Doesn't appear so.
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On layoffs, very bad attendance, and Iger's legacy being one of disgrace
- Thread starter pheneix
- Start date
Well, if we're not going to get another National Treasure installment, they can make it up to me by building a "Presidential Book of Secrets: Page 47" dark ride.
I don’t like massive media conglomerates myself although I blame various aspects of the American political and economic system more than I blame individual actors.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
This is a Disney World fan site.
ImperfectPixie
Well-Known Member
The system wouldn't be the way it is without individual actors.
Indeed, that’s a very fun philosophical conundrum, but I guess I’m more a fan of preventing the paving of the way that allowed Iger to build up a cartoonishly evilly large multimedia empire than I am interested in guillotining him personally for having done it
Yeah, Disney World, the fantastic achievement of a comparatively small animation studio, left to be neglected and riding its own coattails in the age of the Disney Media Empire
Miss Bella
Well-Known Member
How’s that? I feel like your trying to provoke me on multiple threads, but I’m not taking the bait.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
This narrative is revisionist, but go off.
[EDIT: A few people here (see posts down-thread) that I trust have indicated that it is not, in fact, revisionist to say that Disney was a comparatively small animation studio when WDW was built in 1971. I thank them for the input, rescind my objection, commit to further reading on the matter, and apologize to @Prog for saying that his take was revisionist.]
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Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
Revisionist? Where?
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Disney wasn’t a “comparatively small animation studio” when WDW opened in 1971.
Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
Comparatively. I guess to today?
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
It was very small. At most Walt Disney Productions was a mini-major, but definitely not one of the major studios.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Putting things into perspective:
Disney released 5 movies to theaters in 1971 [the previous year, only 3]. They had one TV show (The Wonderful World of Disney), two theme parks and the other components of WDW at the time. The Disneyland Hotel was not owned by them. Merchandising, educational films/licenses and reissues were their only other sources of revenue.
It wasn't until the 80s that Disney had its own cable channel, other studio brands, international parks, retail stores, home video etc.
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
Interestingly, I have Disney's annual report for 1972 (which covers from October 1971 to September 1972, the first 12 months of WDW operations).
Total film rental revenue from all sources (i.e. live action and animation) was $78.3M, about $485M in inflation-adjusted dollars.
By comparison, theme park revenue from WDW and Disneyland was $223.4M, or 67.8% of total company revenue.
An often forgotten fact of corporate Disney history is that from 1972 to 1990, The Walt Disney Company derived more than half of its annual revenue from its theme parks.
For nearly 2 decades, Disney primarily was a theme park company.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
And that was with fewer parks than they have now.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
This is probably why Eisner was so bullish about expanding WDW and building Euro Disney within his first 5 years of being CEO.
He knew where most of the money was coming from.
He knew where most of the money was coming from.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
You can find scans of the 1971 Annual Report online. Total revenue in 1970 and 1971 didn’t even top $200 million. What makes that really crazy is when you consider that Walt Disney World Phase 1 cost about $400 million.
I meant compared to what it is today. And not even necessarily in 1971; even since 1998, when DAK opened.
My main point, though, was that being a fan of the parks should not necessitate simping for the empire
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
As you an @lazyboy97o both note, Walt Disney Productions was one of the smaller Hollywood studios. Even though it was known for its cutting edge animation, other studios were cranking out cheap-to-produce, high volume animation. Many of Disney's famous "classics" were money losers during their initial runs.
Once Disneyland opened in 1955, corporate Disney derived nearly half of its revenue from Disneyland. Disneyland largely kept corporate Disney solvent from 1955 to 1971. Once WDW opened in October 1971, Disney became a theme park company.
I was a child during Disney's lean years - most Disney productions were pretty bad after Mary Poppins in 1964. Just look at the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films#1960s
It took Michael Eisner years to revive Disney's studio productions.