AVATAR land coming to Disney's Animal Kingdom

[TimNRA757]

Not a fan of avatar, lets hope this turns out better than I fear though... We dodged a bullet with Harry Pothead for WDW, now my stomach is churning.

 

[Scuttle]

Is anyone else impressed at how well Disney kept the wraps on this announcement until they were ready?

I am as excited about the surprise of a big announcement by Disney not previously leaked to the interwebz as the content itself! Who knew that could happen in 2011?

:sohappy:

Very impressed. I'm shocked no one leaked it out.

 

[CastleBound]

One of the best aspects of the movie are the Hallelujah Mountains. The legendary floating mountains of Pandora! I can't really imagine them coming to fruition in real life, but some sort of 3D ride could have us flying in and out of them.

I think we are all imagining the nature aspect of Avatar and how amazing it will be. I am wondering how much they will incorporate the mechanical and human side of the movie. Will there be combat suits, space ships, helicopters, and more of the same? Since it would seem to focus on nature being in Animal Kingdom, I can see them skimping on the futuristic aspect.

 

[Southern_Tink]

This thread is growing faster than I can read it!
Dear god no! I think I’m most upset that Beastly Kingdom will never become a reality now, seeing we always assumed it would be the first big expansion of the park and this will now take its budget and spot in Camp Minnie Mickey.

I completely agree!

 

[cynic710]

Actually...it kinda did.
It was told to me about a month and a half ago....I simply didn't believe it.

I will take this opportunity to apologize to the imagineer who told me. Sorry I didn't believe you and sorry for any four letter words I may have let fly in your direction.


Forget than number. Radiator Springs alone is costing double that.


It wasn't done.


Yes. Very likely why he was at AK. (But not his only reason for being at the resort.)
This was a very well kept secret. Nothing was on the radar about it at all.

My only tip off, as I mentioned above, was an email from an imagineer.
I laughed it off and declared it to be bu1l$h1t.:lol:

My bad...


North of $500 is where it will start. Could go either way from there, depending on who is championing it.


Yep. And dragging a dozen other imagineers along for a month-long trek through the jungle. (That is about $1mil of the budget right there.)


If I was betting, I'd say the big area north of Asia. I'll try to find out.


Or shave off some spare $ from the budger for the poor thing...


Lot of work yet to do on design and engineering. Also the budget will be split up over several years.

ill be WDW november 9th-16th, for all the info you get out to us civilians i would like to buy you lunch, lol..

 

[Ignohippo]

I'm very excited to see Disney doing something but I can't help but think this is a bit of a reach. Avatar was a good flick, and I'm sure 2 & 3 will be good as well (hopefully, they won't go The Matrix route) but I can't help but be incredibly disappointed this isn't happening with Star Wars at DHS. This much money built around Star Wars would bring people from all over the world for years and years to come – I'm just not sure Avatar is even close to the same kind of draw. As far as existing franchises it's a good get, probably only behind Star Wars and Lord of the Rings for popularity (not including HP).

I'm also completely baffled why Staggs and Iger are so eager to look to outside franchises rather than developing existing properties that Disney already owns. If tied into some kind of a movie, Beastly Kingdom, or a Villains land, could have been amazing. Not quite the draw of Avatar but Disney would own it outright, making it a wash financially.

 

[mightynine]

2.8 Billion dollars thanks to all the hubbub about 3d plus its high ticket prices.

If audiences loved Avatar then it would ubiquitous in popular culture and widely revered, not the butt of jokes everywhere with people calling it Smurfs or Pocahontas in space.

You want a world that has incredible atmosphere? watch Star Wars, or even Harry Potter. EVERYONE knows who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are, EVERYONE knows Harry, Ron and Hermione.

I highly doubt anyone even remembers what Jake Sulley looked like or even can properly spell Neytiri if they even remember or pronounce it correctly.

Gee, and hubbub and word of mouth had nothing to do with Star Wars or Potter gaining popularity. And there's never been jokes made about those two franchises either. Especially the Star Wars prequels. Or Lucas' complete inability to stop tinkering with the flims.

Look, we get it. You don't like Avatar. You like Star Wars and Potter. But to make that the reason why you're writing it off does not mean it will be a failure.

 

[Lee]

Fact: this project did get out over a month ago. It was dispelled as improbable.

