the current pavilion isn’t an eyesore. But again. It was a real project. With real work done.

I’m not even sure what the second half of your post is trying to say.

 

[peter11435]

We’re all hear to hear ourselves talk to a certain degree

Some just do it to spray opinions

Some do it to try to lead a double life as a James Bond embedded “secret insider”

Both can be tedious

And you do it to derail conversations, make things up, and pretend like you know what you’re talking about?

 

[Horizonsfan]

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

How the $17B is apportioned is unknown.

Hold up, the $17B is very clearly part of the $60B they’re planning. Otherwise they’d say $77B in the filing.

 

[Jrb1979]

And you do it to derail conversations, make things up, and pretend like you know what you’re talking about?

And you and others defend Disney to the death

 

[doctornick]

Hold up, the $17B is very clearly part of the $60B they’re planning. Otherwise they’d say $77B in the filing.

Correct. He is only saying that they mentioned the $17B separately from the $60M. Part of the $60B is $17B allocated to WDW (or I think more correctly "Florida" so it could involve some non-parks specific stuff).

But we do not know exactly what fraction of the $17B will go directedly to building stuff in the parks. vs other things like resorts vs how much is for technology or maintenance.

 

[BrianLo]

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

How the $17B is apportioned is unknown.

It was a political manuever so they definitely are presenting the ‘biggest number possible’. It would include maintenance, hotel refurbs, DVC etc. beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Thinking WDW is going to get more than 12-ish billion in growth related Capex is a bit unreasonable. But also the people turning 12 billion into a DVC + a snack stand are also too far gone the other way.

 

[James Alucobond]

And you and others defend Disney to the death

Not being negative 100% of the time ≠ defending to the death.

 

[BrianLo]

Yes. They announced a commitment to spend $60B in a specific company division in the next 10 years. This announcement provided more specifics on how that $60B will be divided. It’s fine to be disappointed that they aren’t spending a greater percentage of that money on the parks, but there’s nothing they’ve “promised” and then retracted subsequently.

Nothing has been “watered down”

Exactly. Literally the only insight we gained was a dollar figure they are spending on DCL. So we no longer are forced to listen to a bunch of posters spin tales about how they’ll spend 60 billion on cruises.

Since WDW is weirdly the one thing we already know, it really just tells us two factors; how much the other parks are getting amongst the lot and that DCL is probably planning on putting an order in for four ships. This is probably going to occur somewhat soon I’d imagine. The tail these orders generally have would put them through the entire capex window. Ie they probably couldn’t order something before 2028 even if they wanted to and then subsequent ships come every 18 months or so thereafter.

@SplashJacket highlighted some rough figures. They are a tad generous. Adventure is only getting a billion additional capital and I think the Treasure/3rd are more around 1.25 with current industry costs. But I also wonder how much of that capital has been pre-spent prior to the clock starting October 1st 2024.

So I’ll go one further, it could be up to 6 ships, an order for 3-4 and option for building the other 2-3. Or if they scale upwards size wise from the Triton class it would make sense for 4 moderate-mega vessels.

Which would, much to probably lots of people’s dismay, make DCL the one thing actually locked in after Iger’s departure.