Disney and More: What Will Be Disneyland Paris' Next Attraction?

In two words, here is the program: no Little Mermaid ride - maybe and hopefully it will come later, Star Tours 2 most probably coming at Discoveryland, and the highly awaited Ratatouille dark ride is, as we will see, "double confirmed" although not yet officially.

You won't see any announcement of the updated Star Tours coming to Paris or Tokyo before it opens next spring at Disneyland and Hollywood Studios, for purely economic reasons. By waiting, they don't have to pay any of the R&D costs associated with the new ride. It's the same reason the Oriental Land Company waited on Toy Story Mania.

Hong Kong Disneyland is the only Resort without Star Tours. It was too long in the tooth to justify including when the Park was designed. Now with major expansion on tap for the next several years, the first real opportunity is 2014. And at that point... Hong Kong may end up the only property without Star Tours, including Shanghai.

Euro Disney SCA Third Quarter Announcement and Nine Months Ended 30 June 2010

PDF file.

Nine-month year-to-date revenues increased 3% to €893 million, reflecting an increase in real estate activity partially offset by declines in attendance and hotel occupancy at the Resort in the first semester.

Resort revenues down 2.4% for the nine months ending 30 June 2010. 5% decrease in attendance and 3.3% decrease in occupancy offset by 2% increase in both average spending per guest and average spending per room.

Toy Story Playland officially opens next Tuesday, 17 August 2010.

Magic Kingdom Fantasyland Plans in Flux

Don't bet on anything breathtaking.

Teaser Video From the Queue of the New Star Tours

First shown earlier this afternoon at the Star Wars convention Celebration V, Disney has released a short video teasing new destinations for Star Tours. The video will be shown in the queue when Star Tours reopens next year.

Disney isn't saying if the advertised destinations are part of the new ride experience.

Orlando Business Journal: A New Country At Epcot?

Epcot’s World Showcase has been considering adding a 12th country to the park, with Spain being the likely choice, according to one Walt Disney World insider.

Not Spain. They've been evaluating another country, but it's nowhere near moving forward.

Meanwhile, a Monsters Inc. roller coaster has received the green light to be built by 2014 at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, according to several websites.

No. Just, no. It's no secret that a Monsters Inc. coaster was in design, but at this point it's on hold.

Tony Baxter Gone Within the Year?

Considered unmanageable by many and highly marginalized in his current position, there's good reason to believe that Tony Baxter may be on his way out of Walt Disney Imagineering.

UPDATE: leemac has heard it'll be January. That'd be something.

Magic Eye: 99 Days Until Disney's California Adventure Opens

MintCrocodile looks at an old Disneyland Resort Line distributed to Cast Members in the lead up to the grand opening of Disney's California Adventure. It's amazing how much of the original Park is gone only a decade later.

My favorite part:

After lunch there's nothing better than "riding a bee" inside the Orange Stinger.

So true!

Disneyland Resumes Sales of Wooden Toy Guns

Orange County Register:

Disney stopped selling the historic, 1800s-style guns in 2001 when California legislators passed a law requiring all toy guns to be brightly colored to avoid being mistaken for real weapons.

The new guns are bright orange and green. Disney had continued to sell plastic guns.

Alice in Wonderland Ready To Reopen Friday

Photos from MousePlanet.

CalOSHA is scheduled to tour the attraction tomorrow and the ride is expected to reopen Friday. A permanent solution is expected the second quarter of fiscal year 2011.

Highlights From Third Quarter Earnings Call

Bob Iger:

It’s worth noting that about one quarter of ESPN’s total revenue from the event came from non-linear platforms, including ESPN3, apps free iPhone and iPad, ESPN Mobile TV, espn.com and radio.

That's pretty amazing.

World of Color is the first of our next generation of attractions at California Adventure and its early success is a promising sign for our investments there.

Jay Rasulo:

At our international parks, guest spending improved at both Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland. Attendance was up 1% in Paris and also up 35% in Hong Kong, which was driven by higher guest visitation from mainland China and international markets.

Impressive attendance gains at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Most stupid analyst question goes to Jason Bazinet of Citi:

You guys have such dominant franchises when it comes to men with ESPN and obviously kids, the marginal investments you’ve made either in terms of sports rights, or gaming or even the Marvel acquisition seems to just sort of extend your advantage in those markets as opposed to focusing on women. Do you feel like there is sort of an opportunity to extend sort of the company’s prowess into the female segment or do you anticipate sort of continuing to invest in sort of, I call them the core areas, where you’re focused now?

The largest consumers of Disney's products are women. Disney's challenge is connecting with heterosexual males.

Walt Disney Company Third Quarter Earnings Up 40%

$1.3 billion in earnings, $10 billion in revenue for the quarter.

The film studio reported operating income of $123 million, compared with a loss of $12 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 30% to $1.6 billion. Disney said it had to write off the costs of "a couple of film titles," but it did not identify which movies fell short of financial projections — or by how much.

Two guesses.

MouseInfo: Disneyland Resort Survey Explores Unique Ticket Options

The types of tickets presented give an interesting look at the ways Disney is trying to expand ticket options, some even included half-day tickets at a lower cost, cheaper tickets for DCA, unlimited VIP Fastpass add-on, and more.

This is, of course, just a research survey so it's right to be heavily skeptical that any of these options will ever be heard of again. But it's no secret that Disney is looking at ways to charge for "premium" Fast Pass in the near future and there are at least two others in the survey that have been seriously considered in the past.

Duffy!

Al Lutz 09 August 2010:

The next big Disney marketing push is a new character named Duffy, supposedly Mickey's little teddy bear that travels the world with him. Way-too-cute Duffy makes his big debut in the American parks Oct. 14th at DCA and Epcot.

Duffy's already big in Japan.

New Central Monorail Controller Postion at Walt Disney World

That person will be responsible for overseeing traffic along the 15 mile-long track. Right now, control of the monorail rotates between a group of monorail coordinators. This new higher pay scale position is designed to ensure that workers charged with directing trains can focus solely on watching the trains instead of having other tasks to perform.

Long overdue. Sad that it took a major tragedy to get much needed changes enacted.

David Koenig: Alice in Wonderland Reopening This Week

Charitably speaking, the modifications look horrible. The good news is they’re temporary. The Cast Member Reference Guide lists the attraction as closed until January 2011, so it likely will go back under the knife as soon as crowds become manageable—and the Imagineers can come up with a more attractive solution.

You can see some pictures of the current arrangement at MouseInfo. It's hideous, but credit to Disneyland's operations team for getting the attraction back up as soon as possible during the crowded summertime.

WSJ: All Eyes On Walt Disney Studios

When Walt Disney Co. reports quarterly financial results on Tuesday, all eyes will be on its movie studio.

The April to June period included a sizable chunk of monster box-office take for "Alice in Wonderland" and, thanks to an early home-video release, the first month of DVD and Blu-ray sales. On top of that, "Toy Story 3" took in $258 million domestically in June and went on to become the Pixar unit's second biggest-grossing title ever, behind "Finding Nemo."

Alice in Wonderland is an anomaly. Critics trashed it. It's the fifth highest grossing film of all-time worldwide, but I've yet to meet anyone who loved it. Home video sales have been steady, but unremarkable. No one's talking about it. It smashed into theaters, made obscene amounts of money and promptly dropped off the face of the earth.

Culturally, it looks out of place in the top five.

In it's wake, Disney and other studios are looking to capitalize on similar properties. Disney is developing Maleficent for Tim Burton to direct. But hoping to replicate Alice's success is a fool's game. The largest factor in its unlikely success can never be replicated: Avatar's 3D zeitgeist.