Disney parks are changing in a major way and more updates are on the horizon.
Magic Kingdom
The DisneylandForward project has officially been approved and will bring a $1.9 billion expansion to Disneyland Resort. The first permits have been filed for Disney World’s massive Animal Kingdom expansion, and Magic Kingdom’s Beyond Big Thunder overhaul will breathe new life into the original Florida park. Bob Iger has a new plan for Disney parks, and we happen to be pretty excited about it.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has faced several hurdles since returning to the company as its leader for the second time. But, hardly any battle Iger has dealt with — lawsuits, political tête-á-tête, poor box office results, proxy battles, you name it — are as harrowing as answering to Disney fans. We’re a passionate bunch, and for good reason. Not everyone seems to be thrilled with Iger’s recent confirmation that future parks projects will be intellectual property (IP)-based, but we’re still holding out hope.
©Disney
Essentially, IP is an easy way of referring to the stories and characters created by Disney for its various media content. When Iger announced that more IP would be coming to the parks, he backed it up by saying, “If you analyze carefully how we achieved those returns on invested capital in the parks, it was all about the IP.”
©Apple
He cited the new Zootopia expansion in Shanghai Disneyland as the company leveraging the popularity of that intellectual property in the region, and the concept of bringing Avatar to the newly approved DisneylandForward expansion project in California.
Not only that, but Iger has stressed that Disney plans to “turbocharge” the parks in the next decade or so, in hopes of integrating new intellectual properties at a quicker pace — a strategy inspired by recent success.
©Disney
“For quite a long time, new attractions and lands at the parks were based on, essentially, either very old IP or no IP — just an attraction. And, starting really with Cars Land and Toy Story and a few others… we decided that almost all of our investment in the parks in terms of attractions and lands would be using that IP. And it’s very very clear what that delivered,” Iger shared.
©Disney
We’ve seen the success of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at both Disney World and Disneyland, and have spent plenty of time exploring Toy Story Land, Pandora: World of Avatar, and even ToonTown. Many fans argue that bringing IP like this into the parks goes against what Walt Disney would have wanted, preferring the creation of “original” theme park attractions instead of using IP.
But, at the end of the day — we have no idea what Walt would think of Disney parks as they are today. And, ultimately, the argument could be made that any time Disney creates something — whether it be for the parks, a movie, or TV — bam, intellectual property.
Toy Story Land
Disney outlined its push to go “beyond storytelling” in parks across the globe and outlined examples of how it has already done so. Frozen, Toy Story, Avatar, and The Avengers franchises have all been extremely successful IP for Disney, so of course they would take that success and try to translate it to the parks — and from what we’ve seen and what Iger has said, they’ve done just that.
Pandora
As far as what’s on the horizon at Disney parks, we know that they have been very specific with the kinds of lands it would possibly like to bring to Disneyland. Disney has proposed projects themed after Coco, Black Panther, Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia, Peter Pan, Tron, and Toy Story.
Concept art for an Avatar area in Anaheim ©Disney
Disney has also already released concept art for a possible Avatar-themed land in Disneyland. Over at Animal Kingdom, based on early concept art, we’re hoping to see experiences inspired by Encanto and Indiana Jones.” Disney released concept art of the new land, and while things can always change, the “Tropical Americas” expansion has us pretty excited.
@Disney
The Beyond Big Thunder expansion at Magic Kingdom could potentially bring a NEW land (or possibly lands) to Magic Kingdom. In April 2024, Disney confirmed that the first steps had been taken to make this massive expansion a reality.
No matter what your thoughts on IP may be — expansions are on the way to Disney parks across the globe, and we think that’s reason enough to be excited!
Cinderella Castle
One thing is for sure, we’ll be on the hunt for more updates about Disney’s theme park expansions, so make sure you stay tuned to Disney Food Blog for the latest news!
FULL Look at Disney World’s MASSIVE Animal Kingdom Expansion Plans
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Expansion! They can’t even keep up maintenance on existing rides. Over Jul 4th holiday 25% of Magic Kingdom major attractions were down. One of busiest times of the year.
Plans are one thing, the actual execution of those plans is something else.
Walt didn’t have that much IP to work with, especially when Disneyland was being created. IMO, he would have been fairly pro-IP attractions in the park. I have read different Walt Disney biographies, and been something of a student of how he developed and ran his businesses, and I feel like I can hear him saying, “If people know it and love it, why WOULDN’T we put it in the parks?” Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land are exactly that, and they’re pretty great. That said, there are some great original attractions I wouldn’t want to see go away, so there could be more new great ones too. And I don’t know that any and all IP will really be crowd pleasers. I love the cross-overs too – the Jungle Cruise movie, and the first Haunted Mansion movie especially. I just hope that they really do their research well, and put in things that people really want to see. I don’t want to experience more YEARS of waiting just to have something that no one wants, and then it has to be ‘re-imagined’ with even more YEARS of down time.
Not planning on creating anything new, just grinding existing IP into the ground. Disney is going to end up cannibalizing itself.
I for one am no longer excited for anything being done under iger. He and his leadership team are destroying the company.
It took them five years to build a canteen in EPCOT. I’m not holding my breath for these materialising.