Concept Art for New Rides (and a New Park!)

[crazy4wdw]

I'm going to merge this thread as this topic was addressed there initially.

 

[CoolTrainerTerry]

Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute. Did anyone else notice the Toy Story Live! and the Monsters Inc. ride-thing? Toy Story Live! sounds...a little daring, but still Finding Nemo the Musical. And the Monsters Inc. ride...what do the words underneath say? It looks like another Buzz Lightyear-type ride, with you looking for monsters? The new nighttime show looks like a possible special effects money-buster. All I can say is, it better not replace Fantasmic! if it does get built.

 

[MJMcBride]

The new nighttime show looks like a possible special effects money-buster. All I can say is, it better not replace Fantasmic! if it does get built.

Thats unlikely. There was a rumor floating around about a new show at MGM that would require an additional, stand alone fee.

 

[Another Voice]

The 'Monsters, Inc.' ride is for Tokyo Disneyland. It will be a combination of the 'Monsters' dark ride at California Adventure and the "flashlight" gimick being used for the 'Toy Story Mania' rides in the US. The Tokyo version looks like it will solve the big problems with the US rides - the lack of story int he DCA dark ride and the pointlessness of the gimick on 'Mania'.

The water pagent drawing is one of hundreds of ideas for a lagoon show at California Adventure and Hong Kong Disneyland. Both parks lack a night-time "glue element" (a show that makes people stick around).

The new show at Disney/MGM in Flordia will be a separate ticket event and replace 'Fantasmic!'. It's ironic because 'Fantasmic!' in Florida replaced a planned hard ticket show which had been on the drawing boards for a long time ('Noah's Ark' to have been written by Andrew Lloyd Weber). That show was to have been the Studio's glue element. But things never worked out and so Disneyland's 'Fantasmic!' was brought in as a dirt cheap replacement.

 

[MJMcBride]

The new show at Disney/MGM in Flordia will be a separate ticket event and replace 'Fantasmic!'.

Personally I hope you're wrong about this. That show is one of the best things at WDW

 

[Another Voice]

It’s still up in the air at the moment. There are two big forces pushing it.

One is that Disney is building an impressive list of stage shows between Disneyland, the cruise line and Broadway. Rolling in a new stage show has always been a very cost effective way adding new attractions to the parks. Already California Adventure has seen several large production shows come and go (but Disneyland’s first attempt – ‘Snow White’ – was a major flop). Having a more general purpose theater would help the Studios keep adding “new”.

The second is revenue growth. Never underestimate the corporate pressure on WDW to continue churning out the cash. It’s warping the very nature of WDW. Disney’s hit a limit on admission, dining and lodging prices so they have to come up with new ways of hitting you up for money. It’s the cruise ship mentality, buying a ticket is just your opportunity to spend even more money. So Disney is hitting up the photographs, charging for formerly free services, staging after park hours parties with a separate ticket – all sorts of the revenue enhancements.

Disney knows it can pull in a hundred bucks a ticket with a Broadway show, so it makes such to them to begin upcharging where they can. A theater can house a theme park show during the day, be turned into a full scale theater at night. That was the original concept behind the Hyperion Theater at California Adventure, but budget cuts so gutted the theater it’s not even suitable as park theater anymore.

One can assume that at $150 for the Broadway version of Tarzan, Disney would be willing to build a real theater at Disney/MGM Studios.

 

[Mickmse2002]

The second is revenue growth. Never underestimate the corporate pressure on WDW to continue churning out the cash. It’s warping the very nature of WDW. Disney’s hit a limit on admission, dining and lodging prices so they have to come up with new ways of hitting you up for money. It’s the cruise ship mentality, buying a ticket is just your opportunity to spend even more money. So Disney is hitting up the photographs, charging for formerly free services, staging after park hours parties with a separate ticket – all sorts of the revenue enhancements.

Isn't that the whole point? Making money is why the place exists.

 

[YoHo]

NO!

A man's unique vision of entertainment and education is why Walt Disney World exists. Yes it made money, because everyone needs to make money to survive in this world, but it doesn't exist to make money. it exists to entertain and educate. Which is the whole frackin problem with current managment. They don't care to entertain, they care about making money.

