Next up in the series of plans for the current Walt Disney World Parks is a dream plan for the park currently known as Hollywood Studios.
This follows up my pair of plans for the Magic Kingdom and a trio of plans for EPCOT, posted in January. These are my for fun, hypothetical plans for how I would expand and improve the 4 parks of the Resort. I last published plans for these parks 2 and a half years ago, and a lot has changed. New attractions have opened and are coming soon to the parks, and I think I have improved as a designer as well. Plus the maps are a jump in quality.
While I have done multiple versions of plans with the last two parks, this park just gets one dream version. The reason I am not doing a realistic plan like I have typically done is because I feel like the projects that are already happening, Galaxy's Edge, Toy Story Land, and Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, are likely enough for the next couple years. I don't imagine any other large additions in the immediate future after all this is done. Unless of course Galaxy's Edge causes such crowd control problems that they immediately need more interesting capacity in the park to draw guests away. But I'm going with the assumption that the real life plans are enough for a realistic plan.
So that means that I am just going to be presenting my dream plan for the park, what I would like to happen in the years after the current phase of expansion, even if its a bit ambitious and unlikely.
Though I will say that because of the nature of the studios park model and the fact that I really entirely focused on IPs and franchises, I think this is far less unlikely than my all original EPCOT dream plan. I really tried to look at properties and concepts that would actually be popular enough to lead to being included in an expanded park.
Before getting to the specifics, I'll start with the structure of the park, both physically and logically.
Many think the existing park is confusing. The layout is irregular because it was not meant to all be a public theme park. It does not follow the standard hub and spoke style, or really any other style.
It seems to me that the park is in the process of changing that with the two big lands that are being added. Instead of fitting into the spiderweb structure of the current park, the new lands fit into a clear loop. One entrance on either side, lands connected end to end. If that was expanded to the rest of the park, which I think it can, the park layout could end up being a bit clearer. It's still not a perfect path, but closer, so I followed this concept with the lands I added.
For the logical structure of the park, I also followed the system the new lands are setting up. These are highly immersive single setting lands, which is the new style for theme parks. Whether or not you think that is a good idea in general, it definitely works in a studio park setting, so I went with it. But I also wanted to explore how these diverse single setting lands could tie together into a bigger setting and transition across the park, so that became a goal.
Also, I should mention that I decided to approach this with reality with respect to the Marvel situation. I only wanted to use properties and characters that Disney can actually use right now. That was of course limiting, but I wanted to lean into it.
And last, with respect to the types and amounts of attractions, I decided to go for fewer attractions overall but attractions that are of bigger scale instead of going for more attractions that are smaller scale. The movie theme for the park and the comparison to the two mega Star Wars attractions means that I think it would be more important to do big and exciting and really immersive attractions instead of doing more lesser quality attractions. So in my plan, the total count for the park is still below the other park totals even though it definitely is jump up from the current park.
I will start with a diagram map of the lands so you can understand the loop pattern that I talked about.
And here's the map with all the text labels. For reference, CS means counter service, TS means table service.
The entrance are core of the park remain the same in this plan, with the addition of Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. This is the ideal view of golden age Hollywood, leading towards the Chinese Theater at the center of the park. At this center point, the park experience branches in opposite directions, left and right from the center, beginning the formal loop that makes up most of the park. Technically, the area of Echo Lake is absorbed into this land, no longer standing as its own area. The path branch from the hub towards the current ABC Commisary is closed as as backstage area to clarify the main pathway into the land on that side, forcing guests to take the path on along the lake.
In addition to the Mickey ride, there is one other attraction in this central area. Replacing the Frozen sing along is a new version of the Cinemagic film from Paris, filling the need in the park to represent the history and importance of cinema. Since The Great Movie Ride is gone, I think the park needs something like this to reinforce the core concept at the heart of the park.
Moving on to the left of this entry/hub land and passing Echo Lake, guests enter the first big new land of the park: Marvel City. We also leave Hollywood and enter a newly defined New York area, the natural setting for this land. The background trees of Echo Lake become a Central Park like area, bounded on all sides by the facades of the city. The land extends all the way back to where Grand Avenue starts, including the former ABC Commissary. The new construction also means that the 50's Prime Time Cafe and Tune in Lounge is removed, but I think that is a concept that should be recreated at Disney Springs.
