Saving Hong Kong Disneyland and Prince of Persia Pushed Back

First a quick primmer: Hong Kong Disneyland is 57% owned by the Hong Kong government. Due to attendance problems, the park is currently running in the red and the park’s loans are coming due in September. It has come to light, mostly due to Disney’s third quarter report yesterday, that Disney and Hong Kong can’t agree how to refinance the parks. Disney is reporting that they are willing to take on the loans but they are also reporting that the HK government does not want to accept the financing. We will have to see how this one shakes out but park attendance was up last week after special visas were granted so 8 - 16 million Chinese workers from a neighboring province. I’m interested to see how Disney and Hong Kong work this out particularly in light of the potential deal with Shanghai. What are your thoughts?

The release date for “Prince of Persia” the Disney/Bruckheimer joint venture staring Jake Gyllenhal, has been moved back almost a year to Memorial Day weekend 2010. There is a lot of speculation as to the reason for the move: Disney not wanting to compete with Transformers 2 and the possibility of labor issues leading to strike. Disney stated that they moved the release date due to the need for extensive post production on this major production for the company. Disney is hoping that this will become a franchise like Narnia or Pirates.