Disney/Pixar Question

[Mickey1122]

For those in the know..
Why does Disney keep putting in Pixar rides. Every new attraction seems to be Pixar this and Pixar that. Finding Nemo: the Muscial, The Seas w/ Nemo and Friends, Laugh Floor Comedy Club, Woody's Cowboy Camp, the upcoming Midway Mania thing, etc...all Pixar. My question is "why?" These movies lack the music of traditional Disney movies, and I doubt that they will have the longevity of classics like Cinderella and such.

 

[YoHo]

Oy,

There's just too much to say here, so I'll star twith the basics.
Saying that Pixar movies won't have the same longevity as Disney movies is just....well, not well thought out. Disney movies aren't popular because they're musicals.


As to why they're buuilding pixar rides, it's because WDC corporate is filled with Lazy untalented SOBs with no artistic sense who will only install rides that they think will sell more Tom Mater plush.



git 'er done!

 

[Another Voice]

Because the parks are seen mainly as a way for promoting the Disney brand.

It’s the overall change in the company that began twenty years ago. Disney has shifted from being a primarily focused on creating products (Disney Feature Animation) and more focused on distributing products (ABC).

Just like movies are shown in a theater, the parks were thought of a stage to present Disney’s “immersive stories”. Disney created original works to present on that stage – ‘Pirates’, ‘Haunted Mansion’, ‘Jungle Cruise’. Each “land” within the park was a type of show you could see – a western, sci-fi, an adventure story, a fairy tale. Direct movie tie-ins were located only in Fantasyland because Disney had already made so many fairy tales in movies. And this was also the decades before DVDs, since the movies were only released in theaters once every seven years, most guests to Disneyland/Magic Kingdom had never seen several of the movies.

But beginning in the 1990’s, the economics of the company changed. Instead of making most of its money from what it created, Disney began to make money from what others made and Disney resold to the public. ABC is nothing but a vast machine to resell programs made by outside companies. Outside producers like Pixar, Jerry Bruckheimer and Walden Media funneled movies through “Disney Studios”.

The economics of “the dead guy’s company” required Disney to produce something new if they wanted to earn more money, the “new media” Disney could increase revenues just buy selling you more.

The entire concept of “synergy” is that Disney can sell you the same product in many different forms and in many different places. You could go see Toy Story. in your local movie theater. Then you could go to WalMart and buy the Toy Story – Special Collectors’ edition on DVD – after seeing it advertised during the ABC broadcast. Your children can watch the ‘Buzz Lightyear’ TV cartoon series on the ToonDisney channel while playing their Woody toys and dressed in their Toy Story t-shirts brought from The Disney Stores. When you go on vacation you can be entertained by a Toy Story show on the Disney Cruises and playing a Toy Story video game on your Disney Mobile phone while waiting in line for the ‘Buzz Ranger’ ride in the Magic Kingdom. I could go on, of course.

It’s the “new media” concepts of brand extension and brand longevity. The idea is that people will buy a known product (a brand) over an unknown product. The more people buy just based on that “brand”, the more likely they are to buy that brand in the future. People will buy the sequel to an existing movie on DVD rather than buy a brand new movie for the same price. Disney believes that its guests would rather go on rides that they are “know” than go on rides that are based on a new concept.

And yes, Disney really does think you’re that stupid and guible.

It’s a “safer bet” when Disney builds a new ride. Disney thinks that anything based on Pixar has a better chance of being popular than a new ride – Disney is convinced that a Pixar ride will push more plush, t-shirts, DVDs and trinkets (and that’s all Disney thinks the parks are good for anyway).

 

[Wick]

These movies lack the music of traditional Disney movies, and I doubt that they will have the longevity of classics like Cinderella and such.

With the exception of Toy Story's You've Got a Friend in Me, I agree with you about Pixar movies lacking the traditional musical elements of a classic Disney movie.
But as for longevity, I dunno. Even though Pixar movies lack musically, I think they have some of the best stories we've seen from Disney in a long time. Even if movies like Toy Story or Finding Nemo were creating the old fashioned way, they would still be immensely popular top-selling movies because of their teriffic storylines.
As for all the new Pixar-based attractions at WDW, it's purely business. Pixar movies have been their top sellers lately, so it only makes sense that Disney would capitalize on them.

Also:

But beginning in the 1990’s, the economics of the company changed. Instead of making most of its money from what it created, Disney began to make money from what others made and Disney resold to the public.

Repackaging what others made and reselling to the public hardly began in the 90s. This tactic can be traced back to Walt himself ie Mary Poppins, Snow White, Peter Pan, etc..

