- May 26, 2010
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Bottom line, we just disagree on the role each group should play. If A&D didn't want WD, then to be honest Marketing wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't force this house to happen. You said it yourself, no other horror property has the pull of WD right now and Universal has the rights to produce a house for it. I think they learned from last year, and made it one mega house and dropped the WD scare zones (thankfully). Not certain why its so unappealing to A&D in the first place. The house will be completely different than last year.
I can assure you after WD they will be working very hard to get another property that has wide appeal. Marketing, not A&D, is the one that has to live with forecasts. And with attendance going up over the last few years, you can bet that forecasts will be going up as well. The execs that mark the HHN budgets are not going to take, "well A&D doesn't like it" or "we don't have WD anymore" as an excuse.
We may disagree, but apparently the talent that makes the event happen (and built it up to the reputation it enjoys and is riding on) agrees with me. Walking Dead is not a horror property - say it with me. That's why A&D doesn't want to do it - they know there's literally nothing more they can do with that property that hasn't been done (and given the budget and resources they have, can't really be done all that well). They didn't learn from last year - they just knew that they couldn't repeat themselves so obviously, so they had to throw in another gimmick (the mega house).
A&D doesn't want to work with Walkers or AMC's crazy restrictions anymore. It's not a property conducive to a theme park horror event - or any haunt at all. I don't know why that's so hard for you to understand...
I'm sure marketing will try - I'm arguing they're going to fail. There simply isn't another property that can live up to these inflated expectations that now exist. Guess what? HHN's budget has remained constant since 2010, regardless of its recent Walking Dead-fueled success. So what does that tell you?