News Avatar Experience coming to Disneyland

[Disney Irish]

Agreed the general public won't really know the difference. But for the extremists, as I presume most of us are to be on these boards, I am rooting for Disney to keep things somewhat unique.

Definitely agree on delivering fun being the most important at the end of the day.

Also curious to see if Avengers comes first: Avatar would require the bus area to be redeveloped, but seems to be considered the hotter property by Disney. Avengers has the ground ready to go and has been officially announced, but seems to be stuck in development hell from a ride system POV and the avengers franchise seems to have cooled in popularity.

Yes, as I mentioned earlier in the thread if the rumors are true of it taking over the Hub then the Eastern Gateway project would need to be completed before Avatar could even start. So yeah I could see Avengers being the next DCA project to break ground.

 

[Disney Vault]

Technically they wouldn't have to wait for the eastern gateway to be complete. They could temporarily move the bus drop-off to the old downtown Disney parking lot

 

[Disney Irish]

Technically they wouldn't have to wait for the eastern gateway to be complete. They could temporarily move the bus drop-off to the old downtown Disney parking lot

Something tells me that isn’t an option. As that would put additional traffic across the resort that the city is trying to prevent. Easier to just wait a year until the Eastern Gateway is done.

 

[BrianLo]

Something’s gotta give. Avatar, TL redo, Avengers Ride, Frozen, more info on DL Forward. Take your pick.

TL redo. +/- DL Forward. Kind of comes down to whether Josh thinks talking about the parking garage is worthwhile and/or wants to do more softer blue sky sessions.

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

Something tells me that isn’t an option. As that would put additional traffic across the resort that the city is trying to prevent. Easier to just wait a year until the Eastern Gateway is done.

Is it possible they hit the ground running on the Eastern Gateway as soon as DL Forward gets the green light? If not how long do you estimate it will be before they break ground?

 

[Disney Irish]

Is it possible they hit the ground running on the Eastern Gateway as soon as DL Forward gets the green light? If not how long do you estimate it will be before they break ground?

Dunno, as I’m not aware of any funding yet for the project. I would guess they’d want to start it fairly quickly. But it may have to wait until at least the new fiscal year, which starts in October.

So I’d guess, and it’s just a guess, they start construction anytime after October. D23 might provide us info on it as well.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

It would be both hilarious and sad if Pandora or something else came to DLR before the Avengers E-ticket.

 

[DisneyAJ]

TL redo. +/- DL Forward. Kind of comes down to whether Josh thinks talking about the parking garage is worthwhile and/or wants to do more softer blue sky sessions.

Please god no more blue sky. Just pull the trigger on something already

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

It would be both hilarious and sad if Pandora or something else came to DLR before the Avengers E-ticket.

While I am holding out hope for some sort of substantial announcement and commitment to build the Avengers E ticket, I am losing hope that an Avengers E ticket is happening anytime soon.

 

[britain]

Why do I have the feeling whoever on the Marvel side of things was working with WDI was probably (3-5 years ago) was pushing for the next generation of Avengers to be given featured roles in the E-ticket.

And SOMEBODY at WDI has been stonewalling, wanting to avoid making the same mistake as they did with the next generation characters being the focus of Galaxy’s Edge.

And now WDI is sitting back pointing at the diminishing performance of Marvel films saying, see?

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

Why do I have the feeling whoever on the Marvel side of things was working with WDI was probably (3-5 years ago) was pushing for the next generation of Avengers to be given featured roles in the E-ticket.

And SOMEBODY at WDI has been stonewalling, wanting to avoid making the same mistake as they did with the next generation characters being the focus of Galaxy’s Edge.

And now WDI is sitting back pointing at the diminishing performance of Marvel films saying, see?

IMO it sounded like they are/were aiming to have the Avengers E ticket be modular with the ability to have the characters swapped out over time, likely to coincide with Infinity War and Endgame level events. So if a certain set of characters like the younger generation of Avengers were the lead but not popular, they could swap them out for whoever was more popular.

 

[celluloid]

IMO it sounded like they are/were aiming to have the Avengers E ticket be modular with the ability to have the characters swapped out over time, likely to coincide with Infinity War and Endgame level events. So if a certain set of characters like the younger generation of Avengers were the lead but not popular, they could swap them out for whoever was more popular.

We are closer to new actors portraying those major characters than we are the recent ones.
Disney can't afford/is not willing to bring in anyone but sound alkies at this point.

 

[Disney Vault]

Something tells me that isn’t an option. As that would put additional traffic across the resort that the city is trying to prevent. Easier to just wait a year until the Eastern Gateway is done.

Easier than you would think. They could use the entrance from Disney way onto the Disney road behind carsland and the pier. This leads right to Disneyland drive. Where they could either turn to go to the old DTD parking or take over a portion of the current DTD lot and pretty much add no additional traffic to the streets

 

[MisterPenguin]

They could use the entrance from Disney way onto the Disney road behind carsland and the pier. This leads right to Disneyland drive.

Disney puts "Disney" before more nouns than Batman puts "bat."

