Word: disneyized
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Oriental Land Co., the Japanese real estate company that built and owns the park, began reclaiming land for the site 19 years ago in Urayasu, a town of 80,000 just outside the capital. In 1974 the company began holding serious talks with officials of Walt Disney Productions, but the negotiations were often tortuous. Recalls Disney Vice President Frank Stanek: "Both sides had to penetrate formidable cultural barriers." A deal was finally struck in 1979, under which Disney agreed to provide its technology, advice and guidance during construction in return for a share of the gross ticket take. Before...
Everything is as American as the bright red fire truck near the band shell and not far from the barbershop, sort of the way it was in Disney's home town of Marceline, Mo. When Disney conceived his California Disneyland, he strongly felt that before visitors got to Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Frontier land, they should first pass through Main Street, which he described as "everyone's home town, the heartland of America." And so they will at Urayasu. Says Tokyo Psychologist Kazuo Shimada: "At this point, the Japanese are brimming with curiosity about America and the Americans...
...Urayasu site devotes 114 acres to the theme park itself, with the rest for parking and services, thereby outdoing the California Disneyland, which opened in 1955 and has only 74 acres of park space. But the Japanese version barely noses out the 106 entertaining acres of Walt Disney World (opened in 1972) near Orlando, Fla. Naturally, the latest version is more expensive than the other two: $652 million, excluding land. Overall, though, the Tokyo park might equal or even surpass the $913 million spent for the Epcot Center adjunct to Disney World...
...Walt Disney Productions, whose earnings have slowed of late, the new park will be a money machine. The company has not put one penny into the Japanese project, yet for the next 45 years it will receive 10% of the receipts for admission tickets and rides plus 5% of sales of everything else. That, says Wall Street Disney Watcher Lee Isgur of Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins, might add $25 million to $40 million to Disney's operating profits next year. The income should fatten Disney profits from its U.S. theme parks, adventure and family movies (TRON, Tex) and other...
...portents for the Tokyo park are highly promising. Two million tickets had been sold as of last week. Before the end of the year, ten million visitors are expected to pay admissions that range from $10.80 for adults down to $6.50 for children under twelve, about the same as Disney U.S. ticket prices. The crush is expected to be so great that, for the first time in any Disney park, a reservation system has been established so people can buy specific time slots in the park in advance, much as they would buy tickets to a concert...