Earlier today, Chris sent me a note which read:
Hi Jim
I am loving the daily why for entries. I heard that when
planning a european park the original plan was to construct somewhere is Spain.
if this is true why for did Disney feel the need to build it in France? As a Britt, I can say that the amount of family trips to Spain must exceed those to France,
mainly due to the better weather. If you could shed some light on this it would
be much appreciated.
The Euro Disneyland construction site in the late Fall / early Winter of 1991.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
Many thanks
Chris
Chris —
Thanks for your kind note. As for the Euro Disney in France
rather than Spain … I actually got the answer to this question straight for
Roy Disney himself. Back during the early, early days of his “Save
Disney” campaign, Roy gave me a call at home one Saturday night. Which I
have to admit was a trifle bizarre.
Roy E. Disney (in the grey suit) stands with Phillipe Bourguignon (black), the then-newly
installed CEO of Euro Disney) stand in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle on April 12,
1993 as the Euro Disneyland theme park gets ready to celebrate its first
anniversary. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
Anyway … During our 20 minute-long talk, he and I covered
an awful lot of Disney-related turf. And eventually the topic of the
then-still-struggling Parisian theme park and resort campaign. And Roy (as you
might expect) laid the failure of that project right at Michael Eisner‘s feet.
“We should have built Euro Disney in Spain. The site that
the Imagineers had chosen there had far better weather. More to the point, this
area already had a strong tourism-based economy in place, a pool of people going-on-holiday that we could have
pulled our Guests from. Plus a great rail system,” I remember Roy saying.
“But the French offered Eisner far better
financial terms. They were willing to give the Company all sorts of financial incentives and tax breaks if we
built this project in France rather than in Spain. So in the end, Michael chose
the scheme over the dream.”
Roy E. Disney, Michael Eisner and Mickey Mouse at the February 2001 opening
ceremony for the original version of Disney California Adventure theme park.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
And even though it’s almost been 10 years now since Roy and
I talked, I still often think about that part of our phone conversation. Choosing
the scheme (i.e. the numbers-driven plan. Letting the sharp pencil boys decide
what parks get built where, how much money gets spent on which attractions.
Making how-soon-will-we-get-a-return-on-our-investment the final deciding
factor when it comes to what Walt Disney Parks & Resorts does) versus the
dream (i.e. doing what Walt did. Going with your gut. Rolling the dice. Betting
it all on something as unlikely-sounding as a family-fun park built out in the
middle of an orange grove in Anaheim, CA. Or worse yet, building a theme park
& resort on in the middle of a Central Florida swamp) . More importantly, how
embracing this sort of mind-set was often what got Eisner in trouble during the
latter half of his reign at Disney. Doing
the First Phases of projects like Disney’s California Adventure & Hong Kong
Disneyland on the cheap. Which is why the Company was then forced — after the
fact — to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to turn these underwhelming
theme parks into true Disney-quality experiences.
Thankfully those days seem to be behind the Walt Disney
Company. Now there are folks like John Lasseter in place at the Mouse House who
understand that — while Disney is a publicly held multi-national corporation
which has certain financial responsibilities when it comes to its investors —
you should never put the scheme ahead the dream. That — at the end of the day
— what really matters at Disney (or Pixar or ESPN or Marvel) isn’t “Hey,
look at this brilliant business plan that I just crafted,” but “Wouldn’t this be a great story to
tell?” or “Wouldn’t this be a killer Guest experience?”
John Lasseter and I chatting at the D23 EXPO back in August of 2011.
Photo by Florence Doyle
I mean, John is definitely a dream-over-scheme guy. When I
(and a handful of other lucky Disney-related bloggers) got the chance to sit down with Lasseter back in
August of 2011 for a private interview session at the D23 EXPO, Lasseter
related this story about how — during a recent meeting at WDI — someone had
suggested a way that the Company could save some money on an attraction that
they then had in the works for the
Parks. As this suggestion got floated,
John literally turned to this guy and said:
“Okay, are you going to take it upon yourself to stand
at the exit of this ride and explain to everybody who gets off the ride why
it’s successful because we stayed within the ridiculously low budget? Are you?
If you are, I’m good. I’m in.”
John Lasseter at the July 2009 ground-breaking for Cars Land. Where The Walt Disney
Company bet that a $600 million new “land” for Disney California Adventure would
help turn this troubled theme park around. And as the huge crowds at DCA this
past summer proved, that bet paid off in a big way for Disney. Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
Needless to say, that exec quickly backed away from his
budget-cutting suggestion.
One other quick note here about France versus Spain when it
came to choosing the proper location for Euro Disney. Roy shared a pretty funny
story with me about why the French government was so really eager to get Disney
to build its theme-park-and-resort out in this particular part of Marne-la-Vallée.
A theme park and a resort rises up out of what was once a relatively
flat portion of the French countryside. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
“Those nice, flat sugar-beet fields that Disneyland
Paris is built upon? That’s the route that the Germans sent their tanks over as
they made their way to Paris in World War I & World War II,” Walt’s
nephew laughed. “So by convincing The Walt Disney Company to build there,
the French government now finally has something in place to slow down the Germans.
So as far as French officials are concerned, Euro Disney isn’t really a resort.
It’s more of a speed bump.”
And speaking of speed … I’m sorry that JHM has fallen
behind schedule with its five-Why-For-stories-in-a-single-week experiment. But at
the very last minute last week, I was offered the opportunity to meet with the folks who are putting together
the “Walking Dead” maze for this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at
Universal Studios Florida. And then …
Well, let’s just say that Nancy & my return trip to New Hampshire turned out to be
something of a horror show unto itself. With my plane flight back to Manchester
on Sunday night getting cancelled due to extreme weather. Which meant that the
only way to get back home was to first catch a flight to Logan, rent a car once
we got on the ground at Logan after midnight last night and then driving back
up to New Hampshire.
Greg Nicotero, the co executive producer & special effects make-up designer
for the hit AMC series, and I try to hold back the zombies in “The Waking
Dead: Dead Inside” maze. Which is sure to be one of the high points of
this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida.
Photo by Nancy Stadler
Which is why Nancy and I are both kind of operating at half
speed today. But don’t worry. Once we each get about three cups of coffee (as
well as figure out how we’re going to go about returning the rental car to
Boston as well as reclaim our own car.
Which is still parked at Manchester Airport), we’ll get things sorted out here.
And I’ll then get something written up about our behind-the-scenes
adventures at Universal Orlando as well as answering yet another one of your
Why For questions.
Speaking of which … If you’d like to get one of your own
questions answered in an upcoming Why For column (which I’m now thinking I’ll turn
into a twice weekly, possibly a three-times-a-week item on JHM. So that I’ll
then still have some spots free for posting pieces about other aspects of The
Walt Disney Company), please send those queries along to
whyfor@jimhillmedia.com.