That's putting it mildly!

Mention TDO, Avatar, AK and $500mil in the same sentence and I'm laughing so hard I need oxygen.:ROFLOL:

In hindsight....:lookaroun

 

[Sigmundooze]

Without being catty or bratty about it, I'd just like to chime in and say that I am not supportive of this expansion/endeavor at all. I've never seen Avatar, I will never see Avatar, and the addition of this into a Disney original theme park such as Animal Kingdom is against everything that I ever thought I believed in about Walt Disney World. To me, originality at WDI and WD Parks & Resorts is long gone.

Add me to the disgruntled group. And I AM in the target market segment for those who would "love" this new addition. Guess I am not cool enough...

Oh well, Disney. Seems like we are at an impasse yet again in my feelings towards you.

(Please don't flame me for my comment, I feel that in all the places I'd be able to post this in the Internet world, I'd feel the most comfortable doing it here.)

You are so right on the money. I couldnt be more disappointed in WDI (or management if WDI was strong armed into this) The problems plaguing movies are creeping into the theme park business. ORIGINALITY PLEASE! We need to stop paying for MEDIOCRITY! WE SPEAK WITH OUR WALLETS!

 

[PhilharMagician]

Wow, I missed this earlier and now there is no way I am getting through almost 500 posts!

I am very hopeful that this will be blended into AK. My initial reaction is YES, finally something big! Then I think about how they will take an alien planet and put it seemlessly into AK, but AK is not a zoo it is a theme park after all and if a yeti would work and the original Beastly kingdom would work then why not Avatar?

James Cameron is an amazing techno geek. With his involvement I imagine this project working with Disney will put imagineering back into the stratosphere. James Cameron does not do anything on the cheap. He is all out or nothing and has always been that way. I cannot imagine he signed with Disney without having some clause in the contract about cost cutting on projects similar to J.K Rowling and the HP project.

I am excited and will stand-by waiting for the next step!

 

[xdan0920]

I have confliciting reactions to this announcement.

On the one hand AK was desperate for an expansion. And the fact that they are going big here, is welcome. Furthermore, this seems to be a move towards a more adult audience, something Disney has been neglecting lately. So I am happy in that regard.

Now the bad. I do not know one person who talks or cares about Avatar. When the movie was out, everyone I know saw it, and I can not think of one person I know who said they loved it. No one I know has been clambering for a sequel, or a spinoff TV show, or books, or anything. I liked the movie. It was not the best movie I saw that year, nor was it the worst. It was enjoyable, and it became an event film. Everyone felt they had to see it. In my anecdotal experience, I have felt no staying power. Perhaps I have not been paying good enough attention. I am just not feeling any excitement to visit Pandora specifically.

I am excited for a major expansion and new rides though. So bring it on Disney. My expectations are low, hopefully they get blown away.

 

[Lee]

Fact: this project did get out over a month ago. It was dispelled as improbable.

That's putting it mildly!

Mention TDO, Avatar, AK and $500mil in the same sentence and I'm laughing so hard I need oxygen.:ROFLOL:

In hindsight....:lookaroun

Overall...I like it. It's a cool property with mass appeal and lots of attraction potential.
Good move.

James Cameron does not do anything on the cheap. He is all out or nothing and has always been that way. I cannot imagine he signed with Disney without having some clause in the contract about cost cutting on projects similar to J.K Rowling and the HP project.

Very true. Jim Cameron is very strict about his property. I don't see him letting go of the creative reigns on this. Expect very close collaboration with WDI, and very tight quality control ala JKR.

 

[Bairstow]

the arguement of the staying power of the land has to go out the window. its the imagineers job to create something the builds up its own staying power. ala ToT or even aerosmith...i happen to be a big aerosmith fan, and that may be a minority especially to the younger crowd who seem to have no problems riding the ride even though their ipod has miley cyrus and brittany spears on it. what im saying is despite what the movie is or was or eevn will be, my money is on the imagineers creating an AWESOME experience.

You can add Splash Mountain, Roger Rabbit's Toontown Spin, Tower of Terror, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to that list.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. Beastly Kingdom would have just been another castles-n-dragons-n-unicorns type situation that we've seen at lots of theme parks.

