The Disney “Cars” movies may not have been biggest box-office hits, but the company’s new theme park attraction “Cars Land,” appears to be a crowd pleaser. The Walt Disney Company of Burbank opened the new, 12-acre attraction at California Adventure in Anaheim on June 15 to huge crowds and rave reviews. The website Miceage.com estimated that a record 43,000 people showed up for the event. Cars Land is the newest addition to the California Adventure, which in a rare admission, Disney itself acknowledged was not its best work. CEO Robert Iger has called the park, according to both the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter “a bit of a brand eyesore.” Since its opening in 2001, the park has been a stepchild to Disneyland, with admissions a full 10 million a year below that of its sister park, according to the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM’s 2011 Global Attractions Attendance Report. But Christian Aaen of Beverly Hills based Entertainment Culture Advisors (ECA) said he expects California Adventure to see attendance rise between 10 and 20 percent this year, up from a 1 percent increase in 2011, due to the reinvestment and the addition of Cars Land. By adding Cars Land and other attractions such as “World of Color,” “Toy Story Mania,” and “The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure,” observers say the company now has invested an estimated $1.1 billion over five years to bring California Adventure up to Disney standards. “Although we opened California Adventure 11 years ago, we believe the transformation of this park over the last five years really deserved a grand opening,” Iger told an enthusiastic crowd during the opening day ceremony, calling the makeover a “remarkable transformation.” Cars Land alone is estimated to have cost Disney in excess of $100 million, according to Robert Niles, founder and editor of the Pasadena-based Theme Park Insider. “California Adventure opened 12 years ago driven by the marketing and merchandise considerations,” Niles said. “And the public pretty much rejected it. They’ve had to spend over $1 billion to correct that mistake.” The new attraction, he said, was driven by the Disney creative team. “The story tellers have taken it back.” Cars Land is a three-dimensional re-creation of Radiator Springs from the Pixar movie “Cars,” the “cutest little town in Carburator County,” as the company describes it. The land takes visitors through the Cadillac Mountain Range and immerses them in the story of the movie as they encounter familiar landmarks leading up to the big race. The irony of the new creative-team approach is that Disney should sell far more merchandise now that the entire focus is not on sales, Niles said, noting the “Cars” franchise was never Pixar’s strongest at the box office, but it is “a phenomenal toy franchise.” With Cars Land, visitors will have plenty of opportunities to show their love for the products, he said. “The lesson is that people will spend money when they feel an emotional connection,” Niles added. “That has been Disney’s secret for generations. You aim for the heart and you end up hitting the wallet.” In the years since it’s opened, California Adventure has been a rare miss for Disney’s Parks and Resorts division, which has otherwise been one of the strongest engines of growth and profit for the media conglomerate. Its revenues increased 10 percent to $2.9 billion in the second quarter ended March 31, placing it just a bit behind the interactive division in terms of growth, but on 16 times as much revenue. Net income soared 53 percent to $222 million. The results were driven by increases in guest attendance, spending and higher ticket prices. In preparation for the new and improved attraction, Disney raised its daily admissions rates earlier this year by almost 9 percent to $87, while the cost of an annual unlimited pass with parking jumped by more than 30 percent to $649.
