How It Got Made: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Disney Imagineers struck gold when they combined humor and horror on Haunted Mansion.
Decades later, a new generation of ride creators envisioned something similar at the new Hollywood-based theme park at Walt Disney World.
Here’s the unlikely story of how Disney chose Rod Serling over Mel Brooks and Stephen King. This is how Imagineers made Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
The Disney-MGM Negotiations
When Walt Disney World’s third theme park opened, its name described its business. The place was Disney-MGM Studios.
When Disney used the term studios, it was literal. Movies and television shows filmed here, as did live events like professional wrestling matches.
Disney’s CEO at the time, Michael Eisner, had formerly worked as a studio boss. He envisioned a blurring of the lines between theme park and film studio.
Eisner sought talent to create new stories, and he hoped to turn some of them into theme park attractions.
During the late 1980s, the CEO met with Hollywood legend Mel Brooks. At the time, Eisner wanted Brooks to produce movies for Disney.
Eisner had learned that Brooks and his son, Max, frequently visited Disneyland.
Max Brooks, who would later write World War Z – the book that became a Brad Pitt movie – treasured his trips to the Happiest Place on Earth with his dad.
So, Eisner’s pitch worked like so many Disney family vacations. He appealed to a parent about the multigenerational appeal of Disney stories.
Brooks demonstrated enough interest to meet with Disney several more times. During this phase, Imagineers invented a blue-sky project, Castle Young Frankenstein.
This attraction would have featured a giant set building akin to the one in Young Frankenstein.
Importantly, the story would have married humor and horror, just like Haunted Mansion.
Of course, the vital part of Haunted Mansion involves entering a haunted house.
Disney adjusted the Young Frankenstein plan into the Hollywood Horror Hotel. You can already connect the dots here.
Alas, as so often happens in Hollywood, poor timing sunk the deal. Brooks filmed a movie, Life Stinks, and had no time for a massive Disney attraction.
Disney’s Plan B proved equally odd.
Wait, THAT Stephen King?
Imagineers developed a viable plan for a horror hotel that would anchor the first significant expansion at Hollywood Studios.
Disney famously rushed construction of this park and cut corners to boot. What happened was Universal Studios Florida suddenly loomed as competition.
Disney tried to beat that park’s opening, but the move required concessions. EPCOT had run far over budget, and Disneyland Paris siphoned much of the remaining construction capital.
So, Hollywood Studios opened as a half-day park containing few attractions worthy of the Disney name.
This expansion project would have fixed those issues, and Eisner loved the idea of a massive hotel tower functioning as the park weenie.
Without Brooks, the tower lacked an overriding theme, though. Since Disney doesn’t create many horror stories, nothing from its own film library worked.
Who was the master of horror at the time? Stephen King.
Believe it or not, Imagineers explored the idea of a Stephen King story driving the action for this Hollywood Horror Hotel.
Thankfully, calmer heads prevailed over time. I’ve read many of King’s books and revere the man. Nothing about his writing screams Disney, though.
Still, you have to hand it to Imagineers of the era. They negotiated with decidedly un-Disney people like Mel Brooks, Stephen King, and Aerosmith!
Oh, Disney even thought outside the box enough to discuss another outside intellectual property…and that one won!
Yes, Disney cut a deal to license The Twilight Zone and its iconic creator/narrator, Rod Serling.
With the benefit of hindsight, that decision makes so much more sense than the involvement of King or Brooks.
How the Tower Evolved
This attraction started as a Bavarian castle at the center of a village.
All the roads would have led to this dark place. Guests would have crossed a moat to reach their unwelcoming destination.
Imagineers gradually tweaked everything, as typically happens during the blue-sky development phase. The practical concerns force changes.
Specifically, Imagineers recognized that one or possibly two towers fit the area better than a winding road to a castle.
The exterior changes mattered less than the big idea for the interior, though.
Disney hatched a plan for a careening elevator to transport guests to unexpected parts of a tower hotel.
The key concept involved chaos. Guests would never know what they might witness in this tower since the elevator controlled their line of sight.
In these early plans, the elevator would have gone off the rails (literally!) and eventually crashed through the hotel’s walls to provide the rider an escape.
Around this time, Disney settled on The Twilight Zone as its IP of choice.
This Paramount television series exemplified things that cannot be explained. So, it meshed perfectly with the runaway elevator concept.
Once Disney and Paramount hammered out a licensing agreement, the fun began for Imagineers.
These cast members cycled through 156 episodes of the classic 1960s television series. They chose their favorite characters and subplots.
Attentive viewers can spot many of them throughout the building and ride. Particularly, the introductory room with Rod Serling contains innumerable Easter eggs.
Designing an Abandoned Hotel and Broken Elevator
One of my favorite Disney anecdotes stems from the development of the elevator system on this ride.
Disney requested something decidedly un-Disney. The company has established the industry’s highest standards for guest safety.
In this one instance, Disney spoke with experts at a leading elevator manufacturing company, Otis Worldwide Corporation.
Disney asked Otis how to create a bouncing elevator that violated all the rider safety rules.
After all, if the elevator worked the conventional way, the theme park attraction wouldn’t thrill guests.
So, the parties invented a new ride system…well, two of them!
Before Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, you’d never ridden in an elevator that goes sideways anywhere else, had you?
Imagineers created the Autonomous Guided Vehicle (AGV) for the sections of the ride wherein the ride cart detaches from the elevator and moves independently.
You never really think about it when you’re on Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, but you’re riding an elevator floor with wheels!
Computers guide the ride cart (i.e., the elevator floor) until it reaches the second location, the one where you violate all the rules of physics.
Once you ride past the creepy Twilight Zone parts, your ride cart enters a new elevator, the Vertical Vehicle Conveyance (VVC).
Disney designed a more traditional kind of elevator setup here, thanks to the assistance of Otis. However, you know the deal here.
Your elevator ride cart bounces up and down haphazardly, something that (I hope for your sake) would never happen on a real elevator!
The VVC actually pulls the AGV, which means you’re not falling! Some unseen jerk has grabbed your ride cart and thrown you willy-nilly around the elevator shaft!
The combination of these two ride system mechanics causes the unforgettable sensation of free-falling on the Tower of Terror.
About the Tower of Terror
When Twilight Zone Tower of Terror debuted in 1994, it amazed guests and singlehandedly reinvigorated an entire side of Hollywood Studios.
Guests found a good reason to visit Sunset Boulevard for a change, and the options would double when Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith opened in 1999.
In just five years, the park added two of its best thrill rides to date. One of them, Tower of Terror, quickly earned a reputation as THE best dark ride in the world.
Seriously, Tower of Terror won awards in this category for the body of a decade and still often finishes in the top five in voting nearly 30 years later!
Disney has also improved the mechanics of the ride. The one at Hollywood Studios notoriously suffers a design flaw of sorts.
Sometimes, Disney must close an entire section of the ride building, thereby cutting ride throughput by as much as 50 percent.
The versions of the ride at other Disney theme parks have since been updated with tech that is several generations better.
One park, Disney California Adventure, has even re-themed with an entirely new ride experience utilizing the same design structure.
So, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! is definitely worth a ride for comparison. That’s how robust a ride concept Tower of Terror is.
Imagineers invented something capable of multiplicity that even they didn’t anticipate at the time!