What would Walt think...

[Tonka's Skipper]

Maybe a better question is who is doing a better job? Universal, Disney, Legoland or Seaworld? I would tell you Universal is wining by a large margin.

Not really. Attendance and revenues are not doing near what they expected, They are pouring in more money and more money then budgeted trying to get things moving and are raising prices steady. he question is with Comcast problems, how long can they keep doing that?

Yes they did a amazing job with HP, but that is really the only thing done well......People are getting tired of the videos screen attractions.

AKK

 

[TAK]

I just finished reading Neal Gabler's excellent biography of Walt Disney (it was good but long!). No one can say what another would have said or thought but the main takeaway I had from everything I read was that while Walt was a dreamer, Roy was the businessman who made a lot of what Walt imagined financially possible. As long as they were in business together, there was a tug of war between ideas and financial practicalities. So I think they'd be having the same conversations today that they had all those years ago at Hyperion. It's what ended up making their company survive and thrive. (that, and avoiding the stock market crash bc they'd reinvested all their profits in their own company.)

As an aside... no disrespect meant to the podcasters or anyone else, but remember the Shanghai Disney-affecting-park-cuts theory is based on one "inside sources say" account, and hasn't been stated officially by the company. I'm not convinced that's the whole story, given that that park isn't even wholly owned by Disney, and given, on the other hand, the stunning profits from Star Wars. Whatever they're doing at the parks (and I think it's more about change than it is anything else), the reasons are probably more complicated than just money.

 

[JimmyV]

This is obviously an impossible question to answer. For example, there is always "spirited" debate (pun intended) about alcohol in the MK and many make the point that Walt was all about wholesome family entertainment and would disapprove. That may or may not be true. But that line of thinking could lead one to conclude that Walt would have never green-lighted the purchases of Marvel and Lucas Films. If Walt were alive, perhaps Disney would not be the beneficiary of $2 billion in box office proceeds from a single movie and $5 billion in Marvel movies. Maybe he would have insisted on getting his hands on the Harry Potter franchise. Maybe he would have never even entertained the idea of grabbing that. So we have no idea what the company's finances would have been in 2016 if we assume that Walt was immortal. There are too many twists and turns that would have unraveled in ways that are different from what actually happened. That said, the friction that developed between Walt and his animators in terms of compensation does not rule out the possibility that he would have OK'ed across the board staff reductions in the parks and resorts.

 

[PSUGuy]

I think the mistake here is propping up Shanghai at the direct expense of WDW. Disney is killing it at the box office, the suits can drain some of that off without dragging down the Star Wars franchise but some of the cuts recently made in Florida, Off Kilter, World Showcase Plavers Mo 'Rockin to name just a few definitely hurts the Disney World brand while saving pennies (relatively). Transfuse too much blood to a sick person and you imperil the donor.

Bill From PA

 

[W.E.D.]

I believe he'd tell Roy to find the money somewhere, rather than cut experiences at the other venues. Walt was the dreamer, and Roy always had to find the money.

 

[Asc341]

Questions like these are so difficult to answer, because a person's opinions and actions are somewhat dependent on the context of their lifetime. I try to look at personality trends, instead of the specific opinions he had on particular matters - Walt was a forward thinker, who was excited by improvement, innovation, and success. If anything, sometimes I wonder if he would only be disappointed that MORE hasn't been done to elevate Disney's products and brands.

 

[ChimCher-ee]

I used to think these "wonder" questions were impossible to answer, but the more I learn about the brothers and their methods, the more I come to believe you can make some broad assumptions.

Walt had a way of leaving his established projects to capable hands when he was ready to pursue his next passion. He left:

Cartoons for animated features.
Animated features for documentaries/true-life adventures.
Docs for Disneyland.
Disneyland for EPCOT.

Now, I'm not saying he turned his back on things all at once or stopped caring about quality and lowering his standards. I do believe, however, that he started to consider people around him masterful enough to handle things when his interest in a "new" idea started taking over his every waking thought -- and he couldn't keep that next plan contained in the after hours any longer.

So, I believe that whatever Walt would think today, he would be past worrying about alcohol in MK or the cost of admission. Whatever Walt would be thinking wou!d be something no one else has the genius to visualize and something everyone else would say is a crazy, money-losing, bring-down-the-company folly.

And I only wish he were here so we could see it!

 

[EricInPA]

Impossible to know. Everyone assumes Walt would do the right thing, and he certainly earned that reputation. However, Walt's vision before he died was beyond the parks. It was toward his vision for EPCOT. I think a lot of these "What Would Walt Think?" questions would be shaped by the outcome of that project because it truly would have taken Roy's ability to make Walt's dreams come true to the next level.

As far as going over-budget on projects... Walt was no stranger to that either (Snow White was budgeted at $250k... it cost almost $1.5M).