Avengers Campus: E-Watch! (Waiting on the new ride)

[Disney Irish]

This was back when the original plans had it being in the Hollywood backlot area

I'm sorry but can you point to the actual rumor that had the Spider-Man attraction in the backlot in DCA. As I've been following this stuff for years (since the beginning) and I don't remember there ever be a rumor of Spider-Man going into the backlot. The backlot was rumored (by Micechat I believe) as a potential phase two expansion area, but that was back when they first started the ToT transition to MB and AC was being discussed, I don't think it was ever reported on what IPs would be used for the expansion.

 

[Ismael Flores]

I will never understand why they didn’t go with that pendulum spider man ride they had originally planned. Although most likely it’s because they wanted to do the land on the cheap

most likely capacity which is also the reason they cancelled a ride they were considering for the Incredibles for DCA

 

[Ismael Flores]

Of course I'm being facetious, but even though I believe that there should be attractions that young children can enjoy, they should also be done well enough that adults can enjoy them too. I think a Bug's Land fell more into that category than Avenger's Campus does. They basically traded 4 attractions kids can do for only one. Plus it had the park's only splash pad which was much needed in the concrete jungle that is DCA.

I still can't believe that they spend all this money on designing, construction and implementing water features to help people cool down and then operations never uses them. Partly because they never seem to find the right balance of how much water or what floor surface to use or have proper signange telling people what is acceptable or not.
I remember when they did use the water feature built into the ground in paradise Bay viewing area and i don't think i have ever seen it operating even on the hottest days of the year

 

[Ismael Flores]

Is this the cancelled ride y'all were yammering about?
If Disney built this, they would have no way ever to build an Avengers E-ticket with the size of this show-building. Maybe this could be the Avengers E-ticket in the near future.
View attachment 799504View attachment 799505
View attachment 799506View attachment 799507

with a bit of modification this system or the one they originally considered for the Avengers ride, would make a great addition for a Mandalorian ride. With some clever theming an indoor outdoor ride would be quite fascinating and add another attraction to Galaxy edge. If universal can hide and theme a donkey kong coaster then Disney can find a way to hide a portion of track that gives guest the illusion of flying like a mandalorian thru the green forests and roof tops of Galaxy Edge.

 

[Ismael Flores]

I'm putting all bets that Disney will use the Peter Pan Neverland Adventure layout and ride system from Tokyo's Fantasy Springs. It's a completely different experience than the Scoop-style ride- as if that and FoP had a baby. The screens are all massive and wrap around the rooms. It's a perfect amount of thrilling (also like FoP) and can contain a tremendous amount of impressive visuals and animatronics if necessary.

I'm surprised that people aren't mentioning this ride a lot, because having ridden it twice myself it's very E-ticket and worthy of Avengers Campus. The video doesn't do it justice, but it does show how it's thrilling and uses screens impressively. Considering Imagineering worked out the layout, tech, and all the little hijinks it would be really easy to drag and drop into AC but with a different theme. Plus OLC won't complain because it's original to DCA, nor can Universal because it doesn't copy their ride system.

Additionally, a roller coaster is way too expensive (see Cosmic Rewind). The show building, unless you have it outdoors (which would be very hard to theme), will be seen from the Radiator Springs area and be very unappealing for sightlines (Mission BO and that seriously two-punch ugly).

i can't remember what or what video i saw on youtube but a person did an interesting comparison to Fantasy Springs and the amount of land available for expansion for the Disneyland forward expansion north of the Disneyland hotel.

So Disney has approximately just over 15.3 acres of space they can develop for theme park expansion in this plot of land and still have land for parking structure for hotel and an entry road.

Fantasy Springs not counting the hotel is just less than 16 acres with the hotel and large entry from the park it is over 25 acres. Not sure why they claim it is 35 acres. they are probably including some of the property behind the hotel that was leveled out for construction.

This person that did the size comparison also noticed that if the land was placed at a certain point within this Anaheim Disneyland property, that the entrance to the Fantasy Springs land lines up perfectly to the possible bridge that would lead to critter country. He also observed that the land fits the long odd shape of the property available in Anaheim.

