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This goes beyond rated R stuff if you ask me:
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/H8bfac02...Modern-Horror-Anime-Modular.jpg_Q90.jpg_.webp
(I'm not even posting a pic of his work, that's how inappropriate it is even for Henson.
To be honest, this isn't even the most unsettling of Junji Ito's work. It gets a lot worse.
Obviously it isn't marketable to kids, but Americans ITTL should be aware that Disney's animations aren't just for kids anymore by the time the 2000s and 2010s roll around.

Strangely enough, Junji Ito does come up in connection to Disney. I'll just let that little teaser burn its way through everyone's imagination.
*evil laugh*
giphy.gif

Very interesting, Geekhis. Very interesting.....

Well, if Junji Ito's a possibility for WDSS (no matter how faint), then that means that HP Lovecraft is also a possibility...
 
To be honest, this isn't even the most unsettling of Junji Ito's work. It gets a lot worse.
Obviously it isn't marketable to kids, but Americans ITTL should be aware that Disney's animations aren't just for kids anymore by the time the 2000s and 2010s roll around.
I just want to note that the US is still in the Satanic Panic and it sounds like politics is remaining relatively the same as OTL so there will still be a rise in evangelism and right wing conservatism in the US. While Grave of the Fireflies and Maus are scary (to kids) there is a historical context while Junji Ito's material is just straight horror.
 
Well, if Junji Ito's a possibility for WDSS (no matter how faint), then that means that HP Lovecraft is also a possibility...
Knowig the 90's and Disney being a bit more liberal, they'd probably tackle Lovecraft's very rancid beliefs about minorities at that too.
 
I just want to note that the US is still in the Satanic Panic and it sounds like politics is remaining relatively the same as OTL so there will still be a rise in evangelism and right wing conservatism in the US. While Grave of the Fireflies and Maus are scary (to kids) there is a historical context while Junji Ito's material is just straight horror.
I mean, if Disney is already gaining the ire of conservatives and moral crusaders during the 90s, I'm not sure how a Junji Ito adaptation would really change much.

Plus, if the adaptation is released during somewhere like the 2010s where internet culture is already established, it's possible that it could gain insane popularity among anime communities that would be shocked and elated at a Junji Ito adaptation if Disney's reputation for high quality animation and stories has never faltered ITTL.

Knowig the 90's and Disney being a bit more liberal, they'd probably tackle Lovecraft's very rancid beliefs about minorities at that too.
Yeah, I think Disney could easily adapt Lovecraft to be less racist since the core themes and plot points of something like The Call of Cthulhu or The Shadow over Innsmouth could easily function without the racism.
 
Wells has been grooming Kinsey for a while, with COO duties specifically in mind, handling the day-to-day operations and keeping the "ship" sailing. This lets Wells concentrate on his role as Chairman and President. It notably also puts another loyalist on the Board and gives inside directors a one-vote advantage.
Of course traditionally the COO seat is also about grooming a successor to the CEO. I wonder how much Ron Miller is aware of that corporate tradition?
As to the discussions on greedy shareholders, well, as Den mentioned, as Shareholders they're more interested, generally speaking, with the stock price than the raw income. A share of the income will come to them as Dividends, of course, but the Capital Gains to be made from growing stock prices will be a larger part of their wealth and they will even pay far fewer taxes on it due to how tax laws are written. Or that's how I understand it (not an economist). As such, the rather high profile "passion projects and charity films" have reduced quarterly returns from their peak in the late '80s and spooked investors (and thus repressed stock prices) because they call into question whether the leadership of the studio has the best interests of investors at heart, which as @El Pip mentioned earlier is arguably their job as a public company. So the investors aren't wrong in demanding answers.
To drag in some un-requested corporate finance, if you are a successful and mature company then you should be generating lots of profits (if not questions will be asked). Broadly speaking there is a hierarchy of options.;
1. Invest those profits in expanding the business
2. Return the money to shareholders
3. Let the money pile up

No-one likes 3 so it is one of the first two. If you have good investment options then that is generally preferred, though the tension is "what is a good investment option?". Management will always find something to invest money in (more investment, more staff, more power) and shareholders might not always agree. If management admit there are no good options, or if all the good options have been funded and there is money left over, then the choice is to return money to shareholders, through dividends or share buybacks (the US tax code massively favours share buybacks, so they tend to happen much more often).

