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The LEGO Move

Image: Lego

LEGOLAND Florida broke ground in 2010, and it debuted in 2011. A full decade before the park opened its gates for the first time, however, Jim Hill reported that it would take on a different form. At the time of the rumor in 2001, there were already three LEGOLAND parks in existence, with a fourth opening scheduled in Germany the following year.

Even though LEGO Global Family Attraction was dealing with a relatively new park in San Diego and an upcoming project in Günzburg, they jumped at the opportunity to discuss a joint venture with executives from The Walt Disney Company.

Hill chronicled high level meetings that transpired in Burbank, California, between two of the most powerful family-friendly companies in the world. LEGO, one of the strongest companies in Denmark, structured an ambitious plan for the growth of their company. One of the most daring involved building a park with the LEGO name as part of Walt Disney World.

Your first question is undoubtedly why Disney would like the idea. That’s easily explained. In 2001, the company was in the middle of tumult that eventually led to the resignation of Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and son of Roy (Oliver) Disney. The two men built Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and the son of Roy represented the connection to the glory days of the park. By the turn of the millennium, Disney was feuding with CEO Michael Eisner, who was notoriously frugal. Roy E. Disney would never consider a Disney theme park that didn’t have the stamp of his family’s legacy on it.

Plastic is a cheap material. Who knew?

Image: Lego

Eisner was less concerned with the history of the Disney family. His focus was on the share price of the DIS stock and the net revenue of the company that impacted it. He loved the idea of a theme park that required little heavy lifting from Disney employees to bring to life. The cost of a LEGOLAND Park at Walt Disney World made too much financial sense not to explore, at least to someone who wasn’t attached to the Disney legacy.

The financial struggles of Animal Kingdom were the driving force behind Eisner’s thinking. The park failed to meet its pre-opening projections for attendance and revenue. And it missed by A LOT. After spending over $800 million to build the world’s coolest joint theme park/zoo, Disney’s Animal Kingdom suffered a great deal of negative publicity during its early days.

Also, people weren’t quite sure what to think of the historically unprecedented merger of concepts. A lot of potential customers waited to hear what the reviews were for Animal Kingdom. Since those evaluations were middling, park traffic disappointed Disney executives. Hill estimated that Disney would need to invest another $200 or $300 million in order to lure enough visitors to bring Animal Kingdom up to its initial projections. That would make the park an investment of over a billion dollars simply to match original expectations.

This situation explains why the plans that Disney was considering for a fifth gate as early as 1998 fell by the wayside. At the time, they simply didn’t have the money to spend on a new project while the most recent one struggled. LEGO presented them with a remarkable plan for park that would be cheap to build. LEGOLAND California had cost only $130 million to build, and Disney would be splitting the costs with a different company. Even at full price, however, the amount they’d need to invest to add a LEGOLAND gate to Walt Disney World would cost less than the investment they’d have to make to bring Animal Kingdom up to snuff.

Unfortunately, cheap to build means cheap overall…

Image: Lego

On paper, this plan looked great. LEGO and Disney are two of the most popular toy manufacturers in the world, LEGOLAND had proven itself popular in Europe, its California reception was better than expected, and they could build a new park for much cheaper through a joint venture. They were only a few problems.  The most obvious one would be determining who was in charge. Eisner was a notorious control freak, and he wasn’t about to cede power at one of his company’s crown jewels to the leaders of a different company.

There was also the issue of cost. Even at a cheaper total than building a new park, Disney execs weren’t convinced that the new addition would add enough traffic to justify the public relations hit they’d take for allowing a non-Disney (but officially licensed) park on Disney grounds. LEGOLAND California claimed less than a quarter of the traffic of Animal Kingdom, the least successful of Disney’s four parks at the time. While two million annual guests is wonderful for a non-Disney theme park, that type of bump wasn’t enough to move the needle on Disney’s dial, even in 2001.

Perhaps the determining factor, however, was the decidedly low-tech design of LEGOLAND theme parks. Even Disney’s Imagineers would struggle to make such cheap set pieces seems worthy of the Disney park brand. They ultimately decided that working to improve what they had was better than introducing another potentially sub-standard park on the heels of the mediocrely received Animal Kingdom. In the process, they broke the hearts of many unknowing Duplo fans.

Aftermath

Image: Lego

For their part, LEGO remained adamant that they should continue to build their brand via theme parks. They’ve admirably done exactly this, expanding their park holdings to six with four more in the offing. They even found a spot to build their own park in Central Florida at the site formerly used by Cypress Gardens.

The good news for Disney was that they managed to redeem Animal Kingdom to the point that it has supplanted Hollywood Studios. The most recent Walt Disney World theme park claimed 10.4 million in attendance last year, making it the seventh most trafficked park in the world. Since its shaky start in 1998, attendance has increased by 1.8 million, an average of more than a hundred thousand guests annually. Re-investing in Animal Kingdom made perfect sense at the turn of the millennium, and it continues to do so, which is why Pandora: The World of Avatar is on its way in 2017 (or later).

 
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Comments

I love Disney, to the moon and back, but with all these price increases, and nothing to really show for it right now, I'm disinclined to renew my passes next year. However, I can guarantee, that if the Dark Kingdom actually came to life, I'd be back in an instant. It's bold, yes, but that's what Disney needs right now. They need to be proactive versus reactive, and that's the kind of risk that's worth taking!

They need to buy back the Marval rights from Universal Studios
And then open the Marvel universe theme park. The movies alone would allow them to build many immersive worlds (lands). The comics will truly come to life, and of course would be way better than what US has now for super hero island.

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