Due in part to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, and in part to Iger’s new Disney+ strategy of less product, Marvel Studios has changed up its upcoming release schedule of series. The New Dates “Loki” Season 2 is the only series sticking to its current… Read More »Marvel Studios Shakes Up Dates of Upcoming Disney+ Series
Here’s some Marvel news nobody saw coming…there is a reported “WandaVision” spin-off series for Disney+ in the works starring none other than Vision, played by Paul Bettany. The Details Reports are a writers room will convene in November to hash out the story, which will… Read More »Marvel Reportedly Working on Vision Series for Disney+
This last week in Pittsburgh, PA, the first autonomous vehicles were added to the fleet of cars used by ridesharing service Uber. Eventually the entire fleet will be self-driving cars. Those who thought this technology was still years off now have to shift their thinking.… Read More »When will autonomous vehicles come to Walt Disney World?
This week crazy-like-a-fox billionaire businessman Elon Musk introduced his latest revolutionary concept, the Hyperloop, and then gave it away to the masses as an open source project. Musk’s previous successes include Paypal (without which much online transactions wouldn’t happen), Tesla (an electric car company that’s profitable for a change), SpaceX (a private company that is helping NASA get payloads into space with an eventual goal of Mars(!)), and SolarCity (affordable solar panels for home and business; It remains to be seen if this will fall into the success category, but it seems likely with a net positive in the profit column last quarter).
Hollywood director Jon Favreau has said he modeled his version of Tony Stark, aka Marvel’s Iron Man, at least in part after Musk. But I think Tony Stark is the wrong model. Musk reminds me more of late period Walt Disney, when Walt had his eye on the future, not just of entertainment and the Disney Company, but of the planet as a whole and improving the lives of those who live on it. His gained steam with Monorails (mass transit), moved onto PeopleMovers (person rapid transit (PRT)), and dabbled in energy efficiency and recycling. Then Walt united all his theories and took on the mother of all urban planning projects – EPCOT, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow. With EPCOT, Walt wanted to build a working community where he could partner with industrial explorers with a similar vision for the future.
That is essentially the same vision as Elon Musk; which is why I think there is a natural partnership between Musk, his companies, and The Walt Disney Company. To get started, create the partnership for the purposes of building a working prototype of the Hyperloop at Walt Disney World. Musk, or his team, would be involved enough to oversee things, but most of the R&D would be left to Walt Disney Imagineering. The resulting prototype would be a great first step to making a full scale Hyperloop a feasible project to get past local and state governments.
Disney’s Imagineers already have much of the expertise needed to build such a system. They have experience with air-bearings (from the Flying Saucers ride in 60s to the revisited version at DCA), mass transit systems (Monorail, PeopleMover, etc.) and for years they used a garbage disposal system at the Magic Kingdom that magically whisked away trash right from the curb side down an air pressure driven pipe. They also have good contacts in the coaster and mass transit construction industries, so finding suppliers would not be difficult. Read More »Bring to Walt Disney World: The Hyperloop
Many people will write better tributes to Steve than I can here. They’ll mention how he invented personal computing, built Apple from the ground up, twice, and started a revolution in computer animation by having the vision to see something special in the team at… Read More »Steve Jobs, founded Pixar and Apple, Dead at 56
With the recent announcement of an Avatar themed land and attractions coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdoms and the troubled opening of Disney’s first Hawaiian resort, Aulani, a lot of the conversation has settled on the types of risks the Walt Disney Company’s parks and resorts division has been taking lately.
It’s a bouillabaisse of different complaints:
You can see why the Disney company may be confused. One one hand they get attacked for not doing enough on the other for doing too much. That’s true, but the general theme is Disney needs to take more risks when it comes to its parks and resorts.
Read More »Risk and Reward, is Disney Parks & Resorts on the Right Track?
I’ve been thinking a lot about Vision lately. That’s Capital ‘V’ vision, btw. Vision for The Disney Blog, the vision for the Walt Disney Company and specifically the theme park division, and vision to get us out of this economic mess that the world has… Read More »Disney Vision