Vying for Headlines

DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek the Third opens on Friday, May 18 with the field pretty much to itself, what with Spider-Man 3 being nearly ancient pop culture history after being in theatres for two whole weeks. On Saturday, May 19, Walt Disney Pictures will hold the world premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in Disneyland.

Judging by the media frenzy that surrounded the first and second POTC movie premieres, a cynical person might surmise that even if Shrek the Third does really, really well at the box office that weekend, it will still be hard pressed to grab the spotlight and headlines away from Johnny Depp and company as they lead the world’s show business media around the Happiest Place on Earth. Thank heavens I’m not cynical!

Not that Disney Parks and Resorts and the Disneyland Resort (DLR), in particular, couldn’t use some good news right about now. Basking in the warm glow—and positive press—of Captain Jack Sparrow’s toothy grin is just what the doctor ordered for the Mouse’s headache-prone division.

So far this year, Disney Parks and Resorts has had more ups and downs in the press than the Twilight Zone Hollywood Tower of Terror. First, there was the rumor that the Disney Studio was pushing a plan to bulldoze Disneyland’s Tom Sawyer’s Island and convert it into a Caribbean pirates’ lair, complete with sandy beaches and a footbridge to facilitate traffic to and from the island.

Then came the news that a deal struck back in the early ‘90s with the City of Anaheim to cover any shortfall in the bonds issued by the city to create and improve the infrastructure of the Anaheim Resort district could mean that Disney would soon be on the hook for more than $7 million a year.

That news was followed in short order by Anaheim’s willingness to consider rezoning requests within the Anaheim Resort from developers eager to put up mixed-use housing.

The rezoning requests, in turn, erupted into a nasty, albeit very public, squabble between Disney and the Anaheim City Council. Disney didn’t do itself any public relations favors when it unleashed its lawyers on a council member thought to be friendly to the idea of granting the rezoning request, which as it turned out she was.

Mickey lost the battle to reject developer Sun-Cal’s request to build 1,500 housing units at the eastern edge of the Anaheim Resort and is now embroiled in both a lawsuit and a ballot initiative to stop the project. All because plans to turn the Fujishige family strawberry field on Harbor Blvd., which the Mouse reportedly paid $91 million for, into a third DLR theme park never materialized.

Things only got worse earlier this year when Parks and Resorts head honcho Jay Rasulo told analysts that Disney was considering expanding its hotel business throughout the country to cities without Disney parks.

The problem is that hotels are at the heart of Mickey’s troubles with the City of Anaheim. There aren’t enough hotels in Anaheim to generate sufficient funds—through the city’s bed tax—to meet its obligations on the Anaheim Resort bonds, and there aren’t enough attractions within the Anaheim Resort to warrant building new hotels.

That’s why few in Anaheim were amused by the idea of Disney building or buying hotels anywhere else in the country other than the city that’s “Always Fresh & Never Grows Old.”

So with all that melodrama as a back drop, is it any wonder that Disney Parks and Resorts is working overtime, literally, to ensure that Disneyland and the Disneyland Resort make the best possible impression when the world’s media comes a calling for the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End?”

I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can!

This past Sunday, workers continued to labor under the blazing Southern California sun on Disneyland’s steam powered stern-wheeler the Mark Twain and on Tom Sawyer’s Island, where they rushed to complete the first phase of the island’s piratification in time for the premiere of the third POTC movie.

Pirating up Tom Sawyer’s Island is just the first step in a long series of plans Parks and Resorts has to increase the number of visitors and lengthen the number of days they stay in Anaheim at the DLR. Plans include changing show elements, remodeling and adding rooms to existing hotels, and just about anything else they can think of to avoid sinking the hundreds of millions of dollars required to build a third theme park into the Harbor Blvd. strawberry field.

Avast, there be pirates comin to this here island.
Images copyright© obe-mediaaone.

For two days next month, Disneyland will once again play host to the media as the park celebrates the long awaited reopening of its vintage 1959 Submarine Voyage attraction, this time as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

Tucked in among the parties and events surrounding the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Grand Opening Ceremony will be an early morning presentation where invited guests will be able to “hear more about the exciting happenings at the Disneyland Resort, Disneyland Park.”

Speculation runs high among DLR observers that the company will use this event to announce its equally long awaited plans to revitalize Disneyland’s sister park Disney’s California Adventure (DCA).

“If they’re smart,” said one Disneyland watchdog, “they’ll invite the mayor and the whole city council [to the presentation] and lay out everything they’ve got planned for the next ten years.”

