Bob Iger Talks Plans to Further Meld Star Wars with Disney.
Disney CEO Bob Iger recently glowingly lauded The Force Awakens in the company’s annual report. Find out what else Disney has in store for Star Wars after the jump.
With the world of geek culture squarely sited for December 18th, 2015 it’s easy for other morsels of Star Wars news to slip through the cracks, but not for us Bloggers. Recently both Iger and Disney CFO Jay Rasulo spoke about upcoming plans the “House of Mouse” has for their plethora of blazing hot franchises (yes, aside from Star Wars.) They spoke about Frozen and Marvel, according to this report from The Wrap, but also threw in a few SW nuggets:
. . . Iger predicted that the company would likely see some sales of merchandise ahead of the film. Still, that’s the least of Disney’s hopes for the movie, with Iger saying that the company plans to “greatly increase ‘Star Wars’ presence in multiple locations across the world” in the company’s parks […]
“The plans are ambitious and so it’s going to take time,” Iger cautioned. Nonetheless, he noted that “we’ll be adding ‘Star Wars’ into that pantheon [of franchises] in a very, very significant way.”
Variety.com also covered the theme park bases with a little more juice:
“a fair amount of design and development (taking place by the company’s Imagineers) to greatly increase ‘Star Wars” presence in multiple locations around the world” […]
While Iger said specific plans would be announced “later in 2015” […]
In a separate interview with Bloomberg Television, Iger said, “Fairly soon, I’m sure we’ll be ready to go public with some specifics. But it’s safe to say that you’ll see a lot more ‘Star Wars’ at Disney and at Disney parks in the near future.”
Variety goes on to report there are a lot of events happening this year which could be used to announce Disney BIG Star Wars plans:
First up is “Star Wars Celebration,” which will take place April 16-19 inside the Anaheim Convention Center. There’s May 4, long embraced by the franchise’s fans as “Star Wars” Day. And Disney’s version of Comic-Con, the D23 Expo, is set for Aug. 14-16. It also will take place in Anaheim. Of course, there’s Dec. 18, when “The Force Awakens” bows in theaters, but it’s likely Disney will have announced its park plans for “Star Wars” by then.
Last year it was rumored and reported that Disney had some ambitious plans to add Star Wars themed features and attractions to their parks, like a certain fully realized version of the Cantina from A New Hope. That sounds pretty ambitious, but extremely exciting and appealing to the SW tourist. While we can’t confirm just what kinds of attractions Disney’s Imagineers are cooking up we can only speculate and hope that Disney has some great plans in store. And if anyone from Disney is reading this Blog, as I’m sure they are, three words: Millennium Falcon tour. Just sayin’.
The Millenium Falcon experience: tour the interior of the falcon, then get your ankle broken by the door….
Does my broken ankle count as a practical effect?
OMFG GUYS LOL
As long as it isn’t a broken heart like Padmes!
Disney would never put anything that deadly into a theme park ride.
No, behind the scenes special feature “your broke ankle”.
Surely they will not have the one armed Wampa singing “Let It Go” from frozen. Cannot stand that song!
I can’t stand the cantina song, OT smartass.
Grumpy….Well if you don’t like it then….
Let it go…let it go can’t HD it back anymore…here I stand and here I’ll stay…the cold never bothered me anyway.
Yep, practical effect.
(But you can fully expect CGI for the xrays).
So how many fights will take place in the Cantina that Disney is planning on building that end with a person tossing the barkeep a quarter and saying “Sorry about The Mess” before Disney closes it down.
Can’t wait for the “Miss Piggy & Yoda Sing-A-Long Show”.
Dont give them ideas please!
Yoda is the result of Miss Piggy and Kermit’s physical love.
Sounds like fozzy too which is also Frank oz just like Piggy and yoda. Oops thought you meant their voices were a result of…lol
Dear Mr Iger,
Please open Disneyland in Thailand!
