I'm going to put this here, although I think my original comments I need to apologize for were in some other thread.
In one of these Splash threads when the news broke a couple weeks ago, I was confident this was a slapdash response and I said Disney was lying when they said in the Parks Blog that this Tiana concept had begun development "last year". Yesterday I learned at a party that I was wrong about that, and WDI had in fact hatched this Tiana concept last year long before weeks of riots and looting and peaceful protesting swept across America in response to systemic racism and police brutality.
I need to protect the innocent here, but suffice it to say that there was a gentleman at the party who has been involved with WDI for many years and is in a position to know what he is talking about. (And no
@Figments Friend it was
NOT Mr. Baxter, whom I haven't seen in months since I took that sneaky photo for you after I ran into him shopping at the nearby Bristol Farms
). But it
was someone who would know what they're talking about. And here's what I learned...
The Tiana remake of Splash Mountain concept was actually proposed and given some funding for development back in 2019. Part of the way WDI operates is they are constantly dreaming up new ideas for the parks; sometimes they are all new builds and concepts, but often they are more affordable remakes and repurposing of existing park facilities. WDI stays in business and keeps their staff employed by having projects that are funded by the Parks division, and without those projects big and small the work dries up and Imagineers get laid off. So it behooves WDI management to always have a steady stream of slick and exciting new projects available to lure Parks executives into spending money and investing in the various parks around the world. They need a pipeline of attractive projects to show Parks execs keep the work going.
That said, the Tiana project for Splash Mountain did not come about because of any noble attempt by WDI to achieve social justice by removing the Song Of The South characters and story, they simply weren't thinking about it back in 2019. WDI's original driving goals behind redoing Splash Mountain were business driven, because they knew that even before Bob Iger's 2020 comments on the film it was unlikely Burbank would ever reverse course and embrace the Song Of The South characters, and thus the characters would remain relatively unknown by parks audiences and no real emotional attachment to that story could be leveraged. There was a minor undercurrent in WDI that Song Of The South wasn't very PC, but it was not a major element to the 2019 proposal to retheme Splash Mountain.
The Tiana concept was chosen as a project worthy of active development because the proposal was able to play up the connections to New Orleans themed food and cuisine, and thus the Food & Beverage departments in the parks could offer Instagram worthy food and drink concoctions for sale. The driving force with Bob Chapek in charge of WDI and the Parks (as he was in 2019 when the proposal was presented and given initial development funding) is to drive revenue across multiple departments; a new parks project has to prove that it is an IP that can translate directly into increased sales in either merchandise, dining, or upcharge experiences, and preferably at least two of those things if not all three.
And so Tiana's story was seen as a way to sell the project by connecting it to dining locations in the parks that already exist (New Orleans Square) or can be re-themed to help support the project (Hungry Bear Restaurant and the aging Pooh store with historically declining sales in Critter Country).
So work had actually been bubbling along on this Tiana Mountain idea for the past year. I asked how this works in WDW because Splash Mountain there is smack in the middle of Frontierland. I was laughingly told that the Tiana project was created with Disneyland in mind, but like many projects it also gets added to WDW as an afterthought. Star Wars Land was designed specifically for Disneyland's current location, and they knew they could wedge it in somewhere in WDW too. The Disneyland setting alongside New Orleans Square and a re-themed Critter Country is the ultimate goal for the project and the artistic vision they are designing for, and later they'll just wedge it into WDW next to Thunder Mountain because no one in Orlando is going to care or give them grief about it.
The other thing I learned was that the entire concept is very early in its development. It won't be opening for years. Under normal circumstances, even if it had gotten the green light from Burbank last month this idea would not have been announced publicly or seen the light of day for at least another 18 months if not longer. But the current political climate and the Twitter mob forced the issue before the ride was ready to be announced. That is why there is only one single piece of artwork available, and it was created quickly as a very generic view of the existing log ride with some characters and visual elements overlaid onto it. The real ride is still subject to many revisions and alterations, so there's no telling what actually is going to happen inside the ride where the show actually takes place. But screens will be included in the new show, and many of the America Sings animatronics will be retired permanently while the budget requires that some get repurposed into Princess & The Frog characters. The gentleman had not heard that the ride system will be changed in any meaningful way in Anaheim. There's no money for that anyway.
The other info I learned from the conversation is that many, many other active WDI projects have been put on indefinite hold at all the parks outside Japan. The sober realization in WDI is that Burbank will need to conserve cash and resources for at least several years, even after the parks, movie studios, cruise line, ESPN, DVC and mass merchandising all get "back to normal" hopefully sometime in 2021. Some of these mothballed construction projects (Tron, Marvel, Toontown, hotels, Anaheim's Downtown Disney) will be sitting silent around the parks for a year or more before they resume work. WDI management is just happy that the Tiana project got announced publicly and the current political climate forced Burbank to commit to it, so at least there is some development work happening in Glendale. But there are many other projects in development that haven't been announced yet that just met their sad demise. Layoffs will be coming to Glendale this fall.
I think that about sums up a chatty conversation that went in several different directions.
Basically the Tiana project had been in development since last year, they actually weren't lying about that like I assumed. But this Tiana project was not initially created out of some noble call to Social Justice, but rather it was initially conceived in 2019 to sell more
Instagrammable moments at the adjacent restaurants and gift shops. Pooh and Song Of The South are not hot sellers and are definitely not Instagrammable. Luckily for Burbank and Glendale, they could quickly reposition this Splash Mountain makeover concept as being guided by a noble and lofty goal to bring Social Justice to the magic kingdom and quickly squash an embarrassing Twitter campaign.