 

[Disney Irish]

Easier than you would think. They could use the entrance from Disney way onto the Disney road behind carsland and the pier. This leads right to Disneyland drive. Where they could either turn to go to the old DTD parking or take over a portion of the current DTD lot and pretty much add no additional traffic to the streets

Maybe, in my opinion that is a lot of work to build a temporary transpo hub just for a new land. When they have this other project that is already going built a permanent one. But maybe they do reroute things during the Eastern Gateway construction, I could see that happening. But I just don't see them trying to do Avatar at the same time as Eastern Gateway. In my mind that would almost cutoff the Harbor entrance with both projects happening at the same time. But I guess we'll see.

Anyways it'll be interesting to see the timeline on these projects when they get announced.

 

[BrianLo]

The only thing I can figure, until we learn otherwise, is that Avengers was restarted very temporally close to D23 2022. This is all me guessing and optimstically hoping.

Why? Maybe they just couldn’t get the ride platform up to snuff. It sounded quite ambitious. Either from cost or capacity. They are somewhat beholden to a budget set forth with HK’s government. Lots of reasons it was potentially scrapped.

So then we flip to the Tokyo Peter Pan System, which presumably has at least some capacity and has been worked through. They also have Scott Trowbridge on staff still.

Whether that was 18 months ago, or upwards of 24 is my best guess and that’s why we still don’t have movement. Who knows if they were even really working on it at the time. My only real hope is that the ride still featured at last September’s D23, which means the project survived Iger’s return and it survived (at least for 9 months) Iger’s desire to add Avatar.

We need either very very firm messaging or the project to have started by next D23. Otherwise it’s troubled, dying or dead.

One other theory worth floating is that the project timeline is being further limited by the next avengers movie filming schedule.

Avatar on the other hand is only 14 months into development, max. It’s not starting this year, at best it’s starting the latter half of 2025. Realistically early 2026. But it sounds like the project has now at least firmed up its location and scope. I’d very much expect the attractions to be heavily in flux still.

Some sort of grand DCA overhaul may be exactly what they push at D23.


The exciting part is there is obligation that none of these projects can account for the 1.9-2.5 billion they’ve earmarked for Disneyland forward. Those have to be realized by 2034.

Sounds like Disneyland is going to have a fun 10 year run.

 

[Gusey]

And Avengers Vault opened which is supposed to be the exit gift shop for the Avengers attraction, freeing up the Avengers Superstore building in the Hollywood Backlot, only complicating the multiverse attraction's status

 

[chadwpalm]

The MCU is in disarray right now. With Jonathan Major's conviction the whole lead up to the Kang Dynasty is pretty much gone (unless they recasted). Iger just took the sequels for The Marvels, Ant-Man, and Eternals off the table due to recent poor performance in the box office. And there's only one MCU movie coming out in all of 2024. There's even rumors of talks at Marvel to soft-reboot the franchise.

I imagine any plans to pour money into Avengers Campus is on hold until there can be some stability in the direction the franchise is going which can still be several years away. They will most likely want to see if Fantastic Four and the X-Men can bring in new life to a dying franchise.

 

[MisterPenguin]

The MCU is in disarray right now. With Jonathan Major's conviction the whole lead up to the Kang Dynasty is pretty much gone (unless they recasted). Iger just took the sequels for The Marvels, Ant-Man, and Eternals off the table due to recent poor performance in the box office. And there's only one MCU movie coming out in all of 2024. There's even rumors of talks at Marvel to soft-reboot the franchise.

I imagine any plans to pour money into Avengers Campus is on hold until there can be some stability in the direction the franchise is going which can still be several years away. They will most likely want to see if Fantastic Four and the X-Men can bring in new life to a dying franchise.

Well, in 2024, we're still getting (got) Echo, X-Men '97, Daredevil Born Again, and Agatha.

The important thing is not to put out a lot of movies that are tentpoles that don't do well, but to make sure the ones you put out indeed do well, even if it's just one.

Theatrical releases have known budget and known income. And Disney is getting pummeled by a certain demographics who will use a theatrical loss against them (Wall Street and the usual haters).

D+ series are black boxes for budget and for what portion of subscription fees are apportioned to them. They can't be pointed to as demonstrable losses financially, even if they are.

So.. at least the TV series train is still chugging along.

 

[mickEblu]

The MCU is in disarray right now. With Jonathan Major's conviction the whole lead up to the Kang Dynasty is pretty much gone (unless they recasted). Iger just took the sequels for The Marvels, Ant-Man, and Eternals off the table due to recent poor performance in the box office. And there's only one MCU movie coming out in all of 2024. There's even rumors of talks at Marvel to soft-reboot the franchise.

I imagine any plans to pour money into Avengers Campus is on hold until there can be some stability in the direction the franchise is going which can still be several years away. They will most likely want to see if Fantastic Four and the X-Men can bring in new life to a dying franchise.

Thats a logical explanation as to why Disney doesn’t want to invest in Avengers Campus right now but it doesn’t make sense to me. This would be like saying “we’re not going to invest in a land based on the Star Wars OT because Boba Fett didn’t do well and people don’t like the sequel trilogy as much.” Thanos/ Iron Man/ End Game/ Infinity War that’s Marvels OT. It’s not going anywhere. Those are the characters the ride should feature. The story and whether it should be multiverse related or something else is another… story. Just all goes back to the fact that they don’t view the parks as their own thing. Synergy for the sake synergy is overrated when you are glossing over characters/ stories that are proven and have stood the test of time.