There are plenty of people. They don’t work in Hollywood. They’re the ones playing around with Blender and Unreal right now.
And they are the one who will rise from the ashes of Mega Media.
Hollywood knows too. But they are more interested in demonstrating their superiority rather than making shows for normal people.
The streaming services- Netflix, Disney+, HBOParamountMax+++ - will continue to fail as long as they pretend to be production houses making blockbusters. You can’t force a century-old movie studio/theater economic model into a space ruled by YouTube.
You know what would help the ‘Star Wars’ brand more than a cringe Super Bowl gimmick?
Making a good ‘Star Wars’ movie.
I get the Disney “strategy” of charging people more to reduce crowds instead of just expanding the parks.
But is there any examples of a mass market brand becoming a sustainable luxury brand just by increasing prices and changing nothing else?
For all the whining in Hollywood today, neither Warner Bros. nor Paramount have been an independent company since 1966 - 60 years. WB was bought by Seven Arts and Paramount by Gulf+Western.
All studios have been corporate fiefs for longer than most people have been alive.
Even Disney was effectively bought by the Bass Brothers in 1984.
Okay - Disneyland’s Matterhorn.
Yes, they want to rip it down. The track was designed by guesswork, damaged by decades of the dual bobsleds, and too integrated with the crumbling structure to just replace. But funding a replacement depends on IP tie-in merchandise sales and that is simply not there.
And yes, they thought about re-theme if the ride to ‘Frozen’ years ago…
The problem isn’t who’s running Disney. It’s structural. Decades of free government money let Disney borrow a corrupting amount of cash. Cash wasted on stock buybacks, buying Fox, Disney+, and making lazily inept movies losing hundreds of millions.
But those times are over and the damaged company doesn’t work anymore. Cable is dead, broadcast is obsolete, Disney+ doesn’t work, all the huge movie brands are now toxic to their own fan base.
Only the Parks remain. And all any CFO can do is squeeze them until they are bled dry.
Lesson 17:
Test and truly understand the appeal of your IP before your drop a $1 BILLION of theme park capital into a project.
Universal got this one right.
All Disney had to do was make their Star Wars Blue Milk taste like Capt’n Crunch cereal milk instead of a my old spinster wine aunt’s bathroom refresher spray and they’d be raking the tens of millions that this does.
With the production budget for ‘Avengers: Doomsday” now pushing over $600 million (allegedly), it is a little gratifying to know Universal will make off ancillary merch sales than Disney will ever see from the box office
Rumors:
Growing belief inside Tram Disney Orlando that annual pass holders aren’t worthwhile. Nice shot of cash on renewals, but limited in park spending, too needy, crates crowds. And the nightmare of the live streamers…
Rumors:
Animal Kingdom’s Tropical America was never planned to have animals. Further, any animal not part of the safari or trails will be phased out. Too expensive, not a draw, not marketable IP.
Rumors:
Disneyland’s Tomorrowland replace DCA’s Avarar because it will be cheaper (because it’s mostly demolition), faster (because it’s mostly demolition, and won’t have to wait in the Eastern entrance way. Only expansion might be a movie in the old Capt Eo theater.
So years and years ago I worked on a cheesy, micro budget movie during my “breaking into Hollywood production, we can’t pay you but you’ll earn experience” phase.
It’s now become a ten buck theme park rice crispy treat.
Mixed emotions are had.
