Mouse Extra

By now, every Disney fanatic has heard about Summer Nightastic coming to Walt Disney World this summer.  The centerpiece of the marketing program is a return of the famous Main Street Electrical Parade to the Magic Kingdom after a decades’ long absence.  And now we find out that the upcoming run in Florida will be barely over two months long.

Yesterday, the Disney Parks Blog added an update to its original story about the parade’s return informing us that Summer Nightastic will run from June 6 through August 14, a much shorter run than many wishing to see the parade had hoped.  This gives fans just over five months to get to Orlando or risk missing the parade for who knows how long.

In years past I have complained vociferously about this kind of short-term announcement from Disney, but this one takes the cake.  Most often, I have moaned about how long it takes for them to announce the dates for Star Wars Weekends, but at least fans who want to attend that event have a relative idea when it might take place and can start planning accordingly.  This event, containing something nearly every Disney fan over the age of 25 gets overly nostalgic about, was completely unexpected.  And now, we all have only five months to raise funds, find the time to take off from work, and do all the planning.  You think this bugs?  You’re darn right it does!

Last week, Disney World officials announced “Summer Nightastic”, a promotional program for this summer at the Orlando parks.  Like last year’s Disneyland promotion of the same name, Florida officials hope that a one bit of big news for Disney fans combined with few relatively modest changes and a catchy tagline, will be enough to put a sense of urgency into potential visitors.

For the Disney purist, the center piece of this promotion includes something that is certain to be very exciting.  The Main Street Electrical Parade will finally return to the Magic Kingdom.  But truth be told, that is the only part of what has been announced so far for Summer Nightastic that is really worth talking about.  The other elements include…

• A very non-specific announcement of a new fireworks show coming to the Magic Kingdom, which we really can’t get too excited about until we know more about what to expect.
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is planning “New lighting effects and the addition of a new drop sequence”.  While new lighting can be interesting, I am not sure what the virtue is of a new drop sequence when the current sequence is supposedly random.  What can be more new and exciting than a random sequence that is new every time you ride?
• A summer concert series at Epcot, which again we can not judge until we know more about it.
• Extended evening operating hours at the Animal Kingdom.  A good idea to be sure, but not exactly earth shattering news.

The obvious conclusion to draw here is that Summer Nightastic is Walt Disney World’s response to the opening of Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter this spring.  But let me give Disney the benefit of the doubt and assume that is not the primary reason for this promotion.  I mean, if someone there thinks this program can compete with Potterland they ought to be fired.

No, Summer Nightastic is just simply too sparse to be considered by anyone with a brain to be an adequate “response” to Universal’s project.  But that shouldn’t take away from the potential positives here.  For the tourist with plans to head to the Mouse this summer, this comes as really good news.  The return of the Main Street Electrical Parade is truly a treat for the longtime Disney faithful.  And how could extended hours and a new fireworks display ever be considered anything but positive?

So rather than dwell on the obvious “could haves” with this promotion, lets just say that Summer Nightastic seems like a nice addition  to the Disney World slate for this year.  We all want more and expect more out of Imagineering.  And while it does seem strange that Disney is obviously allowing Universal to take center stage for the time being, let’s not draw conclusions on what this promotion was intended to do and then criticize it for not achieving a phantom goal.

This is a sad morning in the world of Disney fans, as many people wake to the news that Roy E. Disney passed away yesterday after a long struggle against stomach cancer.  He was 79 years old. 

There are two articles this morning that I think do a nice job with telling Roy’s story.  First, the Los Angeles Times has a great biographical piece by Dawn C. Chmielewski and James Bates.  And also, the New York Times has a nice tribute by Brooks Barnes…

As a boy the younger Roy would play in the halls of his uncle’s studio, where animators often used him as a test audience as they toiled on movies like “Pinocchio.” As an adult he helped bring the animation studio back from the brink, overseeing a creative renaissance that led to “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”

But the soft-spoken Mr. Disney was primarily known for a willingness to question the company’s top managers, aggressively and publicly, when he felt they were mishandling the family empire. Some people in the company referred to him as its real-life Jiminy Cricket: a living conscience who was at times intensely disliked by management for speaking out.