Disney has already invited Anaheim officials to peek behind the curtains during a meeting held prior to the council’s approval of Sun Cal’s rezoning request. According to published reports, however, the meeting, which took place at Walt Disney Imagineering’s offices in Glendale, failed to impress several council members.

In an interview published in the Orlando Sentinel, Councilman Bob Hernandez said it was unreasonable for Disney to influence land-use decisions based on sketchy details of a possible third theme park: “I don't think it's reasonable for us to ask a developer to hold off developing a property for 25 years because Disney is talking about doing something.”

Almost certain to be announced during the Finding Nemo event will be the addition of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) to the grounds of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. Sharp-eyed DLR watchers have already posted pictures to the Internet of survey markers on the open field that borders the hotel and DCA.

Currently, DVC is one of Parks and Resorts hottest moneymakers. A basic membership in the property time-share club is $16,400. The number of memberships has doubled since 2000, with over 108,000 families currently enrolled in the program.

Publicly at last February’s investor’s conference, Parks and Resorts chairman Rasulo said, “We feel confident that there is still room to grow. The time-share industry is huge and expanding, and families will still look to Disney when they think of their vacation.”

Privately, Parks and Resorts management is looking to the DVC to help extend the average DLR vacationer’s stay from 2.5 days to a full week.

Also likely to be discussed is the latest edition to DCA, Toy Story Mania, now under construction beneath the Paradise Pier California Screamin rollercoaster. It remains to be seen if the Victorian era amusement park makeover of that section of DCA will talked about as well.

Additionally, there’s a good chance we’ll hear about the new nighttime water spectacular show scheduled for the DCA lagoon. Plans have already been made to remove and/or relocate several Paradise Pier attractions to permit grading the area around the lagoon into a Rivers of America-style amphitheatre to accommodate Fantasmic-size crowds for the new show.

Portion of the DCA lagoon scheduled to be scooped out to form an amphitheatre
for the park's new nighttime water spectacular show.
Click on image for full size picture.

Well-informed sources offer differing accounts of the attractions involved. One report states that the Golden Zephyr spinning rockets will be relocated, and the Orange Stinger, a wave swinger attraction, will be completely removed. Another account agrees that the Zephyr will be relocated; however, the Orange Stinger will remain, loosing its distinctive giant orange enclosure in favor of a more open Victorian-themed setting.

My colleague Al Lutz has more about these and many other changes coming to Disneyland and DCA in his most recent MiceAge update.

The biggest unknown is whether the Mouse will put its money where its belief in a two-park resort is and announce the construction of any of the several new themed hotels planned for the DLR. With Paradise Pier scheduled to undergo a Victorian retheming, there’s a chance the Del Coronado-style hotel we talked about earlier this year could be unveiled. If so, its location is far more likely to be near the current Paradise Pier Hotel rather than the Harbor Blvd. location previously mentioned.

Another Year, Another Million Dreams

All this progress and rushing about to be ready when the media arrives for the At World’s End premiere and Finding Nemo launch, however, comes with a price.

Fans of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln are going to have to wait another year and a half before the 16th President makes his return to the Disneyland Opera House. Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years will continue to run in the Opera House well into 2008, when the attraction will finally close and the facility will receive a complete overhaul, prior to welcoming back Mr. Lincoln late in the fall of that year.

“Basically we were told our budget to refurbish the building and bring Mr. Lincoln back was used up to get Finding Nemo finished,” an Opera House cast member said.

Restoring Mr. Lincoln wasn’t the only thing there wasn’t money for in the budget this year. Get ready for year two of The Year of a Million Dreams promotion.

It seems that the DLR just finished a record-breaking quarter, outperforming the same period last year, which took place during the phenomenally successful 50th Anniversary celebration. This is all the more amazing when you consider how poorly Disney’s own research indicates the YOMD promotion has registered with the public. Disneyland guests are surprised on a regular basis to discover they’ve just won a dream prize in a giveaway promotion they weren’t even aware was taking place.

Soon, very likely at the Finding Nemo event, Parks and Resorts will announce that the YOMD will continue through the end of 2008, thereby saving millions of dollars on creating materials for a new promotion.

Whatever the coming weeks bring in the way of new announcements, one thing is certain: the Mouse needs to do a better job of telling its own story and get out in front of the media instead of playing catch up with it. Even before these new initiatives are announced, there are already reports of disputes between Parks and Resorts head honcho Rasulo and creative head of Disney animation and Imagineering John Lasseter. As one Disney insider said of Rasulo’s ongoing problems, “It just means that the ice is getting thinner under his feet.”

[As a direct result of the purchase of Pixar Animation Studios by the Walt Disney Company, C. W. Oberleitner now owns two shares of stock in the Walt Disney Company.—Editor]