Interview with Bob Iger about the Parks

[Homer fan]

Disney parks have not always been strictly IP and licensing like Universal. We wouldn't have things like Space, HM, Pirates, CoP, BTMRR, etc. if that was the case.

Like you said though less IP to work with then. That said no need to not only make IP baed attractions. Mystic Manor in HK for example is not IP based and considered a great attraction. Disney should be creating IP based attraction but I think there is definitely room for non-IP attractions every once and a while as well.

I don't see issues with IP's. When I first came back to the parks as an adult, I was shocked how little IP was actually in the parks (2004).
I think attaching IP's helps people relate better to an attraction or land. I mean, the Beauty and the Beast area of New Fantasyland wouldn't feel as magical if not tied to the movie. Just look at Be Our Guest!

And while there is a nostalgia factor to original attractions, there are still enough of those around to form a good mix.

 

[Rteetz]

isn't Mystic Manor part of S.E.A.?

i just think that once Disney aquired a ton of IP through acquisitions the days of projects being approved that are not IP based ended.

The door is shut.

Yes it is SEA which other than Skipper Canteen and Miss Adventure Falls hasn't done much in WDW. I would certainly welcome more SEA.

 

[Rteetz]

I don't see issues with IP's. When I first came back to the parks as an adult, I was shocked how little IP was actually in the parks (2004).
I think attaching IP's helps people relate better to an attraction or land. I mean, the Beauty and the Beast area of New Fantasyland wouldn't feel as magical if not tied to the movie. Just look at Be Our Guest!

And while there is a nostalgia factor to original attractions, there are still enough of those around to form a good mix.

I don't dislike IP attractions. I am just saying there are original attractions that can be made and do well today like Mystic Manor.

 

[jt04]

Okay, out of energy for today. Be back tomorrow.

 

[montyz81]

I know most will disagree but I'm a HUGE fan of Igor.

He is an incredibly clever businessman. He's made a lot of purchases and business choices which will set Disney up for many many more years. Without those decisions, I think things would be quite stale.

Comcast-Universal agrees with you and is probably Iger's # 1 fan! (Few, thank god Iger ist here, maybe we can catch up to Disney now)

Sorry just trying to be funny. Truth be told, I believe Disney will win out from a revenue and attendance perspective over the next 5 years. From an immersion perspective, Universal will also catch up to Disney in the next 5 years. The only that will make Disney better is that Disney has a greater amount of lucrative IP.... just my opinion.

 

[TwilightZone]

My god, there's so much good he did for the parks I forgot about.
I think that's the main problem, there's such large spots between openings and closings that we forgot all of the good things he has done.

 

[Rteetz]

My god, there's so much good he did for the parks I forgot about.
I think that's the main problem, there's such large spots between openings and closings that we forgot all of the good things he has done.

And there is a lot of good Eisner did too.

 

[TwilightZone]

And there is a lot of good Eisner did too.

True, true.
Hindsight is 20/20. Years from now, I bet there will be a similar discussion like this about the future CEO, whoever it will turn out to be.

 

[Rteetz]

True, true.
Hindsight is 20/20. Years from now, I bet there will be a similar discussion like this about the future CEO, whoever it will turn out to be.

There are pros and cons to every CEO. Personally I think Eisner was better for WDW than Iger has been but both have done good things and bad things.

 

[TwilightZone]

There are pros and cons to every CEO. Personally I think Eisner was better for WDW than Iger has been but both have done good things and bad things.

Yep, my thinking is like this:
Eisner's problem was that he was too ambitious and became too much of a penny pincher post Paris
Iger's problem is that he's too safe. He's a little bit of a penny pincher, but not as bad as Eisner so far.

 

[Stripes]

I agree however like you mentioned original attractions can still work so why not try it once in a while. I don't think they should stop IP altogether but an original attraction in a place that fits might do well. Take guardians for example. They basically made up a storyline to fit the IP in Epcot because we all know it really doesn't. Why not an original futuristic type coaster?

I agree that an original attraction would be a breath of fresh air. That said, I am going to wait before making a judgement of GotG. Disney has some damn good storytellers, and I still have hope they can form a storyline that's cohesive to the park and the IP. We'll see though.

Epcot is treated differently compared to the other parks when it comes to IP. Nobody has a problem with IP going into MK, DHS, or DAK. But Epcot is another story. It's also a park whose ideals are hard to accomplish today due to the prevalence of the internet, in my opinion. Why would you travel to a theme park, and pay a high price to enter just to learn about something when everything you could possibly learn about it is at your fingertips these days?

