News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[haveyoumetmark]

The Cars movie franchise has generated $21.5 billion in merch and ticket sales.

Unless I'm reading that wrong, Cars is the highest-grossing Disney franchise without an actual ride in Walt Disney World.

This NYT article from 2023 says Pocahontas has earned about $707 million in ticket sales. Let's go Snoop-Dogg-with-the-Olympic-Torch wacky[1] and say Pocahontas earned 10x that in merch sales. Humor me. So Pocahontas has earned $8B.

So consumers are willing to part with 2.5 times as much money for Cars as for Pocahontas. And it's probably 7x TBH.

Cars has multiple theatrical sequels. They could easily make more. Pocahontas has had none. It has no clear future.

I'm not saying Cars is the perfect franchise. I'm not saying I agree with IP in the parks. But c'mon given what we know about how the company makes decisions about the parks, this is as clear-cut as it gets.

[1] In all sincerity, I have never been more proud to be an American than that moment.

I appreciate your posts and POV. Usually very informative, sensible and data-driven in a way that might actually cut through the hysterics, bad takes, delusions and mob mentality.

 

[Captain Neo]

Toy Story thematically makes more sense, but we already have a Toy Story land in DHS AND a Toy Story ride in MK, so it would likely be overkill. Plus I’m guessing if you ask a young kid if they’d rather ride a stagecoach or a race car, race car is going to have the overwhelming majority.

No it doesnt. What do 90s Toys have to do with the Frontier or the wild wilderness??

 

[DarkMetroid567]

It’s interesting that you frame the “moral superiority” of people who aren’t happy with the loss of RoA/TSI as being upset purely because of politics/Walts beliefs or hatred against Imagineers. Most people in this thread and on Twitter have been expressing that they’re majorly upset with the loss of the atmosphere- the “park” part of “theme park”. We don’t hate Imagineers, they are told what to do by corporate, they don’t have a say in what stays or goes. I’ve already talked about why dozens of times. The people screaming “Woke Disney hates America” are a small minority of fans who are just screaming to fuel the culture war. They don’t represent the fandom as a whole, like how the Save Splash crowd don’t represent everyone who liked Splash.

I think I was fair in characterizing that not everyone is using these arguments — but a lot of people clearly are, and it’s the reason that emotions are running highly in the first place. If the opinions were just “I’m happy/sad to see this go” this thread would not be 140+ pages deep.

Also you call the parks “slop” at the end there- so you’re agreeing this Cars situation is not great?

Yes and no. It would not have been my first choice either, but I’m eager to see if they can pull it off. My standards of enjoyment for theme parks are quite low and I’m willing to go to some pretty bad ones. To say I have full confidence in Disney is a lie considering the way EPCOT turned out, but I’m still pretty excited to see the change and the impact it has on the worst Frontierland and RoA in the Disney parks, even if it turns out as slop.

I just get irritated by the holier-than-thou attitudes.

 

[Dizknee_Phreek]

Tbh I always thought that if they filled this area it would be with a river rapids ride.

See, now that I think would work better. And it could kind of tie in with the flooded town on BTM. Although I don't know if they'd want 2 water rides beside each other.

 

[PizzaPlanet]

Anyone else concerned this ride won’t have a significant dark ride portion? It’s such a key part of what makes RSR work, but the art makes it looks like this is almost entirely outdoors.

 

[radiorae]

No it doesnt. What do 90s Toys have to do with the Frontier or the wild wilderness??

“90s toys” don’t. The scenario he set up, focusing on Bullseye and Woody, who is literally a cowboy with a frontier themed Wild West show, does.

To be clear, I am in no way saying we need another Toy Story land, in fact, my post argued against it.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

In a way you could say Dark Universe is an original park creation.

I think this is fair, but it would also make Fantasy Springs an example of an “original creation” which I likely wouldn’t agree with.

Although I imagine it doesn’t really come from a place of generosity. Universal really loves building the 1:1 recreations of scenes and landscapes from their IPs — if there was a notable enough place in the Universal monster catalogue, they probably would have done it.

 

[Sneaky]

Josh Damaro liked this post on his Instagram.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Josh Damaro liked this post on his Instagram.

I think that's more of a "there there, it's gonna be okay" pat on the back, kinda like.

 

[Captain Neo]

“90s toys” don’t. The scenario he set up, focusing on Bullseye and Woody, who is literally a cowboy with a frontier themed Wild West show, does.

To be clear, I am in no way saying we need another Toy Story land, in fact, my post argued against it.

right im just saying bullseye and Woody are toys based on a toyline in a film that takes place in the mid 1990s.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Anyone else concerned this ride won’t have a significant dark ride portion? It’s such a key part of what makes RSR work, but the art makes it looks like this is almost entirely outdoors.

Worried about this too. I don’t think it’s the prevailing reason as to why RSR works but I sure would miss it. Maybe the ride system really is more interesting than “slot car go fast”. We’ll see…

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

I think I was fair in characterizing that not everyone is using these arguments — but a lot of people clearly are, and it’s the reason that emotions are running highly in the first place. If the opinions were just “I’m happy/sad to see this go” this thread would not be 140+ pages deep.


Yes and no. It would not have been my first choice either, but I’m eager to see if they can pull it off. My standards of enjoyment for theme parks are quite low and I’m willing to go to some pretty bad ones. To say I have full confidence in Disney is a lie considering the way EPCOT turned out, but I’m still pretty excited to see the change and the impact it has on the worst Frontierland and RoA in the Disney parks, even if it turns out as slop.

I just get irritated by the holier-than-thou attitudes.

Fair points. I’m with you in hoping they can make something good out of it. Not to be a broken record, but all I need out of this is something that captures the same aesthetic and feeling the view of the river currently has. Have it been more New England-y on the LS side and transition to more Klondike-y for Frontierland. If they redo the facades of Country Bear Street to be more Grizzly Peaks/Klondike inspired it would pull it together. Just leave Grizzly Hall the same!

