Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts Tres

[fosse76]

How many people here on July 8th even remember that films like Great Gatsby, After Earth, Oblivion, Hangover 3 were SUMMER releases?

To be fair, om The Great Gatsby is worth remembering (but just barely)!

 

[stlphil]

Ummm...it's pretty easy to track the number of guests in the park. Tickets are scanned. When I worked at Six Flags, we'd receive hourly updates on attendance. It's not rocket science. CMs at attractions, I'm sure, keep a rounded count of the number of guests per hour, pretty easily (if less accurately).

Unless there are periods when there is zero line at an attraction, which must be extremely rare for most attractions this time of year, attraction CM counts of guests per hour have no bearing on estimating total park attendance. That is, unless they are intentionally running an attraction at reduced capacity, which I know is something they do from time to time.

 

[fosse76]

Unless there are periods when there is zero line at an attraction, which must be extremely rare for most attractions this time of year, attraction CM counts of guests per hour have no bearing on estimating total park attendance. That is, unless they are intentionally running an attraction at reduced capacity, which I know is something they do from time to time.

I was responding to the assertion that even people who work at theme parks can't accurately estimate attendance. I was merely using the measurement of attraction attendance as an example of how there is a methodology to measure all types of attendance, not just overall park attendance.

 

[ScoutN]

It is a situation where Blackstone paid $2.7B for the properties in 2009 and current estimates value the properties at approximately $2B. They seem to be having a hard time recouping that $700M and they can either go long and invest heavily or sell some assets. I'm interested to see what they do since the IPO was used to pay off some of their debt.

The IPO was not used for SEAS to pay off debts. IIRC the bulk of IPO coin was pocketed by Blackstone just like the operating profits from '10, '11, and '12. This bit is fairly good. The expansions and additions have all been under debt which has hurt the agility of the stock bigtime.

"A portion of the proceeds from the initial public offering would be used to make a one-time payment to Blackstone, which put down $975 million in cash when it bought SeaWorld from Anheuser-Busch InBev and financed the remainder with debt. The firm also took dividend payments totaling $610 million out of SeaWorld in 2010 and 2011, meaning it has already earned back more than two-thirds of its initial investment."

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...parks-entertainment-ipo-diego-and-san-antonio

Who would by them? There is only a few companies that could do it. Would Cedar Fair buy them? God forbid Six Flags. I still can't believe all this that has happened to these parks all thanks to $#@%ing InBev's takeover. There are people I know who still refuse to ever drink any AB Beers ever again because of them. But you know I am sure there sales haven't been hurt since most people in the US don't give a crap where there stuff comes from.

All I know is whoever buys them better not ruin those parks esp BGW. I would hate for these parks to lose their world class status(and I bet the tourist industry in Tampa and Williamsburg wouldn't be happy) if they are sold to the wrong company.

I do not feel either of those two are at the top of the running. This situation is very fluid with things literally changing by the hour and seeing how the pieces fall in place.

BGW maintains a VERY finicky passholder population. It relies heavily on local loyalty some 30% of its operating days. The massive slip in quality ongoing right now is not setting well at all as these cuts are MASSIVE going on.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

I think I know the rationale - none of the princesses have female animal companions in their films (unless you count Suzy and Perla for Cinderella, and they're never even named in the film. I think Gus and Jaq would come to mind first). But think about it - Gus, Jaq, Philippe, Flounder, Samson, Maximus, Cri-Kee, Little Brother, Meeko, Rajah - all male. I think they correctly assumed that for something like this to work the characters need to be female.

And that's how this little racist abomination came to be!

Seriously - how condescending can it get? The Asian princess has a pet panda?! What's she gonna do when the darn thing weighs 800 lbs? I can't wait for the follow up product in the princess stereotype collection - Mulan Pretty Nail Manicure Salon playset - with real awkward upsells!

No comment on the 'racist' thing, since that's not the first (or last) thing to cross my mind.