The only hope I have for Disney pulling the trigger on an original D/E attraction is if there's a character that can be heavily marketed, like Duffy, whose merch will sell like hotcakes.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Saying that you dislike Iger for IPs is fine.
Ignoring he actually improved a lot of areas in the parks is not.

Improved what? The beautiful, immaculately maintained amusement park is still not a theme park.

You are correct. He is a great businessman. The parks and resorts are a part of The Walt Disney Company. He can’t have tunnel vision and spend everything on the parks. How many billions have they spent at WDW lately?

Iger’s problem isn’t the amount of money spent [recently]. Under Iger costs have soared uncontrollably. What bought Expedition Everest at the start of his tenure now buys Pixar Pier.

Personally I think a lot of people put their gripes towards Igor when actually a lot of the buck probably stops at Chapek. For such a large company, I doubt Igor gets involved too much in individual parts. For Parks and resorts he probabaly was involved in getting Star Wars lands moving but when it comes to cost savings, and cheapening out on things like Toy story land, that's down to Chapek.

Igor will have given him budgets and targets to meet like any boss should, problem is that Chapek is the wrong person for the job.

Chapek is following orders that predate his tenure.

I think it's only natural today that a CEO is going to go with the option the provides the best ROI.

There is nothing that proves that franchises provide the best returns. If they did, many other parks would be doing far more business.

 

[TwilightZone]

Improved what? The beautiful, immaculately maintained amusement park is still not a theme park.

I made a list earlier, it's not everything, though.

Let's see now:
Shanghai Disney
Carsland
Replacing all of the downgraded and bad attractions in DHS with new lands
Closing SGE for good
Replacing the dated Ellen ride
Upgrading DCA
While still a sore spot for some, made DCA's TOT rerideable like the WDW one
Added a new night parade in disneyland/DCA
New Fantasyland
Miss Adventure Falls
Disney Springs
He has far from been bad for the parks.

 

[Stripes]

There is nothing that proves that franchises provide the best returns. If they did, many other parks would be doing far more business.

There's a lot of factors, but IP has the benefit of being easily marketable. This, in conjunction with a pre-exposed familiarity increases attendance and merch sales. I think arguing that original attractions with equal execution would produce greater or equal revenue growth compared to IP-based attractions is a tough mountain to climb. The inclusion of IP is far from being the sole dictator of monetary success, but it's always going to help.

 

[Tom P.]

There are pros and cons to every CEO. Personally I think Eisner was better for WDW than Iger has been but both have done good things and bad things.

I think there's no question that, considering the entirety of their tenures, Eisner was better for the theme parks than Iger has been. But do you think that holds true to the other aspects of the company? Was Eisner better for the film studio, for example, than Iger has been?

 

[JoeCamel]

True, true.
Hindsight is 20/20. Years from now, I bet there will be a similar discussion like this about the future CEO, whoever it will turn out to be.

For ten years he proclaimed the parks as a "mature revenue source", so no investment. Take off the glasses
Universal showed him he was wrong.

 

[TP2000]

Did we have this detail before?

"When Star Wars opens in Anaheim in June"

Nope, we certainly didn't. The smart money was on June anyway, but it's nice of the CEO to confirm that for us and make it official.

The rest of the article was typical softball interview stuff, but that announcement of Star Wars Land opening in June at Disneyland is big. Big!

 

[TP2000]

They saw Universal do it with success on Harry Potter, and they decided to copy it.

To be more accurate, they didn't know Universal would do Harry Potter "with success".

Potterland opened in 2010, a year after they'd already broken ground on Cars Land. And Cars Land set the bar even higher for how successful an IP Land can be, but it was already designed and under construction when Potterland opened and proved that Disney's hunch was right.

 

[Rteetz]

I think there's no question that, considering the entirety of their tenures, Eisner was better for the theme parks than Iger has been. But do you think that holds true to the other aspects of the company? Was Eisner better for the film studio, for example, than Iger has been?

Eisner had good points with the Studios. He brought in ABC. There is also the Disney renaissance as some call it with films like Mermaid, BATB, Lion Kion, etc.

 

[ChrisFL]

I'm not sure if he was intentionally calling out Expedition Everest, a bit of a weird thing to say, unless he thinks there's some other coaster out there that's cheaply done (??) Disney execs usually don't try to bad-mouth their own attractions, even if they don't like them.