Disney doubling investment in parks after narrowing lawsuit against DeSantis

The Walt Disney Company announced it will double its expenditures for its theme parks and cruise line to $60 billion over the next 10 years and touted “over 1,000 acres of land for possible future development to expand theme park space across its existing sites.”
The significant investment is being framed as going to all of its resorts, including its flagship Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The announcement comes weeks after the company narrowed its lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and the governing district for the Walt Disney World Resort to only First Amendment claims.
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“We’re incredibly mindful of the financial underpinning of the company, the need to continue to grow in terms of bottom line, the need to invest wisely so that we’re increasing the returns on invested capital, and the need to maintain a balance sheet, for a variety of reasons,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement.
“The company is able to absorb those costs and continue to grow the bottom line and look expansively at how we return value and capital to our shareholders,” he added.
Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro said that the company invoked several popular Disney franchises in discussing ideas for further investment into the various resorts.
“We have a wealth of untapped stories to bring to life across our business,” D’Amaro said in a statement. “Frozen, one of the most successful and popular animated franchises of all time, could have a presence at the Disneyland Resort. Wakanda has yet to be brought to life. The world of Coco is just waiting to be explored. There’s a lot of storytelling opportunity.”
Earlier this month, Disney reiterated its plans to redevelop the Dinoland U.S.A. at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. The company also said it was exploring expansion plans for Magic Kingdom Park, also at the Florida resort.
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The move to invest in its resort and reiterate plans comes months after Disney announced it would be scrapping a planned corporate campus in Lake Nona, Florida, and Iger’s public questioning of whether the state of Florida wanted Disney to invest in the state.
Disney has seen recent losses in the courtroom, losing its motion to dismiss a countersuit from the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and electing to drop four out of five claims in its federal lawsuit against the district and DeSantis.