News Villains Land Announced for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
I suspect the entire Villains thing might just be a placeholder....They will probably break the budget with site prep and tearing out the ROA and Tom Sawyer's Island and Villain's Land will become the "Festival Center and Mary Poppins" from the last D23 announcement...but maybe they will build a "Flex Space" where Villain's Land should be.....
 
If there were some more revealed about it I might feel differently but the one piece of concept art that is very vague to say the least.... It is no more fleshed out than the New Epcot concept was....and almost none of that happened as it was shown....
Yeah it seems really ambiguous. Also like they are copying Uni a bit with their monsters land… idk seems like the kind of thing a company playing catchup would do, not a market leader.
 

MJL92

Active Member
I run a school trip of 80-100 high school kids every two years. 5 Day trip (one day at each WDW park and 1 hopper day for Universal). At the end of each trip I always send out a survey to collect data for future planning and Magic Kingdom always rates as the least favorite day by far.

If Disney goes outside their comfort zone and builds ONE massive scale top 10 in the world coaster and throws it in the edgy scary land in the back of the Magic Kingdom, that's transformative for that park for that teenage and young adult demographic. There are enough family coasters in the park. Build one to draw in the coaster crowd.
 

Vclguy90

Well-Known Member
I don’t think we will see this ever get built
Tv Land Teacher GIF by Teachers on TV Land
 

Quietmouse

Active Member
Meh to the crowds who are saying this won’t get built. I think the epic universe threat is real. Universal obtaining the Nintendo and Pokémon ip is no joke. Those characters are equally iconic as Mickey, Minnie and Google.

Harry Potter is one thing, as it never target disneys target demographic anyway - teens, young adults. But obtaining the usage of Mario, Luigi , donkey Kong and even Zelda is massive for universal.

That’s why I think Disney will actually proceed with villians land. They need a response to universal epic, and not just because universal is creating a horror land. Universal is entering territory with their expansion with the 3rd park and water park to create a vacation package where people can realistically create a 4 day trip for the university parks and never visit Disney.

In the past you could knock out universal in 2 days. Now it’s easily entering 3 to 4 day territory and that’s what scares Disney more than anything else.

So realistically they need villains land, if nothing else to assure that there’s more to do, and ultimately force people to stay and not get lured by universal.
 

Mike S

Well-Known Member
I run a school trip of 80-100 high school kids every two years. 5 Day trip (one day at each WDW park and 1 hopper day for Universal). At the end of each trip I always send out a survey to collect data for future planning and Magic Kingdom always rates as the least favorite day by far.

If Disney goes outside their comfort zone and builds ONE massive scale top 10 in the world coaster and throws it in the edgy scary land in the back of the Magic Kingdom, that's transformative for that park for that teenage and young adult demographic. There are enough family coasters in the park. Build one to draw in the coaster crowd.
I wonder if Disney would ever dare go with a Velocicoaster scale ride in Magic Kingdom.
 
I've heard "Villains Not-So-Dark Exploration Adventure World" is the current front runner. They heard complaints about the odd, complex names recently and wanted to address that. I am glad they are finally listening to their fan base...
Villain’s Dark Adventure

Meh to the crowds who are saying this won’t get built. I think the epic universe threat is real. Universal obtaining the Nintendo and Pokémon ip is no joke. Those characters are equally iconic as Mickey, Minnie and Google.

Harry Potter is one thing, as it never target disneys target demographic anyway - teens, young adults. But obtaining the usage of Mario, Luigi , donkey Kong and even Zelda is massive for universal.

That’s why I think Disney will actually proceed with villians land. They need a response to universal epic, and not just because universal is creating a horror land. Universal is entering territory with their expansion with the 3rd park and water park to create a vacation package where people can realistically create a 4 day trip for the university parks and never visit Disney.

In the past you could knock out universal in 2 days. Now it’s easily entering 3 to 4 day territory and that’s what scares Disney more than anything else.

So realistically they need villains land, if nothing else to assure that there’s more to do, and ultimately force people to stay and not get lured by universal.
I think Epic Universe will mainly cannibalize the other Universal parks, not really impact Disney. The cult like fandom with Disney is like nothing I’ve seen in any other sector of the marketplace. Maybe Apple.
 

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
Meh to the crowds who are saying this won’t get built. I think the epic universe threat is real. Universal obtaining the Nintendo and Pokémon ip is no joke. Those characters are equally iconic as Mickey, Minnie and Google.

Harry Potter is one thing, as it never target disneys target demographic anyway - teens, young adults. But obtaining the usage of Mario, Luigi , donkey Kong and even Zelda is massive for universal.

That’s why I think Disney will actually proceed with villians land. They need a response to universal epic, and not just because universal is creating a horror land. Universal is entering territory with their expansion with the 3rd park and water park to create a vacation package where people can realistically create a 4 day trip for the university parks and never visit Disney.

In the past you could knock out universal in 2 days. Now it’s easily entering 3 to 4 day territory and that’s what scares Disney more than anything else.

So realistically they need villains land, if nothing else to assure that there’s more to do, and ultimately force people to stay and not get lured by universal.
Interesting theory- that the competition is not so much the scary spectrum, but rather the kid set that loves Nintendo and Mario and Pokémon.

Cars makes a lot of sense in that context
 

Quietmouse

Active Member
I wonder if Disney would ever dare go with a Velocicoaster scale ride in Magic Kingdom.

It’s really not needed.

1 incredible coaster won’t change magic kingdoms perception.

If anything it will be net negative. Young parents are disneys biggest demographic, along with older grandparents. They want to be able to ride the rides with their 4 year old. That’s the appeal of Disney.

When you start creating a line up of rides with height restrictions as well as restrictions for the older population that have high blood pressure/spinal issues/heart disease then your excluding 2 major demographics for Disney for the appeasement of 1 - teens and young adults.

But ultimately that was never Disney focus, and to start now would be fruitless as one major coaster won’t all of sudden swing perception pendulum.
 

James Alucobond

Well-Known Member
Interesting theory- that the competition is not so much the scary spectrum, but rather the kid set that loves Nintendo and Mario and Pokémon.

Cars makes a lot of sense in that context
Cars, Tiana, and the rumored Moana all do in that context. Prior to the recent changes and announcements, the western lands of MK included just 4 non-park IP-based attractions. Of those, 3 hadn’t been touched in decades (Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family, Song of the South). The other has an incredibly sad spinner. And attempts to reverse-engineer attractions into franchises really only worked for Pirates (to an extent). Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, and Country Bears were more or less failures. I think their goal is to find a balance so that all sections of the park have a couple of immediately familiar IP-based lures, and Frontierland has been far and away the most lacking on this front.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
But ultimately that was never Disney focus, and to start now would be fruitless as one major coaster won’t all of sudden swing perception pendulum.

This is really the biggest issue for Disney. Even they did build one coaster that was intense enough to interest big coaster enthusiasts, one just isn't enough. Most of them aren't going to go to ride just one attraction when there are numerous other parks that offer many, so it likely wouldn't be a massive draw for that demographic.

They're really too far behind to catch up to other parks for that demographic, unless they wanted to solely invest in monster coasters for several new attractions in multiple parks. But that wouldn't do much to help capacity for their core audience, while attracting more guests solely for those coasters, so it would potentially cause more problems than it would solve.

Their best bet if they really wanted that market would be to build a 5th gate that mainly revolved around big coasters, but I don't think that would be worth the investment for Disney.
 

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