The first was "wow, look how incredibly CHEAP it looks" Even the packaging resembles My Little Pony and/or Littlest Pet Shop. The figure itself looks like Littlest Pet Shop. Only cheaper grade plastic. How many of these will we see on store shelves with offcenter, chipped, poor done paint jobs? Probably most, if not all. Mass produced hunks of plastic garbage.

Although, yall, we're not kids. The current popular trend with kids (both boys and girls) are small sized everything- Littlest Pet Shop, those ittybitty My Little Pony (I used to have hundreds of the original ones from the 1980s, which are a far cry from the shameful crap out right now!) and those... Squeebles? Wibbles? are they called? They're super small little figures in plastic bubbles. So memorable, I forgot their name.

Anyhow, need to read the next few pages. Just wanted to unload this before continuing... I hope there's no more hamburger talk to come, it's almost lunch time and I'm positively starving.

Edit- Here's one of the "LPS" pandas... this demented little will eat your soul

 

[|Q|]

Point taken on the tightening up of things as folks tend to prattle, but without a pretty thorough re-write of the story it would be hard to cut 30 minutes on this one. The cannibal bunnies could be cut and save maybe 3 minutes. You could ditch the old man Tonto and the young boy sequences and maybe get close to 30 minutes, but that was a really good (and important IMHO) part of the movie. It was long, but no one that I noticed in my showing seemed bored during the movie. The movie may be a box office flop, but I don't believe the reason will be because it couldn't hold an audiences attention for 2.5 hours.

editing is not about cutting scenes (mostly) but giving them a rythm, the right timing. I haven't seen the movie (and not planning to), but in Gore Verbinski's PotC movies I think despite the convulted plot I think a lot could have been easily cut and you would end up with a better, tighter movie.

 

[Rodan75]

If you know anything about Hollywood and the way the entertainment business is run, then you know that what many may term conspiracy theories are simply part of the bizarre way the industry operates. I don't know what happened with TLR. I do know that Disney's former studio head completely sabotaged a film that casued his company to write off $200 million and sent him packing. In any sane business that wouldn't happen, no one ever said show business was sane.

The movie has summer blockbuster written all over it. It shouldn't have misfired at all, let alone to this degree.

Been catching up on TV from earlier in June and I have to say that the ads for TLR are pretty bad. They convey almost zero emotion or heart to the movie...it is like 'come see Johnny Depp, Trains and a cute guy and everyone is on horses'. I noticed the same lack of emotion in the ads for John Carter. Go back and look at the ads for Star Trek, IM3 and MoS and you get a lot of emotional resonance and action. Disney is capable of better promotion and failure here reads more like an issue with the passion for the project than sabotage.

 

[wserratore1963]

Seriously is there no creativity any more!

 

[Texas84]

Solve? I don't see that as the purpose of these forums. We're here to talk about themed entertainment and WDW in particular because, it can be assumed, we enjoy those things.

Personally, I'm here to either educate and/or entertain ... and, possibly, to annoy some people in the exec suites.

It wasn't a rhetorical question. I didn't want to go back and read 22 pages.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

Been catching up on TV from earlier in June and I have to say that the ads for TLR are pretty bad. They convey almost zero emotion or heart to the movie...it is like 'come see Johnny Depp, Trains and a cute guy and everyone is on horses'. I noticed the same lack of emotion in the ads for John Carter. Go back and look at the ads for Star Trek, IM3 and MoS and you get a lot of emotional resonance and action. Disney is capable of better promotion and failure here reads more like an issue with the passion for the project than sabotage.

You know what's really great about not having cable TV? I'm so blissfully ignorant to everything- the local news (I don't care who killed who overnight or who was robbed or why the parking lot at the mon wharf is not open) and also to all commercials including those for movies. I have to actively seek out previews and ads that people on this board reference just to know what they're talking about.

