In a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, Walt Disney Imagineers share their stories of the fall and rise of WDI during and after Bob Chapek’s time leading The Walt Disney Company.

Bob Chapek, COVID-19, & Walt Disney Imagineering

Bob Chapek was named CEO shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Before that, Chapek served as Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products since the segment’s creation in 2018, and prior to that was Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts since 2015.

When he took over park operations in 2015, budgeting and schedules were put on the forefront for Walt Disney Imagineering as Chapek believed that WDI had not been held to the same disciplinary level as the rest of the company. According to the WSJ article, this was a huge and, for many Imagineers, an unwelcome culture shock.

Bruce Vaughn and Craig Russell served as Chief Creative Executive and Chief Design & Project Delivery Executive, respectively, at the time of the Chapek takeover. During his tenure from 2020 to 2022, Chapek replaced the pair with Bob Weiss, the president of Walt Disney Imagineering from 2016 to 2022. He also brought in others to help manage costs and budgets for upcoming projects:

“Senior financial executives were visiting WDI daily, sitting down to approve or disapprove budget items, even tiny ones, line by line,” Weis wrote in his memoir “Dream Chasing.”

Over the years, Imagineering had expanded and downsized depending on the projects in the works. In fact, after the opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016, things took a turn for the worse. Per WSJ, “the company lost many veteran designers after it offered buyouts to Imagineers who had been there at least 20 years.” Due to budget cuts and limited manpower, senior parks executives also lost trust in WDI. As such, plans for several major Marvel attractions were suspended in addition to a plan to refurbish Disneyland’s aging Tomorrowland.

“It wasn’t fun anymore,” said Theron Skees, an Imagineer for 23 years who left in 2020 and now runs a themed-entertainment consulting firm.

Combined with COVID-19 and Chapek taking over as CEO in 2020, things got worse. Many Imagineers were furloughed and later, over 400 were laid off. Those remaining were soon told that they would be forced to move to Florida “as part of a larger corporate relocation.” The relocation of Walt Disney Imagineering from their long-standing home in Glendale, California to the Lake Nona area of Orlando, Florida was officially canceled in 2023. Imagineers who made arrangements or had already moved to Lake Nona were offered the opportunity to stay or relocate back to California at the expense of The Walt Disney Company.

“Some people were screaming with joy and others were crying because they had bought a house,” said former Imagineer David Kalbeitzer, who’s now a producer and consultant.

In late 2022, Bob Chapek was fired, and the former CEO Bob Iger stepped back into the role. The next year, Iger and Josh D’Amaro (named  Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products in 2020) asked former Imagineer Bruce Vaughn to lunch at a seafood restaurant. During the meeting, Vaughn fully expected to play a mentor role, but was surprised when the “conversation shifted to the plan to nearly double Disney’s investment in parks, cruise ships and related technology to $60 billion over the next decade.”

“That blew my mind,” said Vaughn, who started his career in movie visual effects before working at Imagineering for 23 years and then as a startup CEO and Airbnb executive.

Upon his return to Walt Disney Imagineering, Vaughn’s mission has been “to build attractions that expand capacity, so more people can spend more time and money.”

After the COVID-19 Pandemic, Disney’s theme parks saw a positive rebound. Now, attendance has flattened out despite “financial growth driven in part by price increases.”

Another statement from the WSJ article claims that “current and former employees say Vaughn needs to reignite morale and end disconnects with corporate executives.” Inspired by the Imagineers in Shanghai designing the new Zootopia Land largely on their own during the pandemic, he has already “delegated power and resources to Imagineers who work at the company’s resorts in Orlando and overseas so they can handle more work themselves, from designing models to fixing quality issues.” Vaughn has also brought back many retired WDI employees to serve as mentors for the new and younger Imagineers.

“We’re very disciplined and we manage the budget and schedule, I think, excellently,” he said. The challenge, he added, is, “There’s not a science to this. We don’t ever build the same thing.”

As they work to rebuild WDI, several projects include “designing robots based on Star Wars and Frozen that can roam park grounds” and improving projection technology that can change audio-animatronic characters’ expressions with light. Another example is using video game engines to create new digital assets that take films into rides, such as the new mission featuring The Mandalorian and Grogu coming to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at both Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios this May.

Along with “an internal artificial intelligence tool that accumulates 73 years of research and design work” that assists Imagineers when designing, many are most excited about the upcoming Villains Land for Magic Kingdom.

Though it will feature characters from Snow White, Peter Pan and Aladdin, it’s not based on a specific film. That makes it the closest thing to an original land in Disney’s U.S. parks in 25 years.

As Disney Imagineering works to rebuild after poor leadership and the pandemic, it is also about to see a new CEO take over at The Walt Disney Company. The company has stated it hopes to make a CEO announcement in early 2026. Dana Walden has recently made a statement about the race, while the Wall Street Journal has favored Josh D’Amaro. Bob Iger has expressed his troubles about deciding who should be next to handle the role. Recently, a poll conducted by Bloomberg asked over 700 industry experts who should be the next CEO of The Walt Disney Company. In this poll, Josh D’Amaro came out as the clear winner.

With so many projects and uncertainties, who do you hope to see as the next CEO? Share your thoughts in the comments and on social media.

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