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It Sure Looks Like Disney Is in Trouble

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  July 11, 2023 7:45 PM

Disney has found itself in the news a lot lately, and not so much because its theme parks are known to supposedly be the happiest places on earth. There's the feud that the company has had with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and its recent reputation dive. The company has also been losing money on films--especially when there isn't so much of a market for wokeness as the company would like there to be. Then there's fewer people at the parks, with fewer families being able to afford such a trip. 

As our friends at Twitchy highlighted, National Review's Jim Geraghty laid out the details of his Tuesday National Review article over Twitter. 

Geraghty's piece, as well as the Wall Street Journal article from Monday that he mentions, discuss the prohibitive costs with the Disney World theme price tickets, and how that's alienated the middle class. 

Not only are the Disney theme parks seeing less visitors, but Universal Studies seems to be gaining in popularity. As Inside the Magic covered last month, the rival theme park beat out certain Disney parks, mentioning that "Universal’s Islands of Adventure drew a total of 11 million Guests, beating Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT."

Guests over the age of 10 can start off spending $164 for both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, or start of spending $109 for either park. Guests who want to buy a 4-theme park pass at Disney can expect to spend $396 per person.

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As Geraghty highlighted about the ticket prices for the various Disney parks:

...The current ticket prices for Walt Disney World and its related theme parks are as follows:

There are ranges because Disney has holiday prices, peak-day prices, regular prices, and value prices, depending upon the day. Keep in mind, the above prices are for one day’s admission; many families go down to Disney World for about a week and will spend several days at the park. If you want to spend five days in the theme parks, you’ll be spending, at minimum, $600 per person, and that’s just to get in the door — no meals, no lodging, no souvenirs.

Plus, Disney is getting even stingier too. Another Inside the Magic post highlighted how Disney is cutting benefits for annual pass holders. An annual pass costs $1,399 for each guest over 10-years-old, plus $90.94 in taxes. 

Inside the Magic addressed problems for annual pass holders for Disneyland Paris, but also more price concerns:

Portion sizes shrunk while prices grew exponentially. Fan-favorite add-ons like the Disney Dining Plan were nowhere to be seen. To put it simply, Guests found that the Disney they knew and loved was different, with many wondering if it had changed forever.

Disney Genie didn’t help, with the new pricey addition replacing the free Fastpass system previously used at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Instead of being able to make free reservations for select rides and attractions, Guests now need to pay for Genie+ to skip the long lines at the Parks.

This addition has been controversial, to say the least, with many fans and Guests alike voicing their disapproval of the service. Regardless, Genie+ remains super popular, with The Walt Disney Company revealing the jaw-dropping amount of money the service has made for them.

Reports from the Wall Street Journal and National Review come as Disneyland Paris is changing its annual pass system to get rid of certain features, as of Tuesday:

On July 11, 2023, the Disneyland Paris Resort officially ended its current Annual Pass program, revealing something new would soon be taking its place. The new pass, called the Disneyland Pass, will launch later this year.

...

As you can see, there are several benefits missing for Annual Passholders of this new Disneyland Pass. Guests no longer receive stroller and wheelchair rentals or free locker storage at the Parks. Annual Passholders also don’t get discounts on hotels or day tickets.

There’s no longer a dedicated entry to Annual Passholders, as there used to be before this change. There are no more reserved areas as well as infinity parking.

The post also tweeted out more details, including those expressing displeasure, with mentions of how such an annual pass plan is similar to plans in the United States.

In addition to tweeting out details of his own piece and about the Wall Street Journal piece, Geraghty included screenshots of other coverage highlighting the financial hit that Disney has taken. Plus, here's what his article has to say:

...The Disney corporation has been tightening its belt and canceling some high-profile projects after running up an astronomical amount of debt during the pandemic — $54 billion by the middle of 2020. Disney is trying to cut $5.5 billion in costs, a move that will reportedly include cutting 7,000 employees.

You see the consequences of Disney’s belt-tightening all over the media world — high-profile layoffs at ESPN, executives being laid off at ABC News radio, Disney selling off its last radio station, cancellations of television shows on FreeForm, removing lots of shows from Disney+, and writing down losses on the company’s tax returns.

Last month, Breitbart had also covered how "Box Office Analyst Estimates Disney Lost $890 Million on Last Eight Theatrical Releases." Among the movies highlighted included box office bombs like "Strange World," "Lightyear," and "Elemental." All three of those movies contained woke content, with the latter one featuring Disney's first "non-binary" character. 

In a column for Townhall, as well as in writing for our sister site RedState, Brad Slager has discussed the failure of "Elemental," and how it speaks to an overall larger issue for Pixar.

Are these failures due to the woke policies Disney has enacted? It could be. "Go woke, go broke," is how the saying goes. Former and potentially future President Donald Trump has also proclaimed before that "everything woke turns to s**t."

Geraghty's piece is aptly titled "Disney Enters a Crisis of Its Own Making." That not only applies to the high costs, but could apply to how the company is turning off families in other ways, too.

Although Geraghty wished to make "the exorbitant admission prices to the parks" the focus of his piece, he did also touch upon how conservatives feel alienated:

...No doubt some on the Right will reflexively cite this as another example of “get woke, go broke,” and perhaps the perception that Disney is now a powerful force for the cultural Left is spurring some conservative families to stay away...

...

You probably noticed that Disney has lost whatever apolitical reputation it may have once had, and the company’s vision and decision-making have become hot-button issues in our culture wars...

...

...If you’re trying to sell things to middle-class families from Valdosta, Ga., Spokane, Wash., Bakersfield, Calif., Topsfield, Maine, and every suburb and small town in between, you have to stay within the boundaries of the mainstream American identity, and you may well want to avoid hot-button political and cultural controversies entirely.

A large portion of the customer base just isn’t interested — and as the Bud Light controversy demonstrated, some existing customers will react extremely negatively to a brand’s politicization.

If Disney wants to continue to be the biggest entertainment company in America, it has to dial back its political and cultural antagonism toward conservative Americans. No doubt, the company’s creative class doesn’t want to hear that. But there probably aren’t enough outspoken cultural progressives to generate tens of billions of dollars in profits on their own.

DeSantis, whose feud with Disney has been heavily publicized but often misunderstood, made some memorable comments about Disney in late February, when signing legislation to end Disney's self-governing status.

As he took a question about the new board, DeSantis pointed out that "we also have people that very much, um, want to see, uh, Disney be what Walt [Disney] envisioned," adding it's "what we all wanted to do." 

DeSantis also explained he's "always been very proud of, of our parks" and how "so many people have been able to come to Florida over the years," pointing out "it's almost like it's a right of passage for people to be able to come down here, and I think a lot of families have had really great experiences for many times," though he did add "but when you lose your way, you know, you gotta, you gotta have people that are gonna tell you the truth and so we hope that they can get back up."

This bad news for Disney comes less than two months after the release of the 2023 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings for major brands, which found Disney experiencing a drop in is reputation, becoming one of the most polarizing companies.