Pweeezeeeeeee! Thank you!
LOL, the closest one to me is in Hong Kong. I hope there will be SW attraction there when I go there next.
I don’t know whether to be happy or horrified, the cash-cow lives on.
There is a full-blown Star Wars movie about to start filming, possibly within the next 60 days, and all Disney can talk about is potential theme park tie-ins?
I don’t understand why people are worried over this stuff. It’s all extra fluff? Who cares if it’s done poorly or expertly. It’s more Star Wars! That’s enough for me to be happy.
My concerns have been and will continue to be aimed at the movies! It’s all riding on it! If they are awesome… I don’t care if they have Yoda sing with Miss Piggy… hell I might enjoy that 😛
I can care less about all this. Just give me news about the movie please.
Then don’t read articles that don’t focus on the movies. Is it that difficult? Oh, and it’s I could not care less. I can care less means you still have a way to go before completely not caring.
I really do not like Iger.
He’s a businessman in charge of a massive multi-billion dollar conglomerate. He’s not a filmmaker. What else do you expect him to push for?
Nice people don’t get to be CEOs.
Where would Star Wars be today had Iger not encouraged Lucas to sell to Disney? Would you rather George give his version of VII “The Lucas Treatment” before trying to find a buyer to take over with VIII?
Jar-Jar 2015 — The Gungan Awakens. *shudder*
You COULDN’T care less about it.
…aaand now I’m that guy.
Yes! I would love this. You get to be in a Star Wars world and feel the next closest thing to being in the movies. How can people not like this?!! Walking through Luke’s home or the Death Star corridors with troopers all over. Love it
The cantina sounds well to me
I’m going to booze it up and cut off someone’s arm with a light saber… absolutely…
Ok this is completely off subject but did anyone else notice the red headed cartoon character in the left corner, slightly cut off from IGN’s label? Who is that? Mara Jade?
I was wondering that too…
Yea I’m kinda curious if they accidentally revealed a character from the new movie. She’s wearing imperial clothes? long red hair? who else could it be? Random girl! lol
“. . . Iger predicted that the company would likely see some sales of merchandise ahead of the film.”
No shit.
They want a success like the Harry Potter theme park that draws in lots of tourists.
So why not a Star Wars theme park?
I’d go if it is done right.
Please build a park in Brazil-zil-zil 🙂
Or maybe in another country here in South America, like Argentina.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MM7xvuQx1Ug&itct=CDYQpDAYASITCKi9mcyDycMCFRGYfgodp3gAtFITQnJhemlsaWFuIHN0YXIgd2Fycw%3D%3D&hl=pT&gl=BR&client=mv-google
Bob Iger: “we will be revealing our plans with Star Wars merchandising and theme park tie-ins very soon.”
As he’s leaving the stand: “oh by the way, did you know that we’re using PRACTICAL EFFECTS in Star Wars VII?”
as long as we dont see mickey mouse running around with a lightsaber or Darth Vader wearing mouse ears on his helmet i guess its cool…..
just dont cheapen our baby! Do it right.
The Carbonite Adventure: Spend a couple of years frozen. When someone finally thaws you out, Disney will charge you the appropriate amount for having spent 700-or-so days in one of their parks. “Twenty thousand, no less.”
If they built a Star Wars style cantina close to me that was an actual bar, I’d start drinking again just to be in there.
They have to turn Spaceship Earth at Epcot into a Death Star, that or something similar would be literally awesome!
I’m not really one to drop spoilers, but if you do a little investigation into why Dsny hs been securing large amounts of land in Austraila, you might have an idea of where the park will be.
I will say that, going forward, what their doing with the parks will be a completely new concept…that is actually cheaper, yet far vaster than traditional park infrastructure.
Hell yeah @Echo-07….
One of my hopes is that Disney allows us to tour the Millennium Falcon someday. All they have to do is salvage the Episode 7 Millennium Falcon Set.