The Unexpected Problem Disney May Face with Its HUGE Expansion Project

There are quite a few plans in the works for Disney that will be happening in the next few years.

We’ve heard Bob Iger share his thoughts on some major changes that are coming to the structure of the company and what’s being done to help get Disney back on track financially. But with the announcements made previously about spending $60 billion on the parks over the next 10 years, there’s a problem that Disney could be faced with before that time is up!

Let’s set the stage by going back a bit. If you remember, back in September, Disney announced plans to spend $60 billion on parks, experiences, and products in the next 10 years (keep “in the next 10 years in mind”). This is going to be double what was spent in the past decade. This was a welcome announcement to the fans who had been concerned that there has been a lack of investment into the parks division, especially when comparing Disney with Universal and all the effort and money they’re investing in their parks currently.

In our next update regarding the $60 billion announcement, we heard Iger share that they would “strengthen Disney’s position as the world entertainment company.” Also, Kevin Lansberry, Interim CFO, added that there are plans for the “next 10 years to turbocharge growth.”

Then we were hit with not-so-exciting news. Lansberry added, “We expect those investments to ramp up towards the back half of that 10-year period with more gradual increases in the first few years” which left us speculating that we won’t be seeing any real updates to the parks for at least 5 years.

Kevin Lansberry ©Disney

We can understand the company planning to grow, but we’re scratching our heads as to why they’re not planning to do that until the end of the 10-year period they indicated. This is more confusing when considering the recent interview that Iger had.

Yahoo reports that during the New York Times Dealbook Conference, Iger was interviewed on a variety of topics. During that interview, Iger shared that he will “definitely” be stepping down as the company’s CEO when his current contract ends in 2026.

Ok, so we know he then shared that the process for choosing his successor is robust, but we can’t help but notice that 2026 is coming up a lot faster than when Disney is planning on ramping up their investments in the parks.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says succession process is "robust" right now.

— Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) November 29, 2023

We can’t help remembering that one of the biggest purposes for Iger to take back the reigns of the company was to undo many of the decisions of his previous successor, Bob Chapek. So you can understand why we would be concerned about Iger leaving before these expansion plans come to fruition.