Yesterday, out of the blue, Disneyland Paris announced a 2€ Billion multi-year expansion rolling out from 2021. The announcement included three new lands and a lake at Walt Disney Studios. The three lands will be Frozen, Star Wars and Marvel, with the lake being used for entertainment experiences. The wording of the announcement suggests this is only part of the resorts expansion.
“The new development will include a transformation of the Walt Disney Studios Park”.
With the announcement came concept art for WDS. There are two ways to view this image, either it is a solid true representation of what the park will look like or it is a high level suggestion with most of the real detail still to be shown or decided upon. I’ll look at both views to give an idea of what we can expect. It’s worth remembering the early concept art for the park when it was still called MGM Europe. This was quite radically different to the final park that opened. You can see below that the Chinese Theatre form Hollywood Studios never made it into the final park despite being a major focal point in early renderings. Bob Iger confirmed yesterday that construction starts next year “and the openings will be spread between 2020 and 2025”; much can change in that time.
MGM Europe Concept
Walt Disney Studios at Opening
Taking the concept as fact
What we can see in the image appears to be in line with concept art already in existence for other parks. The three new lands have already been announced for either Magic Kingdom (Star Wars), Disneyland (Star Wars), Epcot (Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy), Hong Kong Disneyland (Marvel & Frozen) and Tokyo Disneyland (Frozen). Most of these are almost exact copies with just a few question marks over Stitch Live/Playhouse Disney, restaurants and replacements for Moteurs Action stunt show and inside of Art of Animation.
Simple Assumptions
There are some straight forward things we can assume from the concept art. Tower of Terror will not become Mission Breakout, the entrance way to Studio 1 will increase in size, the Tram Tour and Moteurs Action will be demolished and a large lake will be built on land not currently in use at all and an extended path will join the current entrance to the Tram Tour to and around the lake. All other buildings we be rethemed, repurposed or reimagined if changed at all.
Toon Studios will stay it is apart from the addition of Alien Spinning Saucers from Hollywood Studios Toy Story Land. We also already know that Rockin’ Rollercoaster will be getting a Marvel retheme with Iron Man part of the queueing area; rumours suggest this could be complete by Marvel Summer of Hero’s year 2 in 2019.
Learning from other Parks
As I’ve already mention, many other Disney Parks already have lands using the WDS expansion lands themes announced with more advanced concept art. So let’s have a look at some of those. First up are the Asian parks where Hong Kong especially has required significant improve in a similar way to WDS. They have a $1.5 Billion multi-year expansion announced which includes Marvel and Frozen lands. Tokyo Disneyland also has a Frozen land announced.
Frozen Land
While both Tokyo and Hong Kong have Frozen lands announced, the concept art for Hong Kong looks to be almost identical to that of the one in the WDS rendering. This is also due to open in 2020, before any of these lands open in Paris. In recent years Disney has seemed to abandon the idea of different rides in each park to attract guests to each one and instead looked to copy as much as possible. This makes it much cheaper to develop. Once ride that has been shown off is the kid friendly Oaken’s Dancing Sleigh. With Cars Quatre Roues Rallye already built and Alien Spinