This thread very quickly went from "zero" to "stop and breath"...
There are no confirmed anythings going to MGM...no cars, no massive lucasfilm development.
both things seem to be taken as a given around here by many...but they aren't even close and i'll give you reasons why:
1. the "feeder" theory. I'm fully onboard with this. I don't believe that the studios has ever been intended to be a "full day" park - and therefore these kinds of expansions don't make sense.
I'm not sure about animal kingdom...but studios and the waterparks definitely appear to be "feeders" as in they take in numbers early in the day and then quickly "feed" them to the larger, higher capacity, retail rich areas later in the day - MK, Epcot, and the downtown sticker-shocking district.
Maybe they didn't intend the studios to be that way at first...but they did throw it together in very quick fashion after the eisner takeover and once they stopped and looked at it - realized that they didn't want the kind of operation at another spot that they already had at EPCOT and MK - in terms of logistics and manpower.
With animal kingdom...i think they tried again...but got skiddish when they realized that they get killed on costs (because its them...the pentagon has similar problems) and slashed the budget and construction to stop the bleeding. The lukewarm reception that the park has always had pretty much sealed its fate to this point...and might have drug studios (maybe even pleasure island) down with it.
2. Don't think they want to spend more money.
Universal! Seaworld! harry potter!
legoland! the sky is falling! disney must respond!
No...not really at all. their expansions are for their purposes alone and for new revenues...not to keep up with the Dr. Joneses.
Is and was how it will be.
The only side of the argument that i see is that they may accelerate a little or "float" concepts to see what kind of reception they get (cough...AVATAR...cough).
But look at what they did...spent about 400+ mil on fantasyland? an area that is packed in the most popular park on earth?
Why would they do that? In short: to fit more people and sell more crap.
It certainly doesn't fit the description of a "countermove" to anything the neighbors are doing. it was taking something that worked for 40 years and just blowing it up bigger.
Wouldn't a company that was "concerned" with losing business bump it somewhere else? like perhaps somewhere that was lagging?
That would be Animal Kingdom...followed by diminishing numbers at EPCOT (still can't quite get that...except that people are dumber by the day and "ain't into that learnin' crap")...and the little park that could: studios - where almost half the footprint is still dedicated to a failed east coast production concept that was shuttered and mothballed over ten years ago.
But they didn't...they built at magic kingdom...for many reasons...but not because they were worried about footsteps behind them.
So they just spent (still spending...as construction debt is financed) on that little development...and they have floated a $500 million dollar concept for AK (which i think will end up sleeping with the fishes...but thats for another day).
a billion dollars in a five year period- more or less. At a place that is where they make money for all the salaries at ESPN and the View - not spend it. (Annual reports and any business market analysis - wdw is purely about generating operating income that leads to profit for the whole she-bang...it is very much different than the other parks around the globe - especially Euro)
So here's where we need to "stop and breath"
There is no reason to put a 700 million dollar expansion (that draws people to california...which is what they value more longterm) to replace a stunt show in a park that just chugs along and doesn't need to be expanded.
Studios will not be a flagship park...if that were the plan...it might've come out in the last 24 years or so.
If the stunt show is too expense...they just bag it and leave the theater empty...something they have long done at studios and have had NO problem doing at WDW since 2000.