 

[Another Voice]

Repackaging what others made and reselling to the public hardly began in the 90s. This tactic can be traced back to Walt himself ie Mary Poppins, Snow White, Peter Pan, etc..

That's using an existing novel or story and turning it into a movie. It has nothing to do with the economics of the company.

What Disney turned into was a distribution company. They would buy a completed movie from Jerry Bruckheimer and sell it to movie theaters. Or they would buy an episode of a television show from Warner Brothers Studio and show it on ABC television. Disney became no different from your local supermarket - they buy a can of Cheez Whiz from a wholesaler and turn around and sell it to you (for a substantial mark-up).

 

[CanadianGuy]

ABC is nothing but a vast machine to resell programs made by outside companies.

I think it's a safe statement that all television networks suffer from that problem. I don't believe a single network (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) owns their complete slate of programming currently. Historically, ABC actually has done a much better job of owning their programs than any of the other networks.

Currently Greys Anatomy, Ugly Betty, In Case of Emergency, Knights of Prosperity, Desparate Housewives, What About Brian, According to Jim, Brothers and Sisters and Lost are all Touchstone Television Programs. That's pretty good vertical integration. NBC or CBS would be very envious to have that many owned shows on their owned networks. Most all of ABC's major hits (ratings wise) are Disney owned.

All of ABC's reality programming is at least in part co-produced and/or owned by a Disney production arm.

And Disney's production arms have a number of hits on other networks as well.. that's added profit to the Disney bottom line.

Or they would buy an episode of a television show from Warner Brothers Studio and show it on ABC television.

As I noted above, all TV networks do as you say - buy programs from other program creators and run them on their airtime. Historically, if you go back far enough, that was the law. Networks weren't legally allowed to own the programs they aired for some number of years under US law.

The fact that Disney is still buying programs from Sony Pictures Television, Warner Brothers and others.. well Disney is no different from other networks in that regard... To say that they should be different than the others... makes a fundamental mistake in understanding what's best for the network vs. what's best for the corporate parent.

I can tell you, as former employee of both NBC and ABC .. ever since the program ownership rules relaxed for networks, they try very much to own what they air whenever possible/feasible. They go way out of their way to at least get a cut of ownership on the shows they don't own outright.

NBC took that way too far by keeping 'owned' shows on the air way too darned long just so they could have enough episodes to syndicate later. (Suddenly Susan / The Single Guy / Caroline in the City etc..) The low ratings performance of these network owned shows coupled with a change in management and a complete loss of direction really hurt NBC.

I personally would prefer - as a television network - ABC/Disney didn't repeat that behavior. I'd rather that they air do as they do currently... They air the best (as perceived by their management*) programs from whatever source with first preference / first right of refusal exchanged between the network and it's affiliated production studios.. Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television etc..

However, Your points about their movie division doing that repackaging are VERY much on point.. as are your points about park merchandising and so forth. Hopefully we'll see a turnaround in the years to come.. there are *some* promising signs but ... hard to say if those promises will be kept.

Knox

(*) Worth noting that I'm not arguing that they are airing the best programming available. I'm just saying they are making decisions like all networks do... in committee. Ugh.

 

[YoHo]

The issue isn't really that ABC is doing that, because you're right, that's what ABC was founded and designed to do. That is NOT what Walt disney Pictures was founded and designed to do. However, Iger, who is and always will be an ABC guy doesn't know how to actually create programming. Only how to distribute.(and I'd say the Television distro model is dying a glorious death at this point)

Disney's greatest success are creations. Movies, Cartoons, Theme park attractions. How can anyone think positivly about a wholsale shift in the nature of the company's business model?

 

[CanadianGuy]

Disney's greatest success are creations. Movies, Cartoons, Theme park attractions. How can anyone think positivly about a wholsale shift in the nature of the company's business model?

Their TV arm is creating some good programs that are successful. Disney created some great TV back in the day too... let's not forget that.

I won't argue that they aren't owning enough of their movie product.. because they DO need to own more of it. I clearly agreed with that point in my previous post. The Frog Princess is interesting to me. I'm interested to see if that becomes another Aladdin or Beauty & The Beast .. or if it becomes another Hercules or Mulan. (box office & perception wise)

But to add the TV network to bolster the argument of repackaging elsewhere in the company ... is in my opinion mistaken. They own more of their own shows than any other network from what I can see.

TV distribution is changing.. in some pretty major ways.. But the profits from DVD sales of TV shows are staggering. Beyond belief actually. And ABC/Disney has done well with putting some of their programming on iTunes. I wouldn't buy it.. but some large number of people obviously will.