His theory was that Fantasy Springs could have also been designed to fit in Anaheim and be copied. In theory the side of the Disneyland hotel facing the addition could be part of a major remodel that would integrate all the Springs and rock work.

 

[Ismael Flores]

Could this be part of the reason why they built that Admin building behind Luigi's? So it would block a lot of the Avenger's building inside Cars Land until you walk down the path alongside Luigi's. I mean they could have built that building anywhere on-property of ever off-site, no reason it needed to be behind Luigi's unless they are trying to take future sight lines into consideration.

part of the reason they did it there was because they already had the huge basement in place for a new structure. They gutted the structure and pit that was there when they removed the floating tires. This area was where they had the huge equipment for the air.

My wish would be that they extend the mountain range a bit to hide at least most of the building. just extend the wall at least in the yellow area above the siteline so they still have access for storage under it

 

[Disney Irish]

part of the reason they did it there was because they already had the huge basement in place for a new structure. They gutted the structure and pit that was there when they removed the floating tires. This area was where they had the huge equipment for the air.

My wish would be that they extend the mountain range a bit to hide at least most of the building. just extend the wall at least in the yellow area above the siteline so they still have access for storage under itView attachment 800496

My point was by 2019/2020 (or whenever that building behind Luigi's was started) they already knew they would be building the Avengers show building behind it. So it appears they had some foresight into blocking sight lines with the Admin building when building it.

I don't see them extending the mountain range, but we'll see.

 

[Dayoldbread16]

I'm sorry but can you point to the actual rumor that had the Spider-Man attraction in the backlot in DCA. As I've been following this stuff for years (since the beginning) and I don't remember there ever be a rumor of Spider-Man going into the backlot. The backlot was rumored (by Micechat I believe) as a potential phase two expansion area, but that was back when they first started the ToT transition to MB and AC was being discussed, I don't think it was ever reported on what IPs would be used for the expansion.

I’ll see if I can find it, it’s been years. But basically there was a piece of leaked concept art that showed an entirely different version of an avengers land compared to the one we got. There was no official word saying “it’s going in the Hollywood backlot”, but many were speculating it going in the backlot because there was no room for it anywhere else at California adventure.

At the time Disneyland Forward wasn’t a thing and that original version of the land looked way too big to fit in bugs land. But I will admit there was no way to verify if the picture was real, nor where the land was going to be located exactly, or why it was cancelled.

 

[Dayoldbread16]

most likely capacity which is also the reason they cancelled a ride they were considering for the Incredibles for DCA

They had planned another incredibles ride? Also true but there is a second version of the quinjet ride and concept art that shows they doubled capacity. Of course none of us aside from Disney knows for sure why exactly it was cancelled. But honestly I really think it was for budget reasons.

Also I wish they never canceled that bantha ride last minute that was planned for galaxy’s edge

 

[Disney Vault]

I’ll see if I can find it, it’s been years. But basically there was a piece of leaked concept art that showed an entirely different version of an avengers land compared to the one we got. There was no official word saying “it’s going in the Hollywood backlot”, but many were speculating it going in the backlot because there was no room for it anywhere else at California adventure.

At the time Disneyland Forward wasn’t a thing and that original version of the land looked way too big to fit in bugs land. But I will admit there was no way to verify if the picture was real, nor where the land was going to be located exactly, or why it was cancelled.

I believe the concept art you are talking about was technically for Walt Disney studios in Paris. But yes it was a much better version of an avengers campus

 

[Disney Vault]

They had planned another incredibles ride? Also true but there is a second version of the quinjet ride and concept art that shows they doubled capacity. Of course none of us aside from Disney knows for sure why exactly it was cancelled. But honestly I really think it was for budget reasons.

Also I wish they never canceled that bantha ride last minute that was planned for galaxy’s edge

It was a very long time ago when they were debating between cars vs an incredibles ride. It was rumored to use the kuka arm. This was before the big budget to remodel dca was approved

 

[BrianLo]

Personally when I take family and friends going to DLR for the day on park hoppers we skip the land entirely (except for MB). Not sure if they just trust me but not once has anyone asked me to take them there or make time for it. Granted, I didn't necessarily paint Webslingers in the best light but when you're trying to get people on 12+ of the best attractions between DL and DCA in one day there just isn't any time for it. Nor are there any must eats nor do I feel like they would be missing out on any great ambiance.