From the ads I saw for TLR, I'm simply not interested. Westerns aren't my thing. And I'm kinda over Johnny Depp. I'll see it eventually- probably when it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray.


I'm the type that movie studios really have to try hard to impress. I don't have ads in my face at all times. Sometimes, movies only look attracting because you see the preview over and over and over... but for me that doesn't happen. You gotta WOW me on the first showing, otherwise, I'm not gonna be that interested. I do realize that I'm not the norm in regards to not having cable (by choice) but more and more folks around my age group are ditching cable due to its cost, and opting to go with Netflix, Hulu+, etc.

 

[Magenta Panther]

*DING**DING**DING* Winner!

It goes deeper than just that one picture. Much deeper. Each princess gets a pony (of course!), a puppy, etc.

I feel sorry for that guy...


Also, those Princess Ponies look a heck of a lot like the My Little Ponies, but then, the My Little Ponies look a heck of a lot like this:

So as theft goes, it's kinda justifiable, I guess.

 

[Rodan75]

New Miceage article is up this morning. Relatively positive - GAC is getting fixed, Monsters is getting rushed, makeover of the classic Fantasyland Dark Rides is still in the pipe and the Starwars bike coaster will be included in a tomorrow land makeover.

Although the way the article is written about D23, they don't seem totally sure about announcement or no-announcements. They wouldn't leave themselves so many outs in case they end up being wrong as @WDW1974 keeps suggesting.

Also I enjoy how they continually pooh-pooh WDW. Even when it is to say it IS getting something, it is downplayed.

That MiceAge article seems a little too CA focused for it not to be biased by the MiceAge CA focus. Hopefully WDW will get more love than they are implying.

 

[Magenta Panther]

I know I stated this earlier in the thread but will state it again, westerns are nowhere near as popular as they were years and years ago! And to top that statement, every western that has come out in the last 10-15 years or so have been really bad. It reminds me of early 90's horror movie decline in a way.

I also think that the release date was a bad choice as well. I think if this came out during the November/ December holiday season, it most certainly would have made more than $30 million stateside on its opening weekend!

On another note, has anyone seen that new poll post about D23 and speculation if they will announce anything or not? I thought this was already covered here on the boards!

Lastly, after watching DM2 this afternoon I have to say that the new animated movies coming out look awful! The previews were really bad and I can't even believe some of these films are being made! I think the only good trailer I saw was for cloudy 2! And what's with that Lego Movie! It seems so scatterbrained!!!! Although my 5 year old wants to see it because he's obsessed with the Lego games on Xbox!

That "Turbo" one was the worst IMO...

 

[Magenta Panther]

Wait... I can't tell if you are serious. Pandas are famously Chinese, and the Chinese people have long been very proud of them. Mulan is Chinese. She has a pet Panda bear. How is this "racist"?

Racist - adjective
1. a belief in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is superior to any or all others

Or is my sarcasm meter just really off tonight?

I would think the bigger issue here is that Mulan's Panda is purple and blue and wears fake eyelashes. Not that it's a Chinese Panda bear.

Plus it has a fluffy tail. It looks more like a squirrel.

 

[DougK]

Free Dine was introduced late this year because they were hoping to not need it at all. They're playing catch-up in that regard.

What were they basing that hope on? A not-yet-complete New Fantastyland? Something else? I mean, there is nothing else new to drive business at WDW, lots of stuff may be coming, but nothing much is open yet except for the partially finished New Fantasyland. So how were they planning to make up for the business brought in by the ever-so-popular Free Dining? Do they really think bookings will increase because of FP+ and 60 day ride reservations?

 

[culturenthrills]

The IPO was not used for SEAS to pay off debts. IIRC the bulk of IPO coin was pocketed by Blackstone just like the operating profits from '10, '11, and '12. This bit is fairly good. The expansions and additions have all been under debt which has hurt the agility of the stock bigtime.