 

[RoysCabin]

As a dedicated fan, I find almost all of my time visiting the parks is dedicated to classic attractions. Mansion, Peoplemover, Carousel of Progress, Pirates, Jungle Cruise, etc in MK; Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, Figment in Epcot, etc.Rarely am I stampeding to the latest IP attraction.

I had a pretty big hit of that when I went back for the first time in a few years this past February, chaperoning a school trip: we walked down Main Street, started at Adventureland, and promptly hit up the Tiki Room, Pirates, walked around to Haunted Mansion, got to Space Mountain and the PeopleMover...and man, when we were hitting the classics it felt really good. Heck, had the same feeling going down Hollywood and Sunset at Studios, and, of course, World Showcase, which remains my favorite area overall.

Doesn't mean all the new stuff stunk or anything; TRON was pretty sweet! But there's a timelessness to a lot of the classics that can be very tough to replicate, for sure.

On the question of Disney and Universal acting more like one another or whatever, my big takeaway has been that Universal's been smarter about which properties it licenses and utilizes to build themed IP lands around. I've said it many times before, but Potter, much as I don't care for it as a franchise, works for theme parks since it has "literary DNA" with built in references to things that impact all five senses for guests to interact with. Nintendo works because of the very immersive/interactive nature of video games. The Monsters will likely work in large part due to the established mood and atmosphere of the classic movies being something that can translate into a vibe that works for real life moving around...and, importantly, by having the separate Islands of Adventure and now the separate "Universes" they're not creating IP logjams where it feels like stuff is being forced into areas where they don't belong, trampling all over thematic cohesion, etc. Might actually explain why the original Universal park in Orlando feels the weakest: you can feel the IP hodgepodge there, it just feels all so disconnected and weird, since it had been designed with specific areas in mind but it's just pretty much ignored by now, for the most part.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

On the question of Disney and Universal acting more like one another or whatever, my big takeaway has been that Universal's been smarter about which properties it licenses and utilizes to build themed IP lands around. I've said it many times before, but Potter, much as I don't care for it as a franchise, works for theme parks since it has "literary DNA" with built in references to things that impact all five senses for guests to interact with. Nintendo works because of the very immersive/interactive nature of video games. The Monsters will likely work in large part due to the established mood and atmosphere of the classic movies being something that can translate into a vibe that works for real life moving around...and, importantly, by having the separate Islands of Adventure and now the separate "Universes" they're not creating IP logjams where it feels like stuff is being forced into areas where they don't belong, trampling all over thematic cohesion, etc. Might actually explain why the original Universal park in Orlando feels the weakest: you can feel the IP hodgepodge there, it just feels all so disconnected and weird, since it had been designed with specific areas in mind but it's just pretty much ignored by now, for the most part.

I’m really hoping the portals at Epic work better mentally in separating, because I really don’t think it works too well at IoA. The transitions from Comic Book to Kong/Jurassic Park, or Seuss to Lost Continent, have always felt super jarring. And it’s irritating hearing the Jurassic Park theme play in Forbidden Journey’s queue.

 

[Quietmouse]

How do they feel about cars? Honest question.

I have 2 daughters and they could care less.

 

[GenChi]

I’m honestly worried about mansion…. It’s gonna be smack in the middle of this. It COULD be an anchor / portal to villains land but it’s also a huge show building……..

This is going to be one of those unintentional side effects that's going to linger over WDW for decades.

Splash made it so supposed invincibles could fall with enough negatives. The river made it so all attractions feel like they can fall at anytime.

WDW fans have had paranoia before, the entire Figment fandom is just paranoia. But filling in the entire river is really going to kick it in because it makes it so if the right IP or attraction comes along they will take out anything. At any prior time any discussion about Haunted Mansion removal would be seen as insane, that ride gets a lot of ridership and sells merch greatly. But losing the river puts it in a very real discussion. Maybe Nightmare Before Christmas sells more merch. Maybe they decide HMH at DL shows NBC is more lucrative. Maybe NBC would synergize the film/D+ to park connections more and bring more attendance and LL. Maybe they need to move the building anyway for villains and this would differentiate it from DL...

Not that I think it would ever happen. But that people think it can now is a major impact of this. MK doesn't have the DL advantage of being the classic original for most attractions, if they want to keep one they'd remove MK's. MK is supposed to have some nostalgia that as you age certain things will stick around, and that's supposed to feel good. But I feel more confident in regional parks preserving their historical attractions then MK, and that negative doubt will get to the major park fans against what they parks should feel. The only thing that might be eternal is the castle. Everything else is for sale.

 

[Quietmouse]

I’ve always wondered this. If Disney is obsessed with ips connected to rides/lands and it helps drive merchandise sales for that ip, I’m curious why Disney world/land have yet to get a something that Disney sea ended up with.

It seems like a no brainer for the states.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

Totally agree The Chatbox Ghost.

I think some of the potential political reasoning questions stem from trying to understand the logic beyond TDO trying to fill up as much land as possible in the MK to make more profit.

I will really miss the view from BTM looking over ROA to the castle!

Also, the riverboat was such a gem. Where can you ride a working riverboat even if it went along a rail. So relaxing. I did not go for years and the in 2017 for my parents 50th anniversary we all went on and it was a blast. My wife who never went on before loved it more than anybody.

Losing the riverboat truly is a loss. I hope they can bring it somewhere else.

 

[el_super]

I’m curious why Disney world/land have yet to get a something that Disney sea ended up with.

They tried to bring Duffy to the US but it didn't catch on.

 

[Quietmouse]

They tried to bring Duffy to the US but it didn't catch on.