We're definitely just swapping anecdotes, but I'm sure you are biasing the situation as a tour guide.

This story lives rent free with me still and I think I've shared it before. Probably when we found out what Webslingers was supposed to be. Mostly because it was such a different experience from a park newbie lens than what the forum leads us to believe. Or frankly even what I believed.


I took three friends to DLR around labour day 2012. It was my first time at the resort, but I was mildly experienced with Disney (I had even been to Tokyo Disney by then) and had obsessively followed the DCA redo. I played partial tour guide in that OG fast-pass day and we did what feels like a mind bogglingly amount of everything. Like the fun wheel, swings, fireworks, fantasmic, WOC, Aladdin, and I feel like every headliner of merit type day in both parks. I had only negotiated one day in our California trip, so it was that type of whirlwind.

Needless to say after we had burned through every C/D/E of merit I cared about I asked my group if there was anything they wanted to do again or experiences they really liked? The overwhelming response was if there was another attraction like Midway Mania and Astroblasters. Granted Midway Mania was new.

Somehow that stuck with me all these years that maybe the hand wringing about there being another Midway Mania-like in the park was in fact not encapsulating what the general public thinks.

 

[Dayoldbread16]

I believe the concept art you are talking about was technically for Walt Disney studios in Paris. But yes it was a much better version of an avengers campus

ohh my bad and yeah when it was originally posted they had mentioned it was planned for both dca and Paris but I have no idea if that was true. Also wow that’s awesome was there any concept art of that incredibles ride? It also sounds like it was upgraded and going to be used for the original avengers e ticket

 

[mickEblu]

We're definitely just swapping anecdotes, but I'm sure you are biasing the situation as a tour guide.

This story lives rent free with me still and I think I've shared it before. Probably when we found out what Webslingers was supposed to be. Mostly because it was such a different experience from a park newbie lens than what the forum leads us to believe. Or frankly even what I believed.


I took three friends to DLR around labour day 2012. It was my first time at the resort, but I was mildly experienced with Disney (I had even been to Tokyo Disney by then) and had obsessively followed the DCA redo. I played partial tour guide in that OG fast-pass day and we did what feels like a mind bogglingly amount of everything. Like the fun wheel, swings, fireworks, fantasmic, WOC, Aladdin, and I feel like every headliner of merit type day in both parks. I had only negotiated one day in our California trip, so it was that type of whirlwind.

Needless to say after we had burned through every C/D/E of merit I cared about I asked my group if there was anything they wanted to do again or experiences they really liked? The overwhelming response was if there was another attraction like Midway Mania and Astroblasters. Granted Midway Mania was new.

Somehow that stuck with me all these years that maybe the hand wringing about there being another Midway Mania-like in the park was in fact not encapsulating what the general public thinks.

Well I did admit that I didn’t paint Webslingers in the best light which was basically just a passing statement saying something along the lines of “it’s a waste of time.” It probably speaks more to the fact that I’ve never had any die hard Spider-Man or Marvel fans with me as I’m sure if they were they would have at least wanted to walk through the land considering I’ll usually get my family or friends on Mission Breakout and we’re right there. Aside from my family and friends complete trust in me as a DLR tour guide, there just isn’t any buzz in regards to Avengers Campus. I doubt any of them had a friend or co worker go up fo them and say “have you don’t that new ride/ thing at AC!?”