Will that continue? Dunno.

Knox

 

[alicialuvstw]

I know that Disney bought Pixar in an all stock transaction. This was after Eisner left. Steve Jobs (APPLE, PIXAR) sold Pixar to Disney. He now is the largest stock holder of Disney. I also heard a rumor that there was talk of renaming Disney-MGM studios to include PIXAR.

 

[DisneyBaby!]

It has been a long time since I have been reading and posting, it is refreshing to see that not much has changed, and that I can still find the same people on here posting replies. But back to the discussion at hand. To the OP, I would disagree on the musical aspects of the movies. The music in the movies, from the score to the songs that are sung have mostly been a refection of the style that was popular at the time in the culture. The music from Sleeping Beauty was completely from an existing composition (the composer escapes me) If they put a movie/TV show out today like that, people would complain that they lacked imagination (oh wait, they do with Little Einstiens). But I would argue that musicaly the movies are more sophisticated than in the past with some, like Finding Nemo were Oscar quality. For longevity, I would argue that Toy Story already has longevity, defintely more so than any other animation studio, anyone remember (or see) Prince of Egypt?. Anyway, I'm all over the place here. I'll be quiet now

 

[Another Voice]

The music in Sleeping Beauty is from the ballet ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ written by Tchaikovsky in the later 19th century. It is one of the most widely known and widely performed ballets of all time. Since that’s how most people thought of the story then, it would have been odd not to have included the music in the animated film.
http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/Sleeping.html

On ABC – the idea that Disney should produce all of the shows on the network was a Micheal Eisner budget cutting idea. He was the only one pushing it – up against the howls of Bob Iger. Not only was Disney unable to produce hit shows, they could supply enough of them for the network. Remember when they were running ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway” four or five nights a week? It was only because ABC could show static. The network also tried to abandon programming on Saturday night – but a massive revolt by the affiliates scrapped that idea. And Disney produced reality shows: ‘Am I Hot or Not’, ‘Hot Seat’, ‘Wife Swap’, are not exactly shinny examples of creative brilliance that will echo through history as Disney’s contribution to the betterment of the human race.

Instead, ABC forced a factory mindset on the studio – again “distributor” think. Get the programs on the air to plug the slots. It doesn’t matter the quality because there’s always people that will buy ad time. That thinking also infected Feature Animation. It was much more important to hit the marketing dates for a film than it was to present a good, audience pleasing movie. All the long term money that could have been made from a well received movie was sacrificed for the short term gain of meeting the promotion windows for Happy Meals.

You can also see “distributor” thinking at the parks. For more than a decade now the marketing emphasis has been on the “special promotion”. Yet, Disney knows the number one reason why people come back to WDW is to see something new. But network people are more interested in repackaging what they already have, hence the Year of a Million Free Bottled Waters. And a strong as Disneyland’s 50th Birthday Celebration was, it still didn’t equal the surge in attendance that came with the opening of ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye’.

 

[Wick]

That's using an existing novel or story and turning it into a movie. It has nothing to do with the economics of the company.

What Disney turned into was a distribution company. They would buy a completed movie from Jerry Bruckheimer and sell it to movie theaters. Or they would buy an episode of a television show from Warner Brothers Studio and show it on ABC television. Disney became no different from your local supermarket - they buy a can of Cheez Whiz from a wholesaler and turn around and sell it to you (for a substantial mark-up).

Hmm. Examples?

 

[DancingBear]

Hmm. Examples?

Pirates. Chronicles of Narnia. All of the Pixar movies.

 

[raidermatt]

Pretty much every Bruckheimer movie (but you can shoot me if there is an exception or two).

Repackaging what others made and reselling to the public hardly began in the 90s. This tactic can be traced back to Walt himself ie Mary Poppins, Snow White, Peter Pan, etc..

Are you seriously suggesting that Disney merely repackaged Mary Poppins, Snow White and Peter Pan?

Repackaged means somebody else makes it, and you put your brand on it and market it.

You don't really think that's what was done with those movies, do you?

 

[Disneybag]

I can see the point there. However, with the "early stuff", Walt and the boys put their own spin on the stories and did some things that had never been done before. For example with Peter Pan: he cast a male as Peter, personified Tinkerbell, took out A LOT of the violence, etc. Though he did keep the same story, and used a lot of the devices Barrie employed in the stage productions (same voice for Mr. Darling and JS Hook, etc.). It's a lot more obvious now with things like Narnia because changes seem to be dictated by running time, ratings, etc.

 

[Another Voice]

Hmm. Examples?