Disney was famously (in the 80s and 90s anyway) a terrible payer of dividends and didn't do much stock buyback at that point. But it didn't matter because they did have lots of other uses for that money, like expanding parks or investing in other things and shareholders were fine with that. As previously discussed, it is fine to lower quarterly returns if there is a reason and a plan, shareholders are long-term greedy. Short term results matter to the extent they reflect the competence of management (you predicted $x , we got a lot less, how can I trust your long term plans?)

And to be clear, at the moment it's a small group of shareholders led by a day trader and arb whom I chose not to name. But the noise is making some of the other investors nervous. A good blockbuster success should help calm the nerves of most shareholders, but a major flop could be really bad right now.
The early 90s were a bit wild for big US corporates - IBM and General Motors both had a catastrophic time as the mistakes of the 80s caught up with them. Shareholders forced out the CEOs in both firms, which was a seismic shock for corporate America and set the tone for a lot of the 'shareholder value' thinking that continues to this day. If there is already blood in the water and Disney makes a 'mistake' or has a big flop, things could get very messy.

Bit surprised it is an arb leading this sort of shareholder complaint. What is the arbitrage they are hoping to exploit? The 1990s saw a lot activist investors start up, so I could see one of those getting involved, it's a bit early for Bill Ackman and co but there are others.
 

PNWKing

Banned
I feel like an activist investor should push them to to use the second gate. I remember when they had the Disney's America plan and I thought that would make a perfect second gate for Anaheim.
I also feel like Disney Digital could come up with a good premise for a second movie after Toy Story. I had a perfect idea for a second movie. It would be about a family of vampires trying to live in modern suburban America.
A lot of activist investing is about pushing for a merger? But with who: NBC, Triad, or even a non-media business like Hershey or McDonald's.
 
I also feel like Disney Digital could come up with a good premise for a second movie after Toy Story. I had a perfect idea for a second movie. It would be about a family of vampires trying to live in modern suburban America.
Interesting idea, though given Pixar (if it could even exist at this point) generally relegated flesh and blood humans to minor roles since they hadn't perfected them, may not be likely even with TTL's CG levels.
A lot of activist investing is about pushing for a merger? But with who: NBC, Triad, or even a non-media business like Hershey or McDonald's.
Hmm, I think that based off some snippets here and there (e.g. many shows on NBC airing on Hyperion Channel and vice versa and several co-productions between them), i'd say we could see Disney purchase NBC from it a la ABC.
 
I also feel like Disney Digital could come up with a good premise for a second movie after Toy Story. I had a perfect idea for a second movie. It would be about a family of vampires trying to live in modern suburban America.
Interesting idea, though given Pixar (if it could even exist at this point) generally relegated flesh and blood humans to minor roles since they hadn't perfected them, may not be likely even with TTL's CG levels.
Yeah, it's a solid idea, but for 2004-onward; 1999 means you'd have to get the 2D department interested.
 
I feel like an activist investor should push them to to use the second gate. I remember when they had the Disney's America plan and I thought that would make a perfect second gate for Anaheim.
I honestly disagree with Disney's America being the second gate for Disneyland. It's just so conceptually flawed and controversial at its core, since it's focused on educating guests about a romanticized depiction of the United States. Even if they don't face backlash over its location since it's not on historical land, their depictions of American events and settings is undoubtedly going to cause a wildfire of controversy across all sides. Disney would have to deal with very difficult topics like Native American relations, Slavery, the Civil War, and etc. and I don't even think it's possible for the company to depict them without garnering huge flak.

