Marvel's Next Step: Disneyland

[DJeXeL]

Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, has big hopes for Marvel now that they're part of the Walt Disney family, including having Marvel's stable of iconic characters become fixtures at Disney theme parks around the world. We've got an exclusive advance look at a new interview Feige did for the upcoming summer issue of Disney twenty-three magazine, the quarterly publication of D23: The Official Disney Fan Club.

 

"It's the biggest dream of all. We get to tap into this spectacular team that is better than anyone else on the planet at bringing fantasy to life, not only on the big screen but in the real world," said Feige.

 

He continued, "The notion of walking into a theme park and going into Asgard or the X-Mansion—Disney does this better than anyone. That is why I've gone to Disney parks multiple times every year for my whole life. It's that next step in fully immersive storytelling, whether it's a dark ride, a stunt show, or a thrill ride. The options are endless when it comes to how Imagineers can turn our characters, our adventures, and our films into amazing experiences."

 

The next issue of Disney twenty-three magazine hits stands May 3.

 

Source

 

MOD EDIT: Added the source of the article.

Edited April 20, 2011 by larrygator

[DBJ]

Sounds like there will be some tough negotations with Universal theme parks coming up.

[thrillrider]

I am not sure how I feel about them mixing marvel comics into Disney. It just does not seem like it will mix well.

[gisco]

I am not sure how I feel about them mixing marvel comics into Disney. It just does not seem like it will mix well.

 

I think I'm with you on this. I just don't see them mixing the two in a Disney park. It must kill Universal to have to pay Disney a license fee.

[DBJ]

I am looking foward to how Disney handles the challenge of adapting the Marvel characters into attractions. Outside of the amazing achievement of Spider-man, Universal did very little with the Marvel Universe creatively. Not much done with the X-men characters (a teacup ride?), Fantastic Four (drop tower), Avengers, and so on. I do think that the Marvel characters would be an odd fit in the Magic Kingdom, but could work in some fashion at DHS, Epcot, or Animal Kingdom.

[Hercules]

^ True, Universal did do a very limited amount with the characters, however, there is only so much you can do with the space and layout they reserved for that section of the park.

[FeelTheFORCE]

I am looking foward to how Disney handles the challenge of adapting the Marvel characters into attractions. Outside of the amazing achievement of Spider-man, Universal did very little with the Marvel Universe creatively. Not much done with the X-men characters (a teacup ride?), Fantastic Four (drop tower), Avengers, and so on. I do think that the Marvel characters would be an odd fit in the Magic Kingdom, but could work in some fashion at DHS, Epcot, or Animal Kingdom.

 

I disagree. Sure they only built those few rides themed to Marvel characters, but that doesn't mean they "did very little" with it. I think they did a great job with that concept, and in my opinion it was the best section of either park before Harry Potter came along. It's more than just those couple rides, the entire section is themed to superheroes. The atmosphere is great, they have themed food places, music, interactions with the characters themselves, etc. Tons of small touches that they did very well with. How well they did with a certain concept shouldn't be judged solely on rides. If that's the case, then they must have not done so well with the HP section too, considering they only built, what, one new major ride? Technically Dragons and Hippogriff were recycled.

 

Disney is probably going to grasp a similar concept I would guess and build probably about the same amount of rides. I don't expect them to turn into Six Flags all of a sudden and start plopping down coasters left and right themed to random super heroes.

[the ghost]

I can see the integration work well. Think of the semi dead innoventions being Stark Labs with some sort of themed attraction or something like that... I like.

[SenseOFone]

If anyone could do a good theming of Marvel, Disney can. The thing is, how well will it mesh with the rest of the park? Iron Man might work well in the Innoventions spot though. Only place I can see all his high tech gadgetry blending in

[BelizeIt]

I couldn't really see Iron Man walking around Disneyland, but I could see him over at DCA.

 

Disney spent some huge dollars for Marvel, so we will no doubt see those characters at the parks in the near future.

[Redrum237]

Keep in mind Disney only owns the rights to Marvel west of the Mississippi in the USA, so IoA's Marvel Land is safe.

 

I'm not sure what Disney will do with the concept, but I am doubtful that they would've done anything as awesome as the Spiderman ride in IoA. That being said, aside from the Spiderman ride, Universal didn't do anything much with the concept at all.

[nin]

While I agree with everyone who's said that Spiderman was the staple Marvel attraction made by Universal, I also think that the Hulk should be put up with it. There's only so much you can really do to theme a coaster, and besides the lack of an actual pre-show (which I don't think was even needed in this case), Hulk was one of the most thematic coasters around.