DHS Disney Animation-Inspired Experience Coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios

[WDWBryan]

Am I reading too much into this concept art or is this a gateway to something in the back of the courtyard. That just leads to backstage areas, right? It has been a long time since I stepped foot in that part of the park.
View attachment 872412

That’s just the entrance to the Disney Jr show

 

[GhostHost1000]

if they were planning to do this, why wouldn’t they have announced it at the same time they announced monsters going where muppets were to soften the blow to some

 

[peter11435]

if they were planning to do this, why wouldn’t they have announced it at the same time they announced monsters going where muppets were to soften the blow to some

Because plans hadn’t been finalized

 

[Grantwil93]

Those are two separate buildings.

I dont really know how you seperate all this into 2 buildings in practice? I've been in there and the entire thing is interconnected

The animation building is obviously seperate, as is the launch bay building.

My point was that a "new land" concept over here also runs into logistical issues with this building too unless you leave it mostly unchanged. Its another potential limiting factor.

 

[MrHappy]

What’s the timing for this? Completions and openings in phases? 6 months total work, can we guess complete opening in April 2026?
Again, looks like facade work, some demo and landscaping. Inside the Annimation building is a bunch of soft materials and some tech.
@lentesta maybe you have an idea when?

 

[ChrisFL]

I think this also gives WDW time to see if any more low tier Marvel characters that are not affected by the universal contract can potentially break out big in any future film projects to allow them a superhero land in this area.

Is Squirrel Girl available?

 

[YodaMan]

You can see so many unthemed buildings pretty much anywhere you look when standing in front of the Chinese Theater

That arch wasn't really doing anything for the park's theming or cohesion

If anything, it made zero sense having an arch with the park logo leading nowhere

The unthemed buildings don’t bother me, but I do laugh at the effort that was made to paint so many of them sky blue or slightly themed just for them to now go back to painting them soundstage beige to make it look like a studio again

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Not sure how anyone could be mad about this or why they think this is temporary. We literally just got a huge Mermaid refurb and they’re touching the most dead area of the park.

If you wanted a new immersive land, you’d all be disappointed to discover it wouldn’t be Muppets or Marvel- it’d be something else like Pixar, Moana, or Frozen (Frozen 3 in 2027). The options just seem limited to me and I think a hard refresh of Animation Courtyard is long overdue and keeps the essence of Hollywood Studios alive for a new generation.

I think temporary means 5-7 years, not like 2

 

[PizzaPlanet]

With the efforts to make this area blend in better with the hub, I feel like it makes more sense for the next major expansion to go “beyond” animation courtyard. I don’t really know the layout, but maybe they could demolish some of the office space while keeping the core of the animation building, and finally connecting to RnRC.

 

[Horizonsfan]

I tend to agree that this overhaul seems like a placeholder project, intended to last until the later years of the 10-year, $60 billion investment plan (with $17 billion earmarked for WDW). That said, there's still plenty of land for Imagineering to work with, even if the 1989 animation building remains intact for the long term.

The areas highlighted below conceivably could form a new land/path from TSL over to Sunset Blvd.

Red area (Animation Expansion Office and surrounding back-of-house structures) = 7.3 acres
Blue area (parking garage and adjacent circulation) = 2.0 acres
Purple area (Walt Disney Presents and TSL access path) = 1.44 acres

So with the parking garage gone you're looking at 10.47 acres to work with. 8.47 if the garage has to stay.

On average, attraction space usually takes up roughly 40-60% of a land's area. The rest is paths, restaurants, shops, etc.

For simplicity, let's say 50% of this redeveloped land is given to attractions, we're looking at 4.23 to 5.23 acres.

As a frame of reference, 4.23 acres would be enough space for attractions similar in size to It's a Small World, Frozen Ever After, and Star Tours to coexist.

The point is, Imagineering still has viable options on this side of the park—regardless of how long this new/returning attraction is expected to last.

 

[PizzaPlanet]

I have to imagine Indy, Star Tours, and Backlot express are on borrowed time now as well…

 

[Robbiem]

They’re not fundamentally changing the architecture of the buildings. The sorcerer’s hat won’t magically turn it into a Stern building.

I didn’t say it would, I said its based on other buildings Stern built for Disney which use a post modern sorcerer hat as a motif

If you like the plans thats fine thats fine, I respect your opinion and I hope you like the final product

Personally I think putting post modern adornments on the existing buildings will be a horrible mishmash, not one thing or the other and I’d rather the money was spent elsewhere like retheming some of the soundstage buildings so you could have a coherent Hollywood area to connect the boulevards

 

[Brer Panther]

Gonna be blunt on this one. This is good because it's on brand / theme for the park. It's bad because it's not an expansion with rides in this area.

This is basically what I think too. I'm just glad they're replacing Launch Bay with SOMETHING.

I’ll take this over Simpsons any day!!!!

This too.

I think the only reason they’re doing this is because they decided on Monsters Inc going to Muppets

Yeah, I feel like they only thought this up after seeing people complain about Muppets getting replaced while Launch Bay continued to exist, so they said, "We gotta think of something to replace Launch Bay..."