And that's just for the 1990s. Imagine the status of Disney's America when people are more critical of American history in the 2000s-2020s like OTL? It'd be an unending PR nightmare for the company.

WESTCOT just sounds so much better in comparison.
westcot1_illustrative.jpg


A lot of activist investing is about pushing for a merger? But with who: NBC, Triad, or even a non-media business like Hershey or McDonald's.
I agree with other people on the thread over Disney buying out NBC. It seems inevitable at this point.

As for McDonalds, I've been thinking about whether Disney would even partner with McDonalds with Henson at the helm. I'm starting to think that they will not partner up with the company for their promotion for Splash Mountain, which is actually kinda big, since that was the deal that kicked off the ongoing partnership between the two companies for the 90s.
 
I also feel like Disney Digital could come up with a good premise for a second movie after Toy Story.
An idea I had would be:
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Cheech Marin as Freewheelin' Franklin Freek
Tommy Chong as Phineas T. Phreak
Tom Skirrit as Fat Freddy Freekowtski
or
Cheech Marin as Fat Freddy Freekowtski
Tommy Chong as Phineas T. Phreak
Tom Skirrit as Freewheelin' Franklin Freek
It would be about a family of vampires trying to live in modern suburban America.
If they're going to do something like that they might as well just do The Munsters
A lot of activist investing is about pushing for a merger? But with who: NBC, Triad, or even a non-media business like Hershey or McDonald's.
How about NBC, New World Pictures, and Mattel Toys?
I feel like an activist investor should push them to to use the second
I don't know how big Muppetland is at Disneyland but they could expand it into a second gate while also opening the bigger Muppetville at WDW.
 
Knowig the 90's and Disney being a bit more liberal, they'd probably tackle Lovecraft's very rancid beliefs about minorities at that too.

I mean, if Disney is already gaining the ire of conservatives and moral crusaders during the 90s, I'm not sure how a Junji Ito adaptation would really change much.

Plus, if the adaptation is released during somewhere like the 2010s where internet culture is already established, it's possible that it could gain insane popularity among anime communities that would be shocked and elated at a Junji Ito adaptation if Disney's reputation for high quality animation and stories has never faltered ITTL.


Yeah, I think Disney could easily adapt Lovecraft to be less racist since the core themes and plot points of something like The Call of Cthulhu or The Shadow over Innsmouth could easily function without the racism.
Doing something as simple as, say, bringing diversity to the cast of Lovecraft’s stories. Like having the enigmatic Doctor Muñoz be Mexican-American. I could see Ricardo Montalban being great in that role.

One way that animation would do Call of Cthulhu Justice would be in envisioning the forbidden city of R'lyeh. My idea is that the city’s impossible architecture makes the eyes of men literally causes physical pain in mortal men if they stare at it too hard. So it’d give the artists opportunity for some seriously surrealistic imagery.
I feel like an activist investor should push them to to use the second gate. I remember when they had the Disney's America plan and I thought that would make a perfect second gate for Anaheim.
I also feel like Disney Digital could come up with a good premise for a second movie after Toy Story. I had a perfect idea for a second movie. It would be about a family of vampires trying to live in modern suburban America.
A lot of activist investing is about pushing for a merger? But with who: NBC, Triad, or even a non-media business like Hershey or McDonald's.

I honestly disagree with Disney's America being the second gate for Disneyland. It's just so conceptually flawed and controversial at its core, since it's focused on educating guests about a romanticized depiction of the United States. Even if they don't face backlash over its location since it's not on historical land, their depictions of American events and settings is undoubtedly going to cause a wildfire of controversy across all sides. Disney would have to deal with very difficult topics like Native American relations, Slavery, the Civil War, and etc. and I don't even think it's possible for the company to depict them without garnering huge flak.

And that's just for the 1990s. Imagine the status of Disney's America when people are more critical of American history in the 2000s-2020s like OTL? It'd be an unending PR nightmare for the company.

