The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

[ford91exploder]

No one here but myself will like it. Those will be the same people hating Avatar.

EDIT - Wow, have I turned cynical... Not like me...

I personally LIKE the Star Wars series, But one must admit Disney''s recent live action tentpoles have been critical and financial failures and based on past performance why should a Star Wars property be any different???

 

[danv3]

Brooks Barnes goes back to kissing TWDC's butt.
http://t.co/TG4JxG5QvQ
Iger/Staggs claim NGE/MyMagic+ hasn't gone over budget, but it has.

Remember boys and girls: RIDE YOUR MAGIC BANDS!

Money quote buried in the article:

“We have a positive view of the project, and technology this complex always takes longer than you expect to roll out,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at the research firm MoffettNathanson. “But we’re still trying to figure out how to measure the return on what is a rather large investment. That’s where the frustration is.”

 

[ford91exploder]

As to creative content THEN and NOW

This popped up

Disney Channel movies from the Late 90's to the early Nought's

movies.answers.com/children/disney-channel-original-movies-you-forgot-about?param4=znt#slide=1

Much more creative than the crap seen on same channel today.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Brooks Barnes goes back to kissing TWDC's butt.
http://t.co/TG4JxG5QvQ
Iger/Staggs claim NGE/MyMagic+ hasn't gone over budget, but it has.

Remember boys and girls: RIDE YOUR MAGIC BANDS!

IMHO, the article was balanced, recognizing that any Disney representative and any financial analyst is going to have nothing but positive things to say publically at this juncture. (If they want to stay employed. )

Regarding budget, the proof is in Staggs' own words:

“Certain things have taken longer to make broadly available than we initially would have liked, but our rollout was designed to be flexible to ensure that the guest experience was always our first priority.”

Anyone who has managed a multimillion dollar budget knows that delays result in overruns.

Besides, I've been guilty of saying that a program is within (its current) budget, never mind that it grossly overran its first two budgets. It all depends on how you define budget.

 

[Funmeister]

Disney doesn't need the Magic Band's tracking abilities to get accurate attraction counts; They've had that information all along (initially with turnstiles). They already know how many people ride Spaceship Earth or that Sounds Dangerous used to attract small crowds and have always been able to make decisions based on that information. Speaking solely of attraction count information, I can't see much advantage which the Magic Band's tracking capabilities give over simply counting the number of warm bodies passing through the entrance.

Actually there is a HUGE benefit from an operations stand point. THey will be able to see crowd density in the parks. At one time it was presented that by seeing where the crowds were in the park the fast pass machines could print other fast passes for other attractions to disperse the crowds.

For instance...

Let's say the end of Sunset Blvd. by RnR and ToT and Fantsmic and BatB is just swamped with people. The other side of the park by Muppets and Star Tours is extremely light. They would be able to see this and the ToT/RnR Fast Pass machines would then give out some Fast Passes with a very small return window to entice the guests to leave that area and go to the less populated area.

Not sure if they will ever implement this. It also included building discrete arches throughout the parks to monitor guest flow. (Like the entr woway to Adventureland. You would never know you are actually walking through a MM+ band arch.)

The tracking is/will be for operations use and not necessarily attraction demographics.

 

[doctornick]

Before they could only say 'X riders got on Space Mountain' - now they can attach demographics to those counts as well. How many old people, how many young, men, women, kids, etc. Then you have all the ability to track bodies outside the attractions to do things like crowd modeling. You can do things like track how bodies move THROUGH the park (guests go clockwise, or go through the hub, etc). Those are just examples of things that can be done in aggregate. Then there are countless things they can do when profiling individual's behaviors, etc.

There is a huge difference between counting anonymous blobs and blobs you can identify as a specific blob.. and one that someone has provided demographic data on prior.

Yeah, the MB can track higher levels of details of behavior. For example, they might find that a certain percentage of people walked up to Space Mountain but walked away when the wait was 45+ minutes. They could theoretically then see what those people did next -- go to Buzz or TTA or went to Cosmic Rays, whatever. Heck, now they can see people get into line, but leave the line if it moves too slowly. Point being, they can more accurately map people's behavior than they can just by doing a turnstile count at the ride itself.

 

[WDWDad13]

So far all of Disney's live action features have been critical and financial failures, Why should a Star Wars flick be any different.

Just a realist no longer blinded by the pixie dust.

wait... all the Pirate movies and recent Marvel movies were critical and financial failures?

 

[ford91exploder]

hmmm... all the Pirate movies and recent Marvel movies were critical and financial failures?

The cool billion they lost on the 'Lone Ranger' and 'John Carter',

The Avengers/Thor were made FOR Disney not BY Disney.

Since the next Thor movie will be made BY Disney the director and producer and even the composer for the score have bailed out of the project a real vote of confidence there in Disney's live action skills. (ie they want no part of a large scale failure).

The last 2 PoTC movie(s) were lets face it pathetic and did not even recoup production and distribution costs so yeah I would say they were financial failures, As a result the 5'th in the series has not been greenlit.

 

[Lord_Vader]

wait... all the Pirate movies and recent Marvel movies were critical and financial failures?

Don't forget The Muppets, Saving Mr. Banks, Great and Wonderful Oz, and Alice in Wonderland (well maybe not too profitable on the last two but were profitable.)

They were all flops of epic proportions!

 

[ford91exploder]

Don't forget The Muppets, Saving Mr. Banks, Great and Wonderful Oz, and Alice in Wonderland (well maybe not too profitable on the last two but were profitable.)