 

[Palendat]

Management hands are tied by the shareholder mentality that revenues have to grow by 6-10% per year (or more), even if the parks/resorts are at 100% capacity!

 

[EUROPACL]

Management hands are tied by the shareholder mentality that revenues have to grow by 6-10% per year (or more), even if the parks/resorts are at 100% capacity!

Management hands are tied by the fact that they could care less if they put out a quality product these days or not. Managements hands are tied by the fact that they have in the past wasted and blew money on go.com, Power Rangers, half built Motel 6's, half thought out ideas like AK and DCA. Don't even get me started on firing half of you anamation department and then buying them back for billions years later.

 

[Another Voice]

Management hands are tied by the shareholder mentality that revenues have to grow by 6-10% per year (or more), even if the parks/resorts are at 100% capacity!

If it was only that simple.

The ecomonics aren't being driven by WDW's growth, but but the grow of Disney overall. ABC continues to flounder, Consumer Products is rotten, movies are hit or miss - and now they've got to come up with $7 BILLION to pay off Pixar and Steve Jobs.

With Attractions being the only stable source of ready cash for the company - Disney is forcing WDW to make decisions that hurt WDW for the sake of the larger company. Attractions could easily handle 6% growth per year, but 20%, 25%, 30%+ growth can only happen when you damage the long term intestests of the parks for short term game.

 

[Mickmse2002]

NO!

A man's unique vision of entertainment and education is why Walt Disney World exists. Yes it made money, because everyone needs to make money to survive in this world, but it doesn't exist to make money. it exists to entertain and educate. Which is the whole frackin problem with current managment. They don't care to entertain, they care about making money.

......except the WDW that the "one man" envisioned was never built. A WDW designed to make Walt Disney Productions money was the one that was built.

 

[EUROPACL]

......except the WDW that the "one man" envisioned was never built. A WDW designed to make Walt Disney Productions money was the one that was built.

....except that WDW didn't get built until one man named Ei$ner came along and turned WDW into a cash machine for his ego.

 

[MJMcBride]

Management hands are tied by the fact that they could care less if they put out a quality product these days or not.

Thats oversimplying things

 

[YoHo]

Man I sure wish I lived back in the 40s and 50s when Bank of America was handing out money with abandon for unproven entertainment schemes like theme parks and nobody had any expectations about growing the business it was all butterscotch and ponies. Unlike today when those mean mean institutional shareholders are all up in your multinational billion dollar entertainment business telling you what to build and how to build it.

As AV points out, Disney parks need to a support a bunch of craptastic worthless Disney entertainment like The Santa Clause 5000. The money doesn't make it to the shareholders nor does it get put back in the parks.

 

[Another Voice]

Thats oversimplying things.

What scene in The Santa Claus 3 is the one that really says "We're making this movie because it's a wonderful story that will touch the lives of little girls and boys for generations to come and not because we can sell a truck load of DVDs at Wal Mart to unthinking parents suckered in by the 'Disney' brand"?

 

[Mickmse2002]

....except that WDW didn't get built until one man named Ei$ner came along and turned WDW into a cash machine for his ego.

So you're saying that Michael Eisner is solely responsible for WDW?

 

[EUROPACL]

So you're saying that Michael Eisner is solely responsible for WDW?

No of course not, don't be obtuse. Ei$ner is the person that built the Di$ney that you are talking about though. Disney was a completely different type of company until he came along.

 

[dbm20th]

Personally I hope you're wrong about this. That show is one of the best things at WDW

For what its worth, the info I hear is that it would replace INDY and not Fantasmic

 

[Mickmse2002]

No of course not, don't be obtuse. Ei$ner is the person that built the Di$ney that you are talking about though. Disney was a completely different type of company until he came along.

Obtuse? Wow that's not nice, calling me names. I believe I was just responding to your statement that WDW wasn't built until Eisner came along. Perhaps you need to be more specific in your criticisms. I was simply pointing out, and I believe the facts support this, that the project originally conceptualized by Walt was NEVER built. The product put forth by the "Eisner's" of the time was centered on profit centers.