Starting on the left side of the land and the central park, the first big attraction is marked by Dr. Strange's iconic Sanctum Sanctorum. The attraction inside is a kuka arm motion dark ride across space and time. I feel like the motion and the disorientation possible with the ride system could play into the theme really well and create a mind bending experience. The queue takes you through the entry hall and the gallery space of the sanctum before you step right through a portal ring in a preshow room and travel to another dimension for your training session.
Next, at the rear of the land is an attraction that is a bit undefined at this point, because the movie for the character has not come out yet. Captain Marvel is one of the few characters that can be used in the resort, and I am making an assumption that it will be a big success, so I have called out a space for this character in this land. My vision for the attraction is a coaster/shooting dark ride hybrid, which I think could work for the character since the story is apparently about the Kree-Skull War. Sounds like something with a lot of fighting that our ride could join in on.
The last attraction of the land is a rethemed Star Tours, now set as a downtown SHIELD base. The exterior is built up as a modern and high tech building, fitting the style of SHIELD, and is topped with a hangar and landing platform with a full size Quinjet. The attraction inside is a flight on a SHIELD jet through the city, featuring Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Falcon. This is where the inability to use many of the more high profile characters is a disappointment, because this could be much more with the main characters involved. But with so few that are available to Disney, this is the best I could do.
On the right of the land is a side street that leads towards the Commissary and the path towards Grand Avenue. The buildings here hold retail and the Commissary is rethemed as a classic New York City diner with a super hero twist. Pictures and news clippings and memorabilia on the walls document the various Marvel characters of the city, including as many as Disney can include and many that are just comic characters, not movie characters. The Sci Fi Dine In is rethemed to be a restaurant in an old New York City Broadway house, showing movie clips that feature the city. Same concept, new setting.
The streets of Marvel New York transition to Grand Avenue, which is also rethemed to now be set in New York. The idea is that this half of the park is all set in New York City so there is some continuity. That shouldn't be that difficult since the facades were meant to be New York anyway. This street serves the purpose of primary entrance and waiting area for Galaxy's Edge. Muppet Studios sits just off the street and is expanded with one more attraction at the rear of the courtyard. Now that the Great Movie Ride is gone, there's no problem to build its Muppet themed parody. This would be a classic omnimover dark ride through the active Muppet Studio where plenty will go wrong. Elsewhere in the land, Mama Melrose is rethemed with a Muppets concept and live entertainment is added in the windows adjacent to Pizzarizzo, like the current show in Liberty Square. The tour bus for Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem is parked below in the courtyard to provide some musical accompaniment for the entertainment. The Muppet Labs show is also relocated here to centralize this land as the hub for Muppet activity.
Galaxy's Edge follows this land, and is presented as my best guess of how it will end up. It sure is a big land, but I have to assume it will be great and worth the space and the wait for it. I also didn't even attempt to represent the adjacent hotel or how that will be connected. I will update in the future as more information comes out.
For the transition to Toy Story Land, I have added a tunnel element, themed to an abandoned structure on the Star Wars side, and a cardboard toybox on the Toy Story side. Is it too on point to make it a Star Wars playset box? The land remains as is, except for the entrance on the other side. Instead of leading towards the path along the side of Midway Mania, it now leads into the expanded Pixar Place land. The transition is also through a large cardboard box tunnel that is wedged through an opening in the fence that borders the land.
To describe the rest of Pixar Place, I am going to start back at the hub by the Chinese Theater. This larger Pixar land takes up all the space that was formerly Animation Courtyard, the Animation building, and the backstage parking deck. Space is a premium in the park, so all those backstage functions needed to be relocated to make room for this land. I wanted to make sure that this Pixar land had real variety, not just Toy Story, which I feel is a little big for the limited space of the park. I ended up deciding on adding 3 more smaller areas to the existing largerToy Story Land: Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, and Cars. These were the properties that I felt deserved to be in parks but were not included somewhere else in my complete set of dream plans.
The path from the hub leads straight towards what was Animation Courtyard and the large archway and walls are completely removed. City street facades that could blend into the Hollywood style form the edge of the land, but the street branches in two directions into the different themed areas. The current Playhouse Disney theater is rethemed as Pixar Studio, where inside there is an interactive exhibit type space about making animated films and a theater showing the shorts, plus meet and greets for other characters aside from the 4 properties selected here.
The street continuing straight ahead leads into Monstropolis. The city is formed of a couple intersecting streets and the Monsters Inc factory beyond. The streets include a variety of themed retail, a snack location with monster frozen drinks, and two small counter service locations. One is a monsters farmers market with monster themed traditional meals and the other is Harryhausen's, serving sushi and Asian specialties.
Inside the factory building is a large suspended family coaster dark ride. This would be a large and heavily themed E ticket ride through the world of the factory, ending with the door vault scene.
Back by Pixar Studio, the road to the left leads into Metroville from the world of the Incredibles, specifically the Metroville History Museum and an adjacent city park. This isn't a setting from the film, but I am expanding the world by suggesting that the Incredibles are being honored with an exhibit about their superhero feats after they saved the city from the Omnidroid. The logic here may change after the upcoming sequel is released. I wanted to do something besides another generic city though and include some greenery, so this plan made sense to me.
The main attraction in this area is a large mini-kuka dark ride where we are lucky enough to get the chance to follow the Incredibles out on a night of crime fighting. Across the road is a second attraction, a spinner themed to the remains of the Omnidroid. After the Incredibles defeated it, the city repurposed it as an art piece in the park.
Paths from both Metroville and Monstropolis lead into the third and final area of the addition, Radiator Springs. Because there is less space, this is not a full recreation like in DCA. It is instead just the four buildings at the main intersection, plus the town hall, which is the entrance to the main attraction, and a much smaller rockwork landscape behind. The main attraction is a dark ride similar to Radiator Springs Racers, but without the racing element. The ride starts with an outdoor section behind the town hall, then inside the building for a drive through the town, meeting all the locals.
Flo's V8 Cafe is a similar counter service restaurant to the California version and the rest of the buildings are retail.
From Radiator Springs, the path to Toy Story Land leads into a rockwork cave and then out in the oversized lawn.
The path structure through Pixar Place therefore takes you though either Monstropolis or Metroville, then by Radiator Springs, and then into Toy Story Land and on to Galaxy's Edge, maintaining a rough loop layout.
The last additions to the park are down Sunset Boulevard, which remains set in Los Angeles. Structurally, that means that the right side of the hub is Los Angeles, the left side is New York, and the back of the park is fantasy settings.
The big addition here is a brand new land replacing the Beauty and the Beast theater and all the land behind it. This is Toontown, based on the version from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and is meant to be set adjacent to golden age Hollywood. This is where every animated character can live in this park, no matter the theme or setting, because by definition of being a toon, it works here. This is the perfect conceit for this park and really should have been done already.
Toontown is accessed through a pair of tunnels off of Sunset, transitioning to the fantasy toon city where everything is exaggerated and comical. The land is formed of a main street that branches and rejoins at the far end, where the entrance to the Fantasmic theater is located. This is the densest land with attractions in this park, partly because I think of this as the parks Fantasyland, so it has some smaller scale dark rides. It also has a variety of themed retail and plenty of spaces for meet and greets with literally any animated character.
The first attraction on the right as you enter is set in Scrooge McDuck's Bank and is a classic suspended dark ride themed to Ducktales, featuring Donald and his nephews on an adventure. Across the street is a Toontown apartment building, which is the primary permanent meet and greet facility for the park. Mickey, Minnie, and a rotation of a couple other most popular characters could have multiple rooms in this building, all well themed to the toontown style.
The next attraction down on the right is a toontown taxi tour attraction that is kind of a overview trip through the city on a wild taxi dark ride. It features a lot of cameos from all kinds of characters as we race through different settings, like the streets, a toon comedy club, a theater, an apartment building, and a market, all filled with gags.
Farther down at the end of the street is a small toon park, which includes a carousel with a variety of animated animals, and a garden area for meet and greets. Next to it is the entrance to Fantasmic, which is now the Toontown Amphitheater. This seems like a natural relationship to set the events of Fantasmic inside toontown, explaining all the variety of characters and events. It would make sense to do a major refurb and rewrite of the show with this new setting to modernize it.
The last attraction is the largest, and set inside the Sorcerers Workshop. This is a boat dark ride using the Shanghai Pirates system and takes us through the Sorcerers Apprentice Fantasia scene and then uses that to lead us into a couple of scenes from other animated films. Similar to Philharmagic, but without the music concept.
The last additions to the park are back out on Sunset Boulevard, and in a way represent the very last major Disney studio that has not been included so far. That is live action that is not Star Wars or Marvel or Animated remakes. To be honest though, there is not a ton of options left. Original live action movies have really struggled in the last many years, so not many great choices for the park. So that means that the remainder of Sunset Boulevard is speculative for future films in the live action studio.
First, I think it makes total sense for Disney to eventually attempt a live action Tower of Terror inspired movie that the attraction could then relate to. I know they want to lose the Twilight Zone attachment so they do not have to license it anymore. I think it could be the perfect property to try to turn into a successful movie, especially if they went a little more PG-13 and scary with it to match the tone of the ride. So I am hypothetically assuming that happens and that it is able to work in theme of golden age Hollywood.
And then for Rockin Roller Coaster, I decided to retheme it to another potential film that is also set in golden age Hollywood: The Rocketeer. I know this is a reboot that has been in the works for a while, so I am hoping it will happen and that this retheme could work, just because it would fit the setting so well. The attraction could be set in some kind of workshop where we take a ride with the Rocketeer as he or she learns how to fly.
Next to The Rocketeer, the current Sunset Showcase is rethemed on the exterior to the South Seas Club from the original movie, and is now used as a table service club style restaurant and for special events. This ties the area together well to end Sunset Boulevard.
Last, back on Sunset Boulevard, half of the existing outdoor counter service is replaced with a new building that holds retail and an indoor counter service location.
And that completes the additions to the park in this hypothetical dream plan. But that is not all that I have for this post.
I'm going to do something I haven't done before and mention a couple of ideas that I had that I almost included in this plan but decided against for various reasons. I am doing this because I think they are actually pretty cool ideas and I was seriously tempted to do them.
First, while I was thinking about how much space Toy Story Land takes up, I strongly considered retheming part of the land to another Pixar property so that I could fit more characters into the Pixar Place land I defined. What I almost did was retheme the new coaster to a Bugs Life, making it into Flik's Flying Machine traversing through the overgrown grass of a Bugs Life themed area. The track would be hidden as best as possible with built up rockwork and vegetation. I thought it could blend well up against the oversized Toy Story Land. But I decided against this just because it made more sense to leave the brand new land alone for now and just add more Pixar to the available land next to it.
Second, I strongly considered making a drastic move for the Marvel land and building it all inside a giant to-scale helicarrier that would replace basically all of Echo Lake. I just thought it would be super cool and impressive to make up for the fact that the characters available for use would not be. But it became a scale and sightline issue. To make it seem "realistic" it would have to be massive, and if it was massive it would overtake the view from Hollywood Boulevard. And if I made it small enough to not stand out, it would be comically small. So it ended up being just an idea.
Next, I had a different idea to retheme Rockin Roller Coaster: Wreck it Ralph. The vehicles could be rethemed as the train between the games and the queue and load would be inside Game Central Station. Guests would then be launched into the worlds of the game, flying through a variety of super colorful game worlds and transitioning through portal tunnels. I thought it would work perfectly. But I decided against it just because it would end up sort of standing alone and out of theme on a street themed to Hollywood. And I wanted to try to define a bit of a live action area, so decided to go with the Rocketeer.
And last, the big one that I was most tempted to go with. A retheme of Tower of Terror to something Marvel, but not Mission Breakout. Instead, I seriously considered retheming the tower as Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. So much made sense. Dr. Strange is master of space and time, so it made sense in a way to be in golden age Hollywood. The exterior of the Sanctum is elegant and photogenic, so would not be an eye sore at the end of the street. The up/down/forward/backward makes perfect sense in the space and time bending story. It would be something new and exciting for the park, and it would be all Disney, not an outside property. But it would be at the sake of the Tower of Terror, which was just honestly something I wasn't willing to do. I like the existing attraction too much. But I thought it was a cool idea, so that is why I am talking about it.
So that is what I have for this post, which although is being posted in April, was meant to be the post for March. Sticking to my goal of one post a month, that means that I'm planning to have another post up later this month, and it is likely going to be a follow up to my "How I Make My Posts" instructions, this time going over the things I think about when designing these plans, using this park as an example.
So check back soon and follow me on Twitter if you don't already to keep up with what is coming next.