WESTCOT just sounds so much better in comparison.
westcot1_illustrative.jpg



I agree with other people on the thread over Disney buying out NBC. It seems inevitable at this point.

As for McDonalds, I've been thinking about whether Disney would even partner with McDonalds with Henson at the helm. I'm starting to think that they will not partner up with the company for their promotion for Splash Mountain, which is actually kinda big, since that was the deal that kicked off the ongoing partnership between the two companies for the 90s.
I agree that Disney’s America is a fundamentally flawed concept. Though a version of DCA that involves all regions of America instead of just California could work. Though WestCOT definitely is the more promising idea.

What if the restaurant chain Disney chooses to partner up with was Subway instead of McDonalds? You could argue that freshly cooked submarine sandwiches loaded up with fresh vegetables would appeal more to Jim than McDonalds
An idea I had would be:
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Cheech Marin as Freewheelin' Franklin Freek
Tommy Chong as Phineas T. Phreak
Tom Skirrit as Fat Freddy Freekowtski
or
Cheech Marin as Fat Freddy Freekowtski
Tommy Chong as Phineas T. Phreak
Tom Skirrit as Freewheelin' Franklin Freek

If they're going to do something like that they might as well just do The Munsters

How about NBC, New World Pictures, and Mattel Toys?

I don't know how big Muppetland is at Disneyland but they could expand it into a second gate while also opening the bigger Muppetville at WDW.
What if they do something like the OTL Halloweentown movies? Namely a community of “monsters” living in secret in the modern world. Though the whole normals versus monsters idea is what I have in mind for the Haunted Mansion movie.
 

PNWKing

Banned
The Fabolous Furry Freak Brothers? I can't see any Disney subsidiary making this. And this is knowing that Kill Bill, Good Will Hunting, Alien, Highlander, most of Michael Moore's early work, Pulp Fiction, and The Sixth Sense were all released by companies that are current and former subsidiaries of Disney.
 
The Fabolous Furry Freak Brothers? I can't see any Disney subsidiary making this. And this is knowing that Kill Bill, Good Will Hunting, Alien, Highlander, most of Michael Moore's early work, Pulp Fiction, and The Sixth Sense were all released by companies that are current and former subsidiaries of Disney.
Maybe Hollywood Animation can adapt it? I mean, since Eisner and Katzenberg's main schtick is that they have a hate boner for Henson and his gang, seeing something that not even the Walter Elias Disney Signature Series would touch with a 25-foot pole would clearly intrigue them. Just pointing that out.
 
What if the restaurant chain Disney chooses to partner up with was Subway instead of McDonalds? You could argue that freshly cooked submarine sandwiches loaded up with fresh vegetables would appeal more to Jim than McDonalds
Well, Disney did partner with Subway after their deal with McD's ended in 2006 IOTL...
 
I could not. I mean, they don't even own the rights to The Munsters. What makes it possible for the company that does own those rights to give it to a division of Disney?
What if they do something like the OTL Halloweentown movies? Namely a community of “monsters” living in secret in the modern world. Though the whole normals versus monsters idea is what I have in mind for the Haunted Mansion movie.
Disney could do the inverse of The Monsters, a 'normal' family moves to a town populated by monsters.
 
Doing something as simple as, say, bringing diversity to the cast of Lovecraft’s stories. Like having the enigmatic Doctor Muñoz be Mexican-American. I could see Ricardo Montalban being great in that role.

One way that animation would do Call of Cthulhu Justice would be in envisioning the forbidden city of R'lyeh. My idea is that the city’s impossible architecture makes the eyes of men literally causes physical pain in mortal men if they stare at it too hard. So it’d give the artists opportunity for some seriously surrealistic imagery.
Oh yes, I love that idea for Doctor Munoz.

For the Call of Cthulhu, the cult could be a more diverse cast of people, since it's supposed to be a fairly widespread cult, iirc. Also, imagine what Disney could do for the city of R'lyeh with its unsettling architecture and the surrealist, almost maddening ambience. I love it.