They were all flops of epic proportions!

To my discredit I did not even associate those with Disney... A clear case of confirmation bias on my part (ie a decent live action film cannot come from Disney Studios)

 

[jt04]

Don't forget The Muppets, Saving Mr. Banks, Great and Wonderful Oz, and Alice in Wonderland (well maybe not too profitable on the last two but were profitable.)

They were all flops of epic proportions!

Alice took in over a billion dollars globally and ranks 16th on the all-time list. Success like that makes up for the flops. Animation was hit and miss too for awhile but now seems to be hitting on all cylinders. I expect the same to happen with live action. As I have oft said, it takes time to change corporate culture and Disney was a mess. Iger continues the amazing turnaround.

Alice is a great example of how people only see the failures and conveniently ignore the hits.

And the buzz on the new Captain America is compelling. Due to a weak slate of summer movies I expect it could be the biggest hit yet for Disney's Marvel division.

Carry on.

 

[jt04]

To my discredit I did not even associate those with Disney... A clear case of confirmation bias on my part (ie a decent live action film cannot come from Disney Studios)

And I thought you were just trolling.

 

[Gomer]

The last 2 PoTC movie(s) were lets face it pathetic and did not even recoup production and distribution costs so yeah I would say they were financial failures, As a result the 5'th in the series has not been greenlit.

Pirates 3 and 4 may not have been as profitable as the first 2, but I would hardly call them financial failures. Boxofficemojo.com has them at $950 million and $1.05 billion worldwide with production budgets of $300m and $250m respectively. Regardless of advertisement and distribution budgets which are an unknown, I doubt they consisted of 200% of the production budget. Then add in merchandising and home video purchases which will be sizable for a Pirates movie.

Not trying to defend them, I liked the 3rd enough for its sheer scale and spectacle. I hated the 4th. But I’d say the delay on the greenlight is more likely waiting for the new revision of the script and pacing out their blockbusters/waiting to see how the new crop of Marvel movies perform than it is fear of performance on the pirates movies themselves. Especialy since the directors they have slated for Pirates 5 were brought in specifically to reign in budget due to their experience filming Kon-Tiki's ocean scenes with relatively little funding. Streamlining a fifth pirates movie should increase profitability over the last 2 considering there is clearly still worldwide demand to see Johnny Depp wandering around in pirate garb acting like a drunk.

 

[71jason]

that's why they are sending all of the educational material about it to everyone's home before the vacation starts

Even assuming people pay attention to homework for their vacation, "everyone" who visits WDW does not stay on-property. In fact, math suggests the majority do not.

 

[WDWDad13]

Even assuming people pay attention to homework for their vacation, "everyone" who visits WDW does not stay on-property. In fact, math suggests the majority do not.

and not everyone has to use FP+

If they do there are attendants at the kiosks to help

Heck I saw some people confused using the old paper FP system....there will always be some but it isn't a requirement to enter the park just to enhance it

 

[ford91exploder]

Pirates 3 and 4 may not have been as profitable as the first 2, but I would hardly call them financial failures. Boxofficemojo.com has them at $950 million and $1.05 billion worldwide with production budgets of $300m and $250m respectively. Regardless of advertisement and distribution budgets which are an unknown, I doubt they consisted of 200% of the production budget. Then add in merchandising and home video purchases which will be sizable for a Pirates movie.

Not trying to defend them, I liked the 3rd enough for its sheer scale and spectacle. I hated the 4th. But I’d say the delay on the greenlight is more likely waiting for the new revision of the script and pacing out their blockbusters/waiting to see how the new crop of Marvel movies perform than it is fear of performance on the pirates movies themselves. Especialy since the directors they have slated for Pirates 5 were brought in specifically to reign in budget due to their experience filming Kon-Tiki's ocean scenes with relatively little funding. Streamlining a fifth pirates movie should increase profitability over the last 2 considering there is clearly still worldwide demand to see Johnny Depp wandering around in pirate garb acting like a drunk.

Figure Distribution budgets to be 1/2 2/3 of Production, The Box Office figures I saw for the last two Pirates Movies were 475 and 325 Million respectively. I don't recall those as being billion dollar movies could be wrong however.

And I DO enjoy Johnny Depp wandering 'round looking for the next bottle of rum.

 

[71jason]

and not everyone has to use FP+

If they do there are attendants at the kiosks to help

Heck I saw some people confused using the old paper FP system....there will always be some but it isn't a requirement to enter the park just to enhance it

Agreed on the old FP system, and it will probably always be more than "some." But that's not what you said in your OP.

Just pointing out another incidence of message board provincialism (nothing personal, Doom & Gloomers are as guilty of it as Pixie Dust Addicts).

 

[71jason]

Figure Distribution budgets to be 1/2 2/3 of Production, The Box Office figures I saw for the last two Pirates Movies were 475 and 325 Million respectively. I don't recall those as being billion dollar movies could be wrong however.

And I DO enjoy Johnny Depp wandering 'round looking for the next bottle of rum.

Pretty sure that's domestic box office. Which is good for seeing who's in Hollywood is biggest, but not at all important in a business sense.

ETA: Yeah, PotC4 made under $250 domestically, but $1 billion worldwide.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

For @Lee and because Cap 2 comes out tonight.
http://hollywoodreporter.com/v/LiveFeed/AgentsShieldEpsRespo

 

[stevehousse]

that's why they are sending all of the educational material about it to everyone's home before the vacation starts

Do u know if they r sending out the FP info to people who just r buying tickets and not staying on property?