In regards to your point about TSMM and what the general public like I can agree to an extent but I think it’s important to note your example is from 2012. In 2010 TSMM was actually my favorite ride in the park. Or at least my wife and I liked to tell people that because of how much fun we had on it competing against each other. TOT was of course my real favorite. In 2012 a shooter ride like TSMM was much more of a novelty. It was also in much better shape. Screens were still nice and bright. I don’t feel nearly the same way about TSMM in 2024 as I once did in the early 2010’s and I’d imagine a lot of people feel the same way. TSMM hasn’t aged well and shooters in general I don’t think have either. They haven’t taken the next step. Maybe there isn’t one. The one place Spider-Man made an “improvement” on paper actually feels like a downgrade due to the loss of the tactile component. I think for the most part the GP and us have the same opinion on most things. If a ride is great it’s great. If it sucks it sucks. TSMM is just an interesting example and a bit of anamoly as it has the gameplay component which appeals to a lot of people and yet can be at odds with some Disney theme park purists who might ignore the fun repetitive gameplay component and focus on the fact that it’s almost all screens with no AAs etc. As a unique one off, I have no issues with TSMM. But throw Spider-Man in the same park with it and I think you’ve already gone overboard.

 

[Disney Vault]

ohh my bad and yeah when it was originally posted they had mentioned it was planned for both dca and Paris but I have no idea if that was true. Also wow that’s awesome was there any concept art of that incredibles ride? It also sounds like it was upgraded and going to be used for the original avengers e ticket

No concept art was ever released. Pretty sure the news of the incredicoaster concept came from Marcie back in the mouseinfo days

 

[Dayoldbread16]

Well I did admit that I didn’t paint Webslingers in the best light which was basically just a passing statement saying something along the lines of “it’s a waste of time.” It probably speaks more to the fact that I’ve never had any die hard Spider-Man or Marvel fans with me as I’m sure if they were they would have at least wanted to walk through the land considering I’ll usually get my family or friends on Mission Breakout and we’re right there. Aside from my family and friends complete trust in me as a DLR tour guide, there just isn’t any buzz in regards to Avengers Campus. I doubt any of them had a friend or co worker go up fo them and say “have you don’t that new ride/ thing at AC!?”

In regards to your point about TSMM and what the general public like I can agree to an extent but I think it’s important to note your example is from 2012. In 2010 TSMM was actually my favorite ride in the park. Or at least my wife and I liked to tell people that because of how much fun we had on it competing against each other. TOT was of course my real favorite. In 2012 a shooter ride like TSMM was much more of a novelty. It was also in much better shape. Screens were still nice and bright. I don’t feel nearly the same way about TSMM in 2024 as I once did in the early 2010’s and I’d imagine a lot of people feel the same way. TSMM hasn’t aged well and shooters in general I don’t think have either. They haven’t taken the next step. Maybe there isn’t one. The one place Spider-Man made an “improvement” on paper actually feels like a downgrade due to the loss of the tactile component. I think for the most part the GP and us have the same opinion on most things. If a ride is great it’s great. If it sucks it sucks. TSMM is just an interesting example and a bit of anamoly as it has the gameplay component which appeals to a lot of people and yet can be at odds with some Disney theme park purists who might ignore the fun repetitive gameplay component and focus on the fact that it’s almost all screens with no AAs etc. As a unique one off, I have no issues with TSMM. But throw Spider-Man in the same park with it and I think you’ve already gone overboard.

yeah no offense to anyone who is a fan of that ride or the campus but that spider man ride is honestly pretty terrible. It’s just a cheap spider man re skin of midway mania. It’s super short, you can buy $30+ wrist attachments in order to get a better score, it’s screens only so no animatronics and barely any physical sets, and the actual game part of it is worse than Toy Story. You just flail your hands randomly and generic spider bots.

on average it seems like a fair amount of families and kids like it. But there’s also a fair amount that actually pointed out how bad the ride was too. I do not understand why Disney thought web slingers was an acceptable ride, let alone them making it the campus’ only new ride. Honestly it seems like Disney just did it cheap and lazy so they can drive marvel merchandise sales in the land (instead of actually focusing on providing quality rides/entertainment).

 

[C33Mom]

I wonder what percentage of the folks who really, really hate Webslingers (or generally think it’s a terrible ride) have ever made it on the leaderboard.

Also, do the people who don’t like TSMM and Webslingers because there aren’t enough animatronics also hate Space Mountain, Tea Cups, Matterhorn, Soarin’, and Autopia?