Going the Avatar route allows the imagineers to mix 2 things they're good at, sci-fi architecture (Tomorrowland, Star Tours, Epcot) with large, dinosaur-shaped animatronics (Universe of Energy, Countdown to Extinction, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc.)
This should play right to their strengths.

 

[MrMorrowTom]

ill be WDW november 9th-16th, for all the info you get out to us civilians i would like to buy you lunch, lol..

What info he didn't tell us anything.
The only way I would believe an imagineer emailed him this information if he proved it. Other than that I don't know why he wouldn't post a single thing even if it was in the News and RUMOR section.

 

[Kiff]

I really hope this is the start of a full on theme park war in Orlando. Can't wait to see what kind of ride and show innovations we get out of this.

 

[wannabef]

Everyone here seems to be assuming that the Avatar land will mean DAK staying open after dark. There's another possibility here: E-ticket dark ride.

 

[tomman710]

Now that I have thought about it more I think my biggest problems are;

1. I don't understand it ... I get that the movie made a billion dollars but I think it's the quietest billion ever. No one I know talks about it, no kids I know play with AVATAR toys (in fact I'd like to know what the AVATAR merch sales were like, seems like that should be relevant to Disney, merch?) ... there is a lack of general excitement about the property except that it has pretty lands to make a land in AK ... so? Alot of properties could make compelling or pretty landscapes.

2. Which leads me to my second point in that this decision must have been driven strictly by bean counters or the financing department that is too shortsighted to look past box office dollars to determine if a property is viable.

I just don't get why AVATAR and why not any number of ideas from Star Wars, DisneySea, or I'm sure a dozen other blue sky ideas that Imagineers have been working on.

Granted, just because AVATAR is a terrible movie doesn't mean it will make bad attractions, I think we should judge the attractions on their own ...

... I just can't believe they couldn't come up with something that would have gotten us more excited ...

... But that's it isn't it? It's not about us.

 

[Thrill]

I really hope this is the start of a full on theme park war in Orlando. Can't wait to see what kind of ride and show innovations we get out of this.

I really hope so.

 

[stitchcastle]

This.

The plot wasn't good, but the visuals in the film were incredible. Really, that's what it comes down to when it comes to making a great ride. Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean are beloved attractions, but their plots aren't very well established. Haunted Mansion's story is "This house is haunted and Madame Leota is going to wake up the ghosts so they can party," at its core. There isn't much of a backstory (not officially). It's just all about the sights and sounds that you pass on the ride that make it so memorable.

Honestly, if the Imagineers (and more importantly, the accountants) do this right, Avatar should make an even better theme park land/attraction than a movie.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to have a land based on Pandora, I'm saying that it shouldn't go to Animal Kingdom, it would make all the sense in the world to put it in EPCOT.

I'll give you high ticket prices, but there had been a couple 3D movies before Avatar. Even when 3D was a novel thing, you couldn't take a crappy movie and split the visual and make billions. There had to have been something that made the movie good. For Avatar, that something was an beautiful world.

The difference is that there was a lot of hype surrounding the use of 3d and CG in the movie and it being James Cameron's first movie since Titanic, it also wasn't up against any other major blockbusters.

A good story will always be the reason a movie is good, never just the visuals. Just because the movie makes a lot of money doesn't make it good. All you have to do is gauge the general public perception of the movie.

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same movie at this point. If you weren't astounded by the beauty of Pandora, I'm amazed.

yeah, be amazed. All i saw were shiny pixels made to look like trees that already exist that turned into some neon drenched night club when it got dark. If you were astounded by that, I'd be amazed too.

I just went through the "characters and plot don't matter in theme parks" spiel. They matter in movies, but like I said, Haunted Mansion is one of the most beloved attractions of all time, and Madame Leota, the Ghost Host, Constance, and maybe Master Gracey are the only real developed characters there. The general public probably doesn't know those names either, but generally speaking, they enjoy the ride. The Disney fan community knows the characters, but absolutely worship the mansion, despite its lack of plot.

Again, Avatar is a better theme park property than a movie.

you're talking about properties in which the rides themselves were the main draw. Avatar is being paraded around as if the movie itself will be the draw not the attractions. Two different concepts right there that you can't compare.

 

[ntoeman]

This is all very exciting and interesting...guess I should actually watch Avatar now...