Posted on 09/21/2011 8:28:19 AM PDT by longtermmemmory
The Walt Disney Co. will build a theme-park “land” based on the movie “Avatar” in Disney’s Animal Kingdom as the first step in a broader licensing deal that will lead to similar attractions in Disney parks worldwide. The deal announced Tuesday gives Disney exclusive theme-park rights to use elements from the 2009 blockbuster and from sequels due out in 2014 and 2015. “Avatar,” which was directed by James Cameron and grossed nearly $2.8 billion in worldwide box-office receipts, is widely considered one of the most valuable intellectual properties not already tied up by a theme park. Disney said it plans to build multiple-attraction lands based on the film’s fictional world of “Pandora,” including themed shops, restaurants, rides and entertainment. It’s the same approach Universal Orlando has taken with its wildly popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which has fueled huge attendance and guest-spending gains since opening in Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park last year. “Avatar is just a set of worlds that is really rich and offers so much to explore, we thought that offering a land-based approach gives us a much better opportunity to explore,” Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs said in an interview following the announcement. Disney said it would begin construction of Animal Kingdom’s Avatar land in 2013 and expects to open it to guests about five years from now. A company executive indicated that the price tag would be approximately $500 million. Cameron said he initially thought Disney would want to build only an individual ride based on his film. “I quickly realized that their vision for this thing is far beyond what I imagined,” he told reporters. “It was kind of thrilling that they wanted to do a land and really bring the world of Pandora to life.”
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Aw, fer cryin’ out loud I wish I could unsee that! :)
Ha! I have a co-worker who uses that image as her own personal avatar... quite fittingly! :)
But libs are the only ones capable of righting good fiction. Conservatives don’t have the practice. Libs get practice on their taxes, history, global warming, the war, on what the congretional bills say, healthcare, ect.
How are we supposed to compete against that kind of experience?
Disney didn’t create “Star Wars” either, but “Star Tours” fits seamlessly into Tomorrowland, which is all about the human experience in an imaginary future.
“Avatar” doesn’t fit into the Disney universe at all, and certainly not Animal Kingdom. At the simplest level, those blue computer-generated creatures are neither animal nor human.
I’m guessing they’re being pressured to do something, even the wrong thing, to bring up attendance at that park. Curiosity will bring in the crowds once. Then ghost town. Same thing happened at Disney’s California Adventure — fans went once, then never went back.
How did they let “Harry Potter” slip through their fingers?
All the Disney blogboards are ringing with this, but, no one seem to state where.
It would be sad to lose the Festival of the Lion King though. :(
I'm hoping they just relocate it to "Africa", where it belongs anyway. How hard could it be to set up a pavilion with four sets of bleachers around a stage area?
The whole damn thing is Hell on Earth. All that money to stand in line all day.
If you're standing in line all day, I suggest you seek advice from experienced "park planners".
They ran out of Fast Passes quickly.
I think “Disney Avatar” is so monumentally a BAD idea it could actually be the final nail in the Animal Kingdom park.
Disney does not do Knights,
Disney does not do Princess only princesses and “queens”.
Dances with smurfs will not compete with harry potter.
they might as well have bought Lord of the Rings.
Envision all the Wall-E fat humans wandering through this environment of skinny aliens who kill their food only when needed. There will be many food concession stands and trashcans. Quite a disconnect in messages. Perhaps Disney should only sell salads and jerky. Personally, I'd like to see demonstrations of killing and dressing animals and serving it up for food. That's the reality of Avatar.
Disney doesn't learn from its mistakes.
Anyone here familiar with the "Dick Tracey" debacle?
See: http://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/20...n-part_11.html
"Well, everybody at the WDC was so much convinced it (the movie Dick Tracey) will be a big hit that Walt Disney Imagineering designed a fantastic Dick Tracy attraction, a whole park area (at DHS) in fact. An attraction where "Dick Tracy will recruit guests to shoot it out with gangsters bad guys"...
"It looked great, doesn't it? And not only the Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers attraction was envisioned for the Disney MGM Studios, but also for Disneyland, Anaheim for a whole new land: "Hollywoodland". And if you ask any imagineer who worked at WDI at that time and who had the luck to see the model, they will all tell you how great the attraction would have been.
Yes, but...the problem was that the box office of the movie didn't reached the WDC expectations, and, well, you know what kind of things happen when a "eagerly anticipated summer hit" finally is not that successful, don't you? That's right, all the plans were cancelled, and we're all still waiting for this Dick Tracy attraction..."
see: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/views/os-mike-thomas-disney-avatar-092211-20110921,0,5826653.column
An area based on “Lord of the Rings” would be an equal-to-better-than response to “Harry Potter”
but Avatar??
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