My, how times have changed at the Walt Disney Company. Particularly when it comes to Walt Disney Imagineering and DisneyToon Studios.
By that I mean … Just seven years, senior Imagineers wouldn’t be caught dead working on something as insignificant as a mere attraction redo like “Journey into Your Imagination.” These vets would rather work on much more high profile projects like the “Tokyo DisneySea” theme park. Big ticket items that were sure to get plenty of publicity.
But now it’s the Fall of 2005. Where there are no high profile projects in the pipeline. Except for Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland’s second gate, two proposed theme parks that are still in the pre-visualization phase of their development.
So — with job cuts reportedly looming — what’s a senior Imagineer to do? Keep your head down low and grab onto any project you can. Be it a ride redo or even just a lowly model.
That’s why Disneyland’s new “Finding Nemo” attraction (Which — truth be told — is just a redo of the Anaheim
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theme park’s old “Submarine Voyage” ride) currently has three WDI heavyweights working on it: Tony Baxter, senior vice president of Creative Development at Walt Disney Imagineering; Kathy Magnum, Creative vice president and show producer at WDI; and Rick Rothschild, senior vice president and executiev show producer at Imagineering.
Normally, a project like this would only need one WDI vet riding herd on it. But given that Disneyland’s “Finding Nemo” attraction is now literally the last lifeboat left on the Titanic, that’s why all three of these Imagineering heavyweights have climbed on board the sub redo. Hoping that this project will help them hang onto their jobs at WDI for a little while longer.
Now where this gets interesting is that Imagineering president Don Goodman is reportedly not all that thrilled to see all this high priced talent attached to the “Finding Nemo” project. He’s concerned that the sub redo could wind up being just like the “Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years” exhibit debacle.
That project supposedly went significantly over-budget because so many Imagineers (with the hope that it might then give them some job security) got themselves attached to the Main Street Opera House redo. The end result was — thanks to all the billable hours that were attributed to “research”on the “50 Magical Years” project — the centerpiece of this exhibit (I.E. That scale model of Disneyland as it was on opening day) became one of the most expensive models that WDI ever produced. Coming in at a cost well north of a million dollars.
Goodman is concerned that the same thing may now happen with the “Finding Nemo” project. That — what with all the 800-pound-gorillas now gathered in the sub redo room, trying to decide where Marlin, Nemo and Dory should go — most of this project’s original budget will get eaten up by overhead. Which means that Don will then have to go to his new boss, Bob Iger, and beg for additional cash in order to fund the actual construction of this new Disneyland attraction.
Given that Goodman knows that blowing through “Nemo” ‘s original budget on just the developmental phase of the sub redo isn’t exactly going to endear him to Disney’s new CEO, Don’s allegedly looking for other ways to contain costs on this project. Which may involve forcing one of these high-priced VPs off of the “Nemo” ride. Maybe even persuading one of these WDI vets to take early retirement.
I know, I know. That sounds kind of cold and cruel. But let’s remember that this is the new version of Walt Disney Imagineering. The one that’s slowly but surely turning itself into a management company. Where in the not-so-distant future, most projects will then be out-sourced to theme park design firms like Kirk Design Inc. and/or Thinkwell Design & Production.
Mind you, Walt Disney Imagineering isn’t the only division of the Disney Corporation to recently become very concerned with cost containment issues. These same sort of noises have begun coming out of DisneyToon Studios, the arm of the Mouse Factory that’s responsible for all those home premieres like “Tarzan II,” “Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch has a Glitch” and the upcoming “Bambi II.”
Up until recently, DisneyToon Studios had been thought of as the Walt Disney Company’s cash cow. A division of the corporation that had regularly delivered incredibly high profits off of the production & sale of relatively low cost (EX: “Winnie the Pooh: Springtime for Roo” reportedly only cost $6 million to produce) video premieres.
But recently DisneyToon Studios — following the lead of Walt Disney Feature Animation — began stepping away from the production of traditionally animated home premieres and turned its attention toward producing CG films. Only to discover that computer animated features (like the already-in-production “The Tinkerbell Movie”) cost quite a bit more to produce.
This may explain why DisneyToon Studios has recently begun a series of cost containment measures. These range from things as big as shutting down production of “The Aristocats II” to items as small as cancelling the free-coffee-and-pasterie service that DTS staffers used to enjoy on Monday mornings.
It’s these sorts of moves — like removing the First Aid kits from the DisneyToon production areas (Reportedly because they cost too much to maintain) that are making DTS staffers extremely nervous.
Does that seem like kind of an over-reaction? Well, you have to understand that one of the main reasons that DisneyToon staffers are nervous is that a good number of them used to be Disney Feature Animation employees. And — when the job cuts began in earnest over at the Sorcerer’s Hat building back in 2001 — many WDFA vets scrambled over to the Frank Wells building (Known in-house as the “2s Building,” given all the sequels that have been produced in that structure) and sought employment with Disney Television Animation.
But now that even DisneyToon seems to be coming under the cost-cutting microscope, many former WDFA employees who work at DTS are wondering: “Should I perhaps be looking for another corporate lifeboat? Like maybe sending a resume over to Circle 7 Studios?”
Unfortunately, given that there’s a very good chance that — should the Walt Disney Company finally forge a new agreement with Pixar Animation Studios — that Circle 7 Studios will disappear virtually overnight, it now looks like there really aren’t any lifeboats left at the S.S. Mouse House.
So is it any wonder that morale is at an all-time low at WDI? And that staffers at DisneyToon Studios are now starting to get very, very nervous. Particularly given that there’s currently no project in the pipeline to replace the recently cancelled “Aristocats II.”
Well, cats are said to have nine lives. So here’s hoping that all of these high profile Imagineering veterans as well as DTS employees have an extra life or two hidden away too. Which then might allow them to survive the upcoming round of pink slips.
Your thoughts?