What if Walt Disney lived past 1966

I was watching a documentary about Walt Disney and learned that he had several plans before he was diagnosed with cancer in Sept 1966 and died that December.
According to the documentary Disney wanted to hand over the movie productions to his family so he could concentrate on developing Epcot.
If Disney's cancer is butterflied away (say he gives up smoking years before) how long would he have lived and what would he have accomplished? Would there still be a Disney World in Florida or would it have been some kind of future city? Would the same films released after his death have been greenlit by him?
And if his cancer still happens but he lived a bit longer would anything be different with the Disney empire?
 
The problem with his original idea for EPCOT was that it was financially unworkable. Rather than a mildly schizophrenic amusement park with mixed futuristic and internationalist elements, he had an idea for an actual housing development that would incorporate the latest technology in everything.

First, imagine the expense in that, having to replace everything every single year in order to keep up with advances in technology.

Second, as things get more computerized, they'll get buggier, meaning that this community will get all HAL 9000 by the time the internet rolls around.
 
Disney was 65 when he died. Depending on when he gave up smoking, and how he lived his life since, I could see him making it maybe into his mid-70's. That would drop him off in the late 1970's or early 1980's.

He would have likely handed off production of films to his family and associates. The rest of his life would likely have been spent trying to realize his original dream of EPCOT. I imagine construction would start in the early 70's, and the project would continue until it ran out of money (which would likely be very quickly, considering he wanted to essentially build a city the size of New York or Chicago).

Disney never lives to see the completion of EPCOT. Whatever he managed to build is left for his company to salvage. They might go in a new direction and build something else altogether, or they might just scrap everything entirely and move on.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
The problem with his original idea for EPCOT was that it was financially unworkable. Rather than a mildly schizophrenic amusement park with mixed futuristic and internationalist elements, he had an idea for an actual housing development that would incorporate the latest technology in everything.

First, imagine the expense in that, having to replace everything every single year in order to keep up with advances in technology.

Second, as things get more computerized, they'll get buggier, meaning that this community will get all HAL 9000 by the time the internet rolls around.
Stat, you did the definitive work on Disney on this board. i'm going to ask you to speculate on something here that you may or may not have covered in AWOLWOT.

The possibility of government subsidies, making EPCOT a showcase "Potemkin Village". Workable, ASB?

Of course, other parts of Disney's empire would probably have to be split off.
 

libbrit

Banned
As someone who worked at EPCOT in wdw, I can 100% say EPCOT would NOT have ended up like it did (I love EPCOT but it was an utter bastardisation of Disneys actual plan for a proper city)
 
Didn't they implement some of Walt's ideas for Celebration, Florida? It could work as a very small town or village, not a city.
 

libbrit

Banned
Didn't they implement some of Walt's ideas for Celebration, Florida? It could work as a very small town or village, not a city.

yeeah, Celebration was a small scale epcot without all the technology. I went their once, it is a really wierd `desperate housewives` kind of a place.
 
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