The Marvel land will be the first for a Disney theme park, following Disney's acquisition of Marvel in 2009. No word yet on when the new land will open. Hong Kong Disneyland will open Mystic Point later this year, following last year's debut of Grizzly Gulch and the earlier opening of Toy Story Land. Hong Kong Disneyland drew 5.9 million visitors in 2011, lagging all other Disney theme parks save Paris' Walt Disney Studios Park, according to the annual TEA/AECOM theme park industry attendance report.
Universal continues to retain the Orlando-area theme park rights to Marvel, with its Marvel Super Hero Island at the Islands of Adventure theme park. But it's not uncommon for different chains to hold the rights to the same intellectual property inside and outside the United States. Universal holds international theme park rights to characters from Peanuts, Sesame Street and Dreamworks Animation's Madagascar, even though you'll find those characters at Cedar Fair and SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment theme parks in the United States.
Let the attraction speculation continue!
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So Disney is adding and expanding… Didn’t someone just post on the discussion board that Disney was not doing anything new? Well I guess even a broken clock is correct twice per day.. Might be time to delete that useless thread…
We should take the credit for the expansion..
Seeing how amazing Grizzly Gulch looks and how Mystic Manor sounds, this seems great for HKDL. Now they just need to get the Orlando rights.....
Star Wars Lands:
Disneyland Paris
DHS
Shanghai Disneyland
If they were to create a land based on Marvel they should create Asgard. Even though it's one of the least popular movies (not that it made a difference for Carsland) they could do put lots of detail recreating it especially with the castle.
It would be a travesty if Universal Orlando lost the rights to Marvel. We would loose the best dark ride of all time while the Marvel characters would be left to rot inside the imagineering offices since nothing gets built at Disney World.
As for what Marvel attractions will be in store, I can think of a combination of an E-Ticket, a D-Ticket, and a C-Ticket.
The E-Ticket is obviously a fast multi-media next generation attraction. I would think it can't yet be another iteration of Test Track. That would be overkill of an existing technology. They would have to develop a totally new ride concept.
The D-Ticket could be a slow moving Little Mermaid type omnimover attraction. Think of the next generation Monsanto Adventure Thru Inner Space attraction. You ride into the lair of the Avenger's secret meeting location.
The C-Ticket is a simple carnival spinner where you ride a tailored vehicle in the styles of the Avenger's characters.
I don't see how Disney's version of Marvel can be considered a rip-off. I am sure Disney will focus on The Avengers, which have many possibilities of the untapped Marvel characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Since Spiderman remains a very popular character, Disney could take a different approach by licensing back the movie rights from Sony to be used in Disney theme parks (outside of Orlando), while allowing Universal to continue to use the comic book version of the same character. No one will be confused.
It was only a matter of time, & I'm actually glad HK Disneyland is getting this first (although it would be nice to see something at DLR next :-), even if it isn't a full land)
As someone else mentioned, I can see them developing a Star Wars land in Florida to balance Marvel Lands elsewhere.
"Buying Marvel in the first place was the worst business decision The Walt Disney company ever made."
I respond,
Yes, buying a powerhouse brand that makes alot of money was a stupid decision.
Please. That is all.
"It's the fact that Disney bought a powerful brand that their direct competition has the rights to. Disney's past buyouts (Muppets, Marvel, Lucasfilm) have merely dumbed down the franchises involved."
I respond,
False. Disney has worked with all 3 of those brands before the buyout of them. And no, they haven't dumbed them down. Marvel could use some work in it's animated shows but other then that it's fine. The movies are still the same and the comics are still the same. Things have only gotten better for The Muppets with their new movie (and a sequel in the works). They really haven't dived into Lucasfilm much yet, so I'll hold judgement on that one, but if it's as good as the other two brands, it'll be fine.
As for Marvel, one of their upcoming ventures is a cartoon crossover with Phineas and Ferb, the lackluster cartoon series on Disney Channel. The show's bad already, and doing a Marvel crossover would make it even worse, even if it's just one episode.
Remember the comic fanboy community's response to the acquisition in 2009? They feared crossovers like the one coming soon.
Did the web-world hint that a Hong Kong Marvel-themed land was in the works? Was there any net-buzz before this story dropped?
I somewhat see your concerns, but for the most part Disney hasn't destroyed any of their acquired properties.
Although one can debate the merits of the Muppets, you'll find plenty of people who enjoyed it. It did critically well (at 96% on Rotten tomatoes) & it did well at the box office.
Compare that to the previous Muppet film, "Muppets from Space" (total b.o. $16 million / critical dud) & Disney successfully brought this franchise back to the public.
With Star Wars, the selection of an acclaimed popular sci fi director for the next film is a definite step in the right direction.
In terms of Marvel, they are really successful. And while one may debate the quality of it's animated output, that's a small section of it's Marvel empire when you factor in the films, the potential theme park projects, the merchandise, etc. they've done well.
"I don't see how Disney's version of Marvel can be considered a rip-off"
I agree that Disney parks should focus on the Disney Marvel movies but I don't think they can integrate the movie characters one themed land.
The reason Marvel Superhero Island works is because it based on the comics and cartoon style which makes the land very cohesive.
What I think would work in Disney is to have a couple minilands (Stark Expo, Asgard, Xavier's Mansion). I could imagine them licensing out the "film" X-Men characters/actors from Fox but would probably use their own version of Spider Man instead of Sony's since the new movie was pretty lame and didn't feature a lot of the iconic characters needed in a ride.
It can't be worse than Jim Henson flushing his own Muppets down the toilet.
The recent Muppets movie with Jason Segel was well reviewed. I haven't seen it myself, but many who did enjoyed it.
I always had a problem with The Muppets franchise. It relied too much on the celebrities that act along side the Muppets characters. The Muppets don't have their own stories to tell. The Muppets seem to attract a higher age demographic (age 8 to 12) instead of its natural age demographic of toddlers (age 2 to 6) with the use of fluffy puppets. When The Muppets use adult humor or adult themes, it seems to be tamer version of "Avenue Q". I would never have a Muppets character at my home. My kid doesn't care. Neither do I care.
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