 

[Disney Irish]

I’ll see if I can find it, it’s been years. But basically there was a piece of leaked concept art that showed an entirely different version of an avengers land compared to the one we got. There was no official word saying “it’s going in the Hollywood backlot”, but many were speculating it going in the backlot because there was no room for it anywhere else at California adventure.

At the time Disneyland Forward wasn’t a thing and that original version of the land looked way too big to fit in bugs land. But I will admit there was no way to verify if the picture was real, nor where the land was going to be located exactly, or why it was cancelled.

As another poster indicated, I think it was confusing things with the dual projects that were going on at DLP. There was never a real rumor, or even speculation (at least on this site), that I'm aware of for Spider-Man going in the backlot.

The backlot was always billed as a "phase two" of Marvel in DCA in the rumor mill, which they've obviously moved on from now.

 

[Dayoldbread16]

I wonder what percentage of the folks who really, really hate Webslingers (or generally think it’s a terrible ride) have ever made it on the leaderboard.

Also, do the people who don’t like TSMM and Webslingers because there aren’t enough animatronics also hate Space Mountain, Tea Cups, Matterhorn, Soarin’, and Autopia?

I mean if one wanted to get on the leaderboard easily you could just buy one or two of the $30 Wrist attachments in the gift shop that get you a better score (because each one can shoot 3 webs at once so you can score 3 times the points. And if you bought one for both hands that’s 6x the points. Also midway mania actually had effort and creativity put into it. There’s an animatronic Mr potato head, the games are well thought out and actually fun, you don’t have to buy any attachments to score more points, the ride lasts longer than web slingers, and the theming is good to where you actually feel like you are in a playset in Andy’s room.

The development of Web slingers on the other hand was outsourced to another company, the same company who made the ninjago ride at Lego land. That company specializes in lower budget dark rides. Anyways that’s not a dealbreaker on its own but just was somewhat relevant to this topic. Web slingers has no animatronics at all, barely any physical sets, the game part of it isn’t fun all you do is flail your arms at generic spider bots, you can buy physical dlc to get a better score, the theming is bland and very minimal once you get on the ride, the ride time is super short, and the illusion of you traveling through the campus is broken because it’s pulled off through paper thin walls.

those rides you mentioned don’t need animatronics because they all offer something different that contributes to the good ride experience, not to mention for some of those you listed i dont really think animatronics were available at the time (like the tech wasn’t there yet or they were too expensive at the time). But for example web slingers is like if Disney made a second space mountain coaster but drastically changed things that people liked about the original. Like making it go super slow or putting in all screens. Not to mention having two very similar rides in the same park is a bad decision.

Good theming and ride experience can make a similar ride to one that already exists at the park stand out on its own. But in web slingers case they failed on those accounts which further makes it difficult to stand out on its own. Anyways I can’t speak for others but i personally have nothing against those who do like web slingers or the avengers campus. I just enjoy criticizing the ride and the campus because it really is a good example of Disneys decline in quality lately. They didnt try much with it, it just feels like it was all build cheap and lazy to drive marvel merchandise instead of providing actual good guest experience.

Imagine how good the ride and campus would have been had Disney actually tried and had they actually given it a good budget. Yet they didn’t so we are stuck with a land that feels like something I’d see at six flags not Disney. Also they haven’t even started construction on the avengers e ticket ride that they announced all the way back in 2019. It’s 2024 yet still no progress aside from vague announcements.

 

[Dayoldbread16]

As another poster indicated, I think it was confusing things with the dual projects that were going on at DLP. There was never a real rumor, or even speculation (at least on this site), that I'm aware of for Spider-Man going in the backlot.

The backlot was always billed as a "phase two" of Marvel in DCA in the rumor mill, which they've obviously moved on from now.

No worries and thank you! Also I wonder, since Paris had a better version of their campus originally planned, do you think the same thing happened here at the California avengers campus? Of course there’s no proof unless Disney says something but I have a hunch that they had something better planned but after budget cuts we ended up with the six flags quality avengers land instead. I just was wondering how likely that could be.

Of course I could be wrong and maybe they planned this cheap lazy (in my opinion) version all along.