I agree that Disney’s America is a fundamentally flawed concept. Though a version of DCA that involves all regions of America instead of just California could work. Though WestCOT definitely is the more promising idea.
WESTCOT is the likeliest concept to be built for Anaheim since Jim loves EPCOT and it's the perfect counterpart to Disneyland, being a park that caters to the adult crowd while also providing edutainment for the kids through the World Showcase lands and the Future World pavilions. Plus it would be rather insidious as they had plans for on-site deluxe hotels for every corner of the world.

American Adventure is an interesting novelty but I don't know how it could beat WESTCOT as the second gate to DLR.

What if the restaurant chain Disney chooses to partner up with was Subway instead of McDonalds? You could argue that freshly cooked submarine sandwiches loaded up with fresh vegetables would appeal more to Jim than McDonalds
I think that's the best option since Subway is large enough (though nothing like Burger King or McDonalds) to make a partnership worthwhile but also caters to Jim's growing concerns over fast food since they market themselves as an healthier alternative. Plus it's possible that with the deal between Subway and Disney, we could butterfly away the Jared Fogle campaign since the promotional deals with Disney already makes them a ton of money at that point.

McDonalds might set up a deal with WB if Disney partners with Subway ITTL, since they do have Nickelodeon and DC. Imagine if McDonalds promoted toys/meals for the Rugrats, Spongebob, or Batman/Justice League?

Another company Disney could partner with is probably Tofutti, which is one of the largest plant-based food companies at the time. It probably won't be to the extent of Subway but bringing in their products into the parks would be a boon to the growing vegan/vegetarian community.
 
Oh yes, I love that idea for Doctor Munoz.

For the Call of Cthulhu, the cult could be a more diverse cast of people, since it's supposed to be a fairly widespread cult, iirc. Also, imagine what Disney could do for the city of R'lyeh with its unsettling architecture and the surrealist, almost maddening ambience. I love it.


WESTCOT is the likeliest concept to be built for Anaheim since Jim loves EPCOT and it's the perfect counterpart to Disneyland, being a park that caters to the adult crowd while also providing edutainment for the kids through the World Showcase lands and the Future World pavilions. Plus it would be rather insidious as they had plans for on-site deluxe hotels for every corner of the world.

American Adventure is an interesting novelty but I don't know how it could beat WESTCOT as the second gate to DLR.


I think that's the best option since Subway is large enough (though nothing like Burger King or McDonalds) to make a partnership worthwhile but also caters to Jim's growing concerns over fast food since they market themselves as an healthier alternative. Plus it's possible that with the deal between Subway and Disney, we could butterfly away the Jared Fogle campaign since the promotional deals with Disney already makes them a ton of money at that point.

McDonalds might set up a deal with WB if Disney partners with Subway ITTL, since they do have Nickelodeon and DC. Imagine if McDonalds promoted toys/meals for the Rugrats, Spongebob, or Batman/Justice League?

Another company Disney could partner with is probably Tofutti, which is one of the largest plant-based food companies at the time. It probably won't be to the extent of Subway but bringing in their products into the parks would be a boon to the growing vegan/vegetarian community.
  1. Montalban would be great for the kindly Doctor Munoz we’re introduced to and the increasingly intimidating doctor he becomes because of the deterioration of his cooling system.
  2. Exactly what I was thinking on both counts. It’d be less racist to not have the cult be a collection of ever non-white race and animation would be more capable of showing how fundamentally wrong the architecture of R’lyeh is. Especially since the creators wouldn’t have Lovecraft’s ignorance regarding geometry.
  3. Especially considering that TTL’s version of WestCOT wouldn’t have the budgetary restrictions that created DCA to begin with. The concept is different enough from OG EPCOT to be novel.
  4. Good point. Why need any other spokesmen when you’ve got Mickey and Goofy on your side?
  5. I like it!
 
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