Catch the latest magically magical magic that ABC has to offer:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961356.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

ABC places 'Bet' on British hosts
Popular duo sign to new gameshow
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER, JOSEF ADALIAN


Ant and Dec, arguably the U.K.'s most popular TV hosts, will next attempt to conquer the U.S., signing on to host the ABC pilot "Wanna Bet?"
The duo -- Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly -- have become stars in their native country hosting top-rated reality fare including "Pop Idol," "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" and their signature "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway."

U.S. alternative execs have been aggressively courting the pair for some time; "Wanna Bet?" exec producer Phil Gurin said they were instantly attracted to the project.

"Less than 24 hours after I got on the phone with Ant and Dec, they said, 'We love it, this is the one,' " Gurin said. "They like the tone of the show and what it can be. I was pinching myself, I can't believe it."

Alphabet net has ordered an airable pilot of "Wanna Bet" that could double as a special (Daily Variety, Dec. 8).

"Wanna Bet?" is a reworking of the hit German variety/gameshow hybrid "Wetten, dass...?," in which celeb interviews and musical performances are mixed with segments featuring everyday people betting they can pull off bizarre or extraordinary stunts.

ZDF airs the show in Germany. The U.S. version, from the Gurin Co., will include more gambling features.

McPartlin and Donnelly first rose to fame in the U.K. as actors on the BBC kids show "Byker Grove." They later recorded several pop hits under their character names, P.J. and Duncan. Moving to ITV in the late 1990s, the duo became presenters.

In the U.S., they're best known for their brief cameo playing themselves in the feature "Love Actually."

"They've got an instant chemistry that you can't manufacture," Gurin said. "The British people watched them grow up on TV. These are two people who really like each other."

Gurin is no stranger to importing U.K. talent, having brought "Weakest Link" host Anne Robinson to host the U.S. version of that show.

Gurin and Marc Jansen exec produce "Wanna Bet?" while Glenn Weiss is directing.

Fox developed a variety-style program with McPartlin and Donnelly a few years back, but the project didn't move forward.

There is a vast difference from adapting an existing story and making a movie out of it - and buying a pre-made, pre-packaged show. In the case above, Disney isn't creating anything. They're just buying "Wanna Bet?" already finished and plopping it on ABC as something to sell you.

 

[DisneyKidds]

I can see the point there.

I can't, if it's the 'Disney always repackaged' argument. Sure, Snow White may have been a existing fairy tale. Many animated features, Disney included, were based upon Grimm fairy tales. However, in such a case Disney adapted the fairytale, wrote the animatied story line, hand drew the animation themselves, etc., etc., etc. They reused an existing story, sure. But that is nothing like the repackaging of Pixar films that became Disney's gold standard pre-acquisition. In those cases Disney did nothing but buy the animated feature somebody else created and produced and slapped the Disney name on it and ran it through the Disney marketing machine.

Reusing a story and creating your own animated feature based upon that story is far different from creating nothing and repackaging someone else's creation with your name on it.

That is Disney's problem. They are no longer first and foremost a content creation company. And that is the short answer to why all the rides are based on Pixar films. Disney Feature Animation hasn't created an animated feature or character worthy of an attraction in over a decade.

 

[DancingBear]

Reusing a story and creating your own animated feature based upon that story is far different from creating nothing and repackaging someone else's creation with your name on it.

Agreed--Shakespeare stole all his stories too. Somehow I think Will gets some credit for creation.

I've never read the Poppins stories, but I understand they are just that, a collection of stories, and Disney basically took some outlines of stories and some characters (Bert was a minor character in the books) and created that glorious film.

 

[adabob]

I believe that they are putting in more PIXAR rides is because they just bought PIXAR and now they dont have to wait for any confimtion from PIXAR if they want to build a ride
So they are coming in with a flow of rides
This is only my opinion

 

[croach]

I am not sure I am smart enough to join this conversation and I mean that as a compliment to the previous posters - very smart stuff but I will make two comments.

About the original post - it seems to me that Disney has always made rides based on their movies and the Pixar movies are the only thing they have worth making a ride or a show after. To say that the only new attractions come from Pixar is in my opinion is not correct. The best attractions have been created originally - the most recent example being Expedition Everest. Think Mission Space, Soarin, and Lights, Motors, Actions. In the opinion the Pixar stuff is kind of lame - Stitch, Nemo in the Living Seas.

Second - One poster said that the Pixar stories are the best we have seen from Disney in some time. They are some of the best stories to come out the Disney empire but the problem is that Disney did not create them, they bought them.