Twice, Roy saved his beloved Disney Company from disaster, as well as helping to usher in the incredible years of animation excellence the article speaks about above.  He was certainly the voice of reason on many fronts at Disney, and often the ray of hope for longtime Disney fans.

The question one must inevitably ask now is “who will be the next savior?”  Without a Disney, without someone with a family connection to the principles the company was founded on, who will bring the company out of the darkness during the next potential disaster?  Roy will certainly be missed.  But it may be years before we really know how much.

Jason Garcia of the Orlando Sentinel reported earlier this week that Disney’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs claims the Mouse does not plan on using Marvel characters inside the Walt Disney World theme parks, but predictably leaves plenty of wiggle room for the future of Disney’s newest characters. 

But the real story here is not what they won’t do in Florida, but what they can do everywhere else in the world, including Disneyland.  And what Disney really wants out of this deal.

Walt Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs told analysts that Disney will focus instead on using Marvel properties in its other theme parks, because of a pre-existing licensing deal between Marvel and Universal Orlando giving Universal exclusive use of some of Marvel’s best-known characters –including Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men and the Fantastic Four — in theme parks east of the Mississippi River.

Universal also has contractual rights to Spider-Man for theme parks in Japan.

“As we get outside of Orlando — and Spider-Man in Japan — we have an opportunity in theme parks and, over time, we’ll explore just how best to take advantage of that,” Staggs said in response to a question at a Bank of America media, telecommunications and entertainment conference in Marina del Ray, Calif.

As absolute as this may sound on the surface, notice that there is no mention whatsoever about what the future holds after these agreements run out.  My guess is that Disney is playing a very cool hand in an inevitable game of corporate poker. 

Universal is unlikely to want to continue to pay licensing fees to its chief competitor after the agreements run out.  And it would seem to me that they would be willing to discuss a buyout of the licenses so Disney can get their hands on their new characters as quickly as possible, and rid Universal of all the complication this deal could cause the.  Also, a lump sum from Disney would help the financial burden of all the changes that are on the horizon at Islands of Adventure.

If I were to read between the lines here, this could easily be interpreted as Disney really wants to buyout Universal and Staggs is being sent out to the media to position Disney as less desperate at the bargaining table.

Another form of pressure would be for Disney to start adding Marvel in a high-profile way in Disneyland, something Staggs all but admitted they plan on doing soon.

Staggs brushed aside another question about whether adding a character such as Spider-Man at Disneyland while it is featured at a Universal theme park in Orlando could create brand confusion. “People tend to space their visits out,” he said.

In other words, Disney is more than happy to risk brand confusion to get Marvel characters integrated into Disneyland, which would be perfect in the remaking of Disney’s California Adventure.  But it would also add even more pressure on Universal to accept a buyout at a reasonable price.  Well, at least reasonable from Disney’s point of view.

There seems to be only one word on the mind of Disney fans throughout the internet communities; Marvel.  Disney’s purchase of the company that created Spider Man, Iron Man, and more has far reaching effects.  This deal has so many angles to it that it will no doubt take weeks, months, or even years to unravel what it all means to the film, theme parks, and merchandising industries. 

But why did Disney want to spend $4 billion on the legendary comic book company?  Yes, the potential for what these companies can do together is seemingly limitless, but Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times explored what it may also signal about the direction and capabilities of the Disney Company.

The Marvel deal, like the $7.4-billion 2006 pact Iger negotiated to bring Pixar into the Disney fold, is another sign that Disney’s top brass realizes that the company’s reign as an original creative engine for mass entertainment is over. Once an idea factory full of brilliant animators and Imagineers, Disney is now a mass merchandising machine in search of exploitable product, whether it comes from Marvel, Pixar or DreamWorks, which will be releasing its upcoming slate through Disney as well.

On the surface, it would seem Mr. Goldstein has a point, but if you look deeper into his arguments, it almost falls apart.  For one thing, he seems to be basing his thesis that Disney is a creatively bankrupt organization only on the result of films released in the last 18 or so months…

What went wrong? And can Disney fix it?

The studio’s biggest failures in the past year showed Disney’s inability to reach the new family audience that has supplanted Disney’s traditional customers. Last Christmas, Disney thought it had a big winner with “Bedtime Stories,” which attempted to broaden the studio’s traditional family brand by marrying a kid-friendly concept to the young-male appeal of Adam Sandler. The studio tried a similar strategy recently with “G-Force,” another kid-friendly film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer in a bid to connect Bruckheimer’s broader-edged action brand to the traditional Disney animated audience.

Despite spending millions in TV advertising reaching out to the older-skewing (Disney-owned) ESPN sports audience, the movie failed to reach an older audience. As with “Bedtime Stories,” Disney found itself unable to age up its films.

While Disney may have failed to produce the giant blockbuster film, I think we need more than a calendar year and more than just the movie studio to decide whether this giant company is now creatively bankrupt.  For one thing, while “Bedtime Stories” and “G-Force” may have been failures, “Up” and the “Hannah Montana” films clearly were not.

But Mr. Goldstein argues a broader point, that Disney in no longer “an idea factory full of brilliant animators and Imagineer”, and that just seems to be at best arguable.  Do I really need to list the attractions that have been created in the last few years?  Toy Story Mania?  Expedition Everest?  Ringing a bell here?  And do we really have to point out how you can’t meet anyone under the age of 15 that doesn’t know every Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers song?  Can someone find me an 8 year old that doesn’t watch that Disney Channel?

But what is even more important is that if you decide Disney is now creatively empty, which it clearly is not, you must applaud the effort by Bob Iger to fix the problem.  Installing John Lasster into a role as a creative supervisor, making Pixar the focal point of animation, and bringing Marvel in to appeal to a different audience are all master strokes.  While I will admit that previous years have produced more massively popular films, other areas of the company are not suffering from a creative drain at all.  When all is said and done, and this deal shakes out, I think Disney will end up being the single most creative company in the entertainment industry without any argument.

I know when I first heard the news that Disney bought Marvel for over 4 billion dollars, my first thought was “is Disney Hollywood Studios getting a Wolverine or Spider Man ride?” But then I thought they couldn’t do that, right? Well, it appears they can’t. At least, not at this time.

As everyone knows, Universal Florida has a Marvel Super Hero Island at their Islands of Adventure park. That section contains two of their most popular rides, the Amazing Adventures of Spider Man and the Hulk Coaster. When do those contracts run out, you ask? Apparently, never. Rumors swirled around the internet yesterday that the contract between Universal and Marvel ends in 2012. Not so far off in theme park terms. But that appears to be false. Instead, it seems the contract runs for the life of the ride itself. In other words, Universal can have the Spider Man ride forever.

Surely, Disney did not spend 4 billion just to set up their own Captain America ride. There is much more to this deal than that. The Marvel movies based on characters like Spider Man and Iron Man are huge hits. However, the pending movies like Iron Man 2, The Avengers and X-Men Origins: Magneto are all subject to other agreements. Spider Man is licensed to Sony, for example. Disney has stated they will honor those agreements. But those agreements are quite lucrative. And eventually, Disney will distribute Marvel movies.

Marvel also makes money in the comic book industry. Comic books as a whole a way down from their hey day in 90s but they still make money. Merchandising like toys and t-shirts do well. And how long will it be before we see an Avengers prime time cartoon on the Disney channel? Apparently, that cartoon is already in the works and looking for a channel.

But that brings us back to the theme parks. As far as I can see, Universal can keep that Spider Man ride operating for the foreseeable future. But will they want to? Surely, it will irk Universal to no end that every time they sell a Fantastic Four t-shirt part of the proceeds will go to Disney. You can bet they won’t spend a great deal energy promoting the new marvel movies. Will Universal want to trash this part of the park and cut ties? Will they cease selling all merchandise from marvel characters? Will Marvel Super Hero Island eventually become Transformer Island or GI Joe Island? I am sure this is being debated by Universal execs right now. Once Potter is up and running, Universal will mull their options. Everyone has been wondering what Disney would do in response to the Harry Potter land coming to IOA. Well, I think we have our answer.

And here’s another little tidbit about the arrangement between Universal and Marvel: the rights to theme park attractions are limited to east of the Mississippi. Thus, Disney could put on real pressure by designing attractions for marvel characters and putting them into their California parks or even the studios in Paris. In Florida, you may see merchandise. Perhaps, there will be meet-n-greets with Wolverine. Maybe even they will paint a Baxter Building in the scenes of New York streets at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

You can bet though there will be something.

Today’s posting is from Mike, contributing writer to Mouse Extra.