Walt Disney World is going meta with its new version of the Finding Nemo musical at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Disney today shared a "first look" behind the scenes video of the production of the new Finding Nemo: The Big Blue... and Beyond!, which will open sometime this summer at Animal Kingdom. The production replaces Animal Kingdom's Finding Nemo stage musical that closed during the pandemic.
But the new show won't stray too far from the original. Set now at the Marine Life Institute from "Finding Dory," this show will see the characters retelling the original "Finding Nemo" story, performing songs from the original Animal Kingdom production.
So it's a musical retelling a musical that retells a movie. Here's the video:
If you TL;DW'd that, Disney Live Entertainment is using a production design inspired by paper-cutouts for Finding Nemo: The Big Blue... and Beyond!, which should help give the show a different look and feel from the old production. Still no specific opening date, though.
We will see if there's any additional news about the new Finding Nemo musical during Walt Disney World's big press event in two weeks.
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Interesting
Early intel on the new show indicates that the biggest difference is that there will be significantly fewer actors/performers compared to the original with a much higher reliance on projections and effects.
There are certainly shows where a huge cast isn't needed to pull off an amazing show, but one of the characteristics that set Nemo apart was its massive cast and impeccably coordinated puppetry.
I quite like this lunatic doly
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I always enjoyed this show and thought it was one of the stronger “Broadway”-style offerings throughout WDW. It did a good job of keeping the audience engaged, with strong original songs and performers that would move throughout the seats. I hope this new iteration is able to retain the bones of what made it great whilst offering some enhancement to the original.