 

[James Alucobond]

I didn’t say it would, I said its based on other buildings Stern built for Disney which use a post modern sorcerer hat as a motif

If you like the plans thats fine thats fine, I respect your opinion and I hope you like the final product

Personally I think putting post modern adornments on the existing buildings will be a horrible mishmash, not one thing or the other and I’d rather the money was spent elsewhere like retheming some of the soundstage buildings so you could have a coherent Hollywood area to connect the boulevards

That’s not what you said. You said the courtyard would “open into a set of jarring post modern studio buildings”, not that there was a single postmodern decoration on one of the buildings that you thought might be disruptive. Also, in the context of literally everything else around it not being postmodern, it will likely just read as the conical hat it is based on, not part of a larger geometric architectural language since it won’t be echoed elsewhere in the space.

 

[ERED]

I tend to agree that this overhaul seems like a placeholder project, intended to last until the later years of the 10-year, $60 billion investment plan (with $17 billion earmarked for WDW). That said, there's still plenty of land for Imagineering to work with, even if the 1989 animation building remains intact for the long term.

The areas highlighted below conceivably could form a new land/path from TSL over to Sunset Blvd.

Red area (Animation Expansion Office and surrounding back-of-house structures) = 7.3 acres
Blue area (parking garage and adjacent circulation) = 2.0 acres
Purple area (Walt Disney Presents and TSL access path) = 1.44 acres

View attachment 872434

So with the parking garage gone you're looking at 10.47 acres to work with. 8.47 if the garage has to stay.

On average, attraction space usually takes up roughly 40-60% of a land's area. The rest is paths, restaurants, shops, etc.

For simplicity, let's say 50% of this redeveloped land is given to attractions, we're looking at 4.23 to 5.23 acres.

As a frame of reference, 4.23 acres would be enough space for attractions similar in size to It's a Small World, Frozen Ever After, and Star Tours to coexist.

The point is, Imagineering still has viable options on this side of the park—regardless of how long this new/returning attraction is expected to last.

No engineer here; would that space, and maybe some of the wooded area beyond, be enough room for a hotel incorporated into the edges of the park?

 

[UNCgolf]

Play was an awful idea, you’ll get no debate from me there. However, a lot of your arguments here would seem to apply even more to Animation Courtyard - it’s a huge dead spot at the Studios and, unlike WoL, it can’t simply be walled off - it’s left to fester for all to see. As you properly point out with Play!, this is just cutting off a massive expansion pad in a park that has fewer then EPCOT - a space that could have held Monsters very easily and saved Muppets. I’m also not sure why you feel this will have a shorter lifespan then Play - I trust Len but I sure don’t trust Disney.

There's no guarantee that it will have a shorter lifespan, but I don't believe Disney intends this to be a permanent solution the way they intended Play! to be a permanent solution. Play! was guaranteed to last a long time because that was always the intent; this isn't.

I certainly don't think this is some kind of major win for DHS, but I don't think it really moves the needle there positively or negatively, whereas I think Play! would have had a long term detrimental effect on EPCOT.

It doesn't really close it off for development down the road the way Play! would have eliminated that pavilion space at EPCOT. Do I think they're going to make any major expansion there any time soon? I do not, but this isn't insulting the way Play! was at EPCOT.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I’m happy they’re doing this because:

1) it’s near the center of the park and not utilized in a meaningful way
2) it includes offerings the park needs
3) you can pop in without a LL or lengthy queue (even the M&Gs will be air-conditioned
4) like others, I’m skeptical of any further additions to DHS for awhile. We will have a new CEO and there’s no predicting their priorities so I much prefer to have something acceptable there before Iger goes

No real downside here. It improves the park and we lose nothing.

 

[lentesta]

What’s the timing for this? Completions and openings in phases? 6 months total work, can we guess complete opening in April 2026?
Again, looks like facade work, some demo and landscaping. Inside the Annimation building is a bunch of soft materials and some tech.
@lentesta maybe you have an idea when?

i will be shocked if it's not 2026, and they've already got the concept and talent locked in. Nine months seems reasonable for something with no tide system.

 

[lentesta]

Am I reading too much into this concept art or is this a gateway to something in the back of the courtyard. That just leads to backstage areas, right? It has been a long time since I stepped foot in that part of the park.
View attachment 872412

That's the current entryway to the Disney Jr show building IIRC.

 

[K&KDizFreaks]

I’m happy they’re doing this because:

1) it’s near the center of the park and not utilized in a meaningful way
2) it includes offerings the park needs
3) you can pop in without a LL or lengthy queue (even the M&Gs will be air-conditioned
4) like others, I’m skeptical of any further additions to DHS for awhile. We will have a new CEO and there’s no predicting their priorities so I much prefer to have something acceptable there before Iger goes

No real downside here. It improves the park and we lose nothing.

And b) if this happens to free up $$$$ for other mid size upgrades throughout WDW (cough Figment) it is a good move. Instead of pouring a half billion or more into a Simpsons land.