I agree. And I thought the same thing several years ago when Jim Hill and others spun portions of the fan community into a tizzy with stories of layoffs and outsourcing at Imagineering.
One of the aspects that always seems to handcuff the theme parks is the cost attached to new attractions. The Sentinel cited a figure of $425 million as the budget for the Fantasyland expansion. Other sources mentioned $100 million for the Little Mermaid attraction alone.
A half-million dollars for two new rides--one which should be sharing many costs with its twin at DCA--a couple ride facelifts and a pair of restaurants. By comparison, WWoHP at Universal cost half as much. I'm sure some of the disparity can be attributed to US spending their money more wisely, but they don't have to support an full-time development outfit like WDI, either.
Imagineering is a great resource to have available but I truly believe that those hundreds of salaried workers are adding millions to the paper budget of every single new attraction, refurb, enhancement, etc.
It's a Disney fanboy's dream to hear about the mountains of concept art sitting in the vaults of WDI. We can't get enough of walk-around dinosaurs, real-life Wall-E figures and talking Mickey's. But all of those things--many of which only make minimal appearances in theme park settings--are still funded by our ticket dollars.
Dead on...
Some of the figures that have leeked out to Animal Kingdom always floored me too...
the official "budget" was 800 million. Guiness had the figure at around 1.2 Billion. But some academic pieces i've seen in the past have guessed that it was more like 2 Billion.
That is just nuts...even if it included 15 miles of highway and gator catching...
Just too much. Everytime i see Joe Rhode on the Travel Channel, they should CGI a picture of a stack of 20s on fire behind him.
I've thought since MGM that they are designing backwards...worrying too much about the facades and not concentrating on the "guts" of the park.
The money should be reserved for the attractions and services first...and not touched...at least my opinion.
I know that you could put yourself in danger of building a six flags. but the elaborate disney cost is too far the other direction anyway...the new economic reality is somewhere in the middle. I don't think that if they concentrate more on the attractions that they'll suddenly have blacktopped streets with plastic benches made of recycled coke bottles and home depot issue faux fences.
But i'm with you on fantasyland...obviously they had a good bit of new construction involved...but that shouldn't be 600 million bucks. Something aint right there.
And I have no idea why a clone flat ride has a 100 million tag in florida. maybe 100 for both...but not standalone.
but then again...how much did they put into everest? a technological marvel that was uniquely engineered. they just didn't have money for new calculator batteries in the budget and guessed on the physics.
Does anybody have a guess at what the imagineering R&D overhead is?
I'm guessing that if they're honest...probably 20-30% +.
which means you pay five bucks more at the gate...everyyear.