"A portion of the proceeds from the initial public offering would be used to make a one-time payment to Blackstone, which put down $975 million in cash when it bought SeaWorld from Anheuser-Busch InBev and financed the remainder with debt. The firm also took dividend payments totaling $610 million out of SeaWorld in 2010 and 2011, meaning it has already earned back more than two-thirds of its initial investment."

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...parks-entertainment-ipo-diego-and-san-antonio



I do not feel either of those two are at the top of the running. This situation is very fluid with things literally changing by the hour and seeing how the pieces fall in place.

BGW maintains a VERY finicky passholder population. It relies heavily on local loyalty some 30% of its operating days. The massive slip in quality ongoing right now is not setting well at all as these cuts are MASSIVE going on.

I can tell you right now they are ed off. I have friends who are longtime passholders and they are really upset with all the cutbacks on top of some of the BGW forums I have checked out. BGW has had cutbacks before but that was do to low attendance or the economy. They have never cut entertainment this far back. The biggest thing is cutting of staff for restaurants which is creating lines that normally wouldn't happen and cutting the number of trains running on the coasters. It is just sad. I have been going to that park since it first opened when I was just a wee lad. We were passholders almost ever year until I moved to Florida. I grew up in Virginia Beach and then lived in Richmond. Even though KD was closer when I was in Richmond I still went to BGW more. BGW has always been a world class park. It is one of the most beautiful and unique parks in the world. Until I was older and traveled the country visiting other parks did I realize how lucky I was to grow up with BGW as my home park. Its theming is pretty impressive outside of Disney and the setting in a valley just is so beautiful. It is really disappointing to see this going on.

 

[ScoutN]

I can tell you right now they are ed off. I have friends who are longtime passholders and they are really upset with all the cutbacks on top of some of the BGW forums I have checked out. BGW has had cutbacks before but that was do to low attendance or the economy. They have never cut entertainment this far back. The biggest thing is cutting of staff for restaurants which is creating lines that normally wouldn't happen and cutting the number of trains running on the coasters. It is just sad. I have been going to that park since it first opened when I was just a wee lad. We were passholders almost ever year until I moved to Florida. I grew up in Virginia Beach and then lived in Richmond. Even though KD was closer when I was in Richmond I still went to BGW more. BGW has always been a world class park. It is one of the most beautiful and unique parks in the world. Until I was older and traveled the country visiting other parks did I realize how lucky I was to grow up with BGW as my home park. Its theming is pretty impressive outside of Disney and the setting in a valley just is so beautiful. It is really disappointing to see this going on.

I live about 20 minutes from the park. Typically I would have been over 25 times at this point in the season but hardly been this year. I am past well aware of the cuts. Some of them have been broken by very close friends of mine and myself on a different site. Odds have it that you have read it. I would hold the ride cutbacks over the dining ones. Lines are gaining length drastically as the number of vehicles on attractions are being reduced. If you want to see the state of BGW Entertainment then look no farther than the Illuminight show in Ireland Killarney Kommotion. There is a HQ video on YouTube of it.

 

[ChrisM]

I absolutely don't get the incoherent criticism at all. This isn't a film like Tron: Legacy or the last few PotC films. It is pretty damn straight forward, which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. Where the hell is @Lee with his deep hillbilly thoughts?

To be fair, you've also established yourself as a big fan of Lindelof's screenwriting, which makes it entirely clear you place no value on coherence in a script.

Such is life.

 

[|Q|]

So ... is Pacific Rim just a non-Transformers, Transformers? Cause that's what it looks like to me and I have no desire to see it.

Looks like in Pacific Rim you'll be actually able to tell what's goin on on the screen, like who's kicking whose butt. The Transformer movies are a mess.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I absolutely don't get the incoherent criticism at all. This isn't a film like Tron: Legacy or the last few PotC films. It is pretty damn straight forward, which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. Where the hell is @Lee with his deep hillbilly thoughts?

Who on here will be buying The Lone Ranger on Blu Ray? I know I will be.