Disney CEO Bob Iger is sharing a holiday message for Disney fans as 2023 comes to its close.
Iger sent the message via email to members of Disney's D23 official fan club. It's been just over a full year now since Iger returned as Disney CEO, replacing former Disney Parks Chairman Bob Chapek.
We at Disney have so much to be grateful for this year, especially dedicated fans like you. As D23 Members, we know how deeply you care about what we create, and we’re so fortunate to have you with us on this journey. Your passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and you inspire us to continue raising the bar every day.This year we were thrilled to have you join us in celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary. As this momentous year in our company’s history draws to a close, I can say with confidence that we have so much more to look forward to as we build on a century of creative excellence and continue to entertain, delight, and inspire fans like you.
On behalf of all of us at The Walt Disney Company, I want to wish you a wonderful holiday season and a very happy and prosperous New Year.
For Disney Parks fans specifically, here are some of the new attractions and entertainment that the company will be opening in the new year.
Disney Symphony of Colors - A new nighttime spectacular over Disneyland Paris' Sleeping Beauty Castle, featuring projections, fountains and a drone show inspired by the Main Street Electric Parade, runs January 8 through September 30, 2024.
Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration! - A new parade debuts at Disney California Adventure for the return of Pixar Fest, running April 26 through August 4 at DCA and Disneyland.
Fantasy Springs - A new Tokyo DisneySea "port" between Arabian Coast and Lost River Delta opens June 6, 2024 and will include four new attractions, three restaurants and a hotel, with the attractions themed to the Disney films "Frozen," "Tangled," and "Peter Pan."
Country Bear Musical Jamboree - A new version of the Country Bears show will debut at the Magic Kingdom in 2024.
Tiana's Bayou Adventure - Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"-themed makeover of the former Splash Mountain log flume ride debuts in late 2024 at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom and at Disneyland.
Disney Treasure - The Disney Cruise Line's next ship, a twin of the Disney Wish, sets sail in December from Port Canaveral in Florida.
Keep following Theme Park Insider throughout 2024 for coverage of these and other attraction openings around the world. You can see what's coming up in 2024 and beyond on our theme park rides under construction at top parks page.
And for a weekly update on theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's free newsletter.
I agree. They should have supported the Marvels more given it was helped by a woman of colour with a diverse and female ed cast.
With all due respect, there was no amount of increased marketing spend that was going to save the Marvels. As it was, the Marvels was the 4th most expensive Marvel movie all time (before tax breaks) including production and marketing, and the movie barely limped its box office across $200m worldwide with no chance of even breaking $100m domestically. The Marvels was a sequel that no one asked for to a movie that was largely forgotten and a Marvel tv show that next to no one watched (it remains the least watched Marvel TV show on Disney+). Add in the fact that there is a genuine dislike for Brie Larson as a person, and you have an unmarketable mess of a movie. (Please don't use the sexist tropes about superhero movie fanboys because Gal Gadot has been beyond warmly embraced by fanboys, even if WW84 was awful and wasted Cheatah.) None of this even accounts for the fact that the Marvels was the 3rd worst reviewed Marvel movie ever behind only the disappointments of Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the Eternals. You can blame Iger for a lot of things, including over exposure of the Marvel brand on Disney+ during the pandemic, but you cannot accuse his marketing team of not supporting a movie they knew was going to flop. Tracking for weeks watched the opening for the movie sink like Jack Dawson in the ocean after Rose kicked him off the door.
I have faith in Iger. He's in a very difficult position, with the industry's move toward streaming now revealed to be a colossal blunder. Not only did it hasten the destruction of Disney's cable networks, but it also undermined their box office receipts, and the value of their IP (by diluting it with so much content).
Couple that with a fundamentally stupid social environment where our dumbest Americans have been brainwashed into believing Disney is out to get children, haha, and a state government that has declared war on the Company, and it's more than even the best CEO could bear.
But Iger's a wizard at both business and managing people, and I expect by this time next year Disney will be in a greatly improved position. At the very least hopefully the haternation will have been redirected at their next shiny target.
Universal executives are going to share a holiday message as well, but they're going to wait until December 25 at 11:55 pm to announce it.
Maybe universal will give a holiday epic universe update to combat all the “speculation” and “conjecture”
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I have honestly not been a fan of Iger's return. He laid off thousands of Disney employees. And what he said about the writer's strike that the writer's demands were "unreasonable" was not good. I guess the company is still recovering from Chapek's disastrous short tenure, but I have not approved of many of Iger's decisions since his return.