Disney Rumors for November 2023
Over the course of two months, leadership at The Walt Disney Company has solidified plans for a stunning theme park evolution.
That’s not my being hyperbolic. No, that’s a straightforward summary of the SEC filing Disney made about its Parks division.
Disney intends to spend $60 billion over the next decade to revolutionize the theme park experience for guests. And that filing comes with no small amount of flop sweat.
Filmmakers know that the best way to create tension in a film is to put something on a clock. Remember this integral component of 24 episodes?
Well, Disney just put its park planners, strategists, and Imagineers on the clock. They’ve got ten years to make the magic happen.
In this month’s Disney Rumors, let’s discuss the various challenges in play and spec out a reasonable timeline.
Challenge #1 – The Loyalists
We’re not quite a year removed from the outcry over Disney’s decision to reboot Splash Mountain as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Before that, Disney modernized the auction scene from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Both decisions caused an outcry, but those weren’t the only ones.
After a Disney fansite posted a fake rumor about Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, park officials denounced the report as nonsense.
Disney needed to get ahead of that report because some fans simply will NOT hear of changes to the most iconic attractions.
That’s a problem because some of the changes under consideration…well, let’s just say that they’d prove divisive.
I mentioned the Tom Sawyer Island concept a few months ago. Independent of my post, the story trended for a time on social media.
Some fans recoiled at the thought of Disney land-locking parts of Rivers of America.
That’s an artificial waterway that travels through parts of Liberty Square and Frontierland…and it’s breathtaking. It’s also entirely artificial.
Proposals exist that would truncate part of this section, thereby reducing or possibly even eliminating Tom Sawyer Island.
Similarly, Rivers of America, which Imagineers have used as an anchor for sightlines throughout the park, would lose part of its water.
How would you feel about either of those changes? I presume the answer falls somewhere in the range of “deeply conflicted” to “full-on rage virus.”
These debates are the kind that park planners must evaluate as they plot the future of Disney theme parks, especially Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Many of the changes under discussion will reinvent large swaths of these two theme parks, one of which remains the most popular in the world.
Challenge #2 – The Transportation
As one of my favorite movies proves, “If you build it, they will come.”
Nearly a decade ago, Disney reinvented Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom and then perfected it with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
Disney built a multi-year marketing campaign around that one attraction, and overall Walt Disney World revenue soared.
When Disney builds, let’s say, $12 billion in Walt Disney World expansions (purely speculative guess), what do you think that will do to attendance?
Exactly.
Disney’s plan calls for yet another influx of tourists, a sustained interest that should last for many years.
Park planners must add hotel room inventory to keep guests somewhere, and then they need transportation to move them from park to park.
Also, we have the oddity of Magical Express’ closure in anticipation of the Brightline station we never got.
As the situation stands, Disney cannot transport guests from Orlando International Airport to official hotels.
Disney would like to correct all these problems. The problem is that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD) can legally interfere.
The court system will eventually determine whether that statement is permanently true, but it’s accurate for right now, which is a problem.
Thus far, the new CFTOD is amateur hour. They hired a commissioner whose ethics were in question…and he was in charge of ethics at the time.
These are the people Disney must deal with, although it’s really more that the two parties are eyeing each other warily thus far.
At this moment in Disney’s history, it should be expanding the Disney Skyliner, developing an airport transportation solution, and much more.
Walt Disney World’s future will rely on transportation. I suspect that Disney Skyliner plans are in place, just like they’re under consideration at Disneyland.
The Florida Feud precludes Disney from planning such improvements sans interference.
Challenge #3 – The Timeline
Here’s where the conversation grows that much more interesting.
Let’s presume that Disney can work out the current transportation concerns.
In that scenario, the Disney Skyliner expands to connect other theme parks and possibly even Disney Springs.
Should that occur, Disney could presumably, albeit grudgingly, cut a deal with Brightline for the proposed but later canceled Disney Springs station.
Guests could feasibly fly into Orlando, take the high-speed train to Disney Springs, and then ride a gondola to their hotel…or a theme park if so inclined.
Disney would need to go back to handling people’s luggage to liberate guests from that concern.
Otherwise, they’re lugging their baggage on a train and then a gondola, which isn’t ideal.
Still, I believe in Disney and its ability to address that concern. If not, maybe they alter Minnie Vans to make them a part of a vacation package.
These strategies are all viable, depending on what park strategists have in mind.
The one component that’s currently in flux is the timeline. Disney just said, “You’re in the batter’s box, Imagineers. And the game is on the line.”
They’ve got the body of a decade to create new experiences that will fuel Disney’s theme park empire for future generations of fans. That’s a BIG ask.
Now, we wonder how the timeline would work. A running joke about theme park developers is that Universal Studios can build a park before Disney can build a ride.
That’s slightly hyperbolic…but only slightly. Disney definitely takes its sweet time with construction, understanding that its projects must last for decades.
So, how would the timeline work here?
Why Disney Faces a Timeline
Everything I’m about to state here is pure speculation, and I readily admit this fact.
I don’t want you saying, “Well, that guy who wrote the Disney books claims that…”
Until Disney confirms timelines, we’re all just guessing here…but we can make educated guesses.
The most important one involves the proposed Villains themed land or possibly even Villains theme park.
Here’s what nobody is saying yet that they should. If Disney does advance with this project, it’ll take the longest.
That’s because, if we take Disney at its word, Imagineers hadn’t planned this one. They have claimed that the rumored Villains Land was just a myth.
Then, when Disney asked that question at D23 to gauge fan interest, everyone clapped loudly. Diehard fans want this, but it hasn’t existed as a plan.
Now, Disney must take the time to prepare an entire place from scratch. It’s a multi-year process, and we are, at best, early in year two.
So, anything laborious like a themed land or an entire themed park is probably several years away.
If Disney constructs that project, I wouldn’t expect it until the end of the 2020s.
Obviously, the parks need something MUCH sooner than that, though.
Once Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens, Walt Disney World runs out of upcoming projects.
A Guess at the Timeline
I suspect Disney will announce and then perform some reboot of an existing attraction for arrival in 2025.
That strategy would buy management some time, but it’s still a stopgap solution.
Those $60 billion headlines require viable solutions to match the newly raised expectations.
For this reason, I suspect that DinoLand U.S.A. work will begin in earnest next year in hope of a completion in 2026.
At some point, I’d expect Disney to start work on Encanto at Animal Kingdom as well.
That’s the park that needs the most work, along with the intellectual property with the most current demand. It’s a perfect fit.
If Disney could start work on Casita Madrigal in 2024, it could be ready in 2027.
That would give Disney plenty of positive buzz as it builds toward…whatever lies beyond Big Thunder Mountain.
That project wouldn’t need to arrive until 2029 or maybe even 2030, just as long as fans have other new attractions and the promise of more coming.
I may have the individual pieces wrong here, but the point of the timeline discussion is more about the years anyway.
Disney needs something small in 2025 and then bigger projects in 2026 and 2027.
This tactic even serves a secondary purpose. In 2025, Universal Epic Universe debuts.
Disney could steal the thunder from Universal’s new project by promising better attractions, themed lands, and maybe even a fifth gate coming soon.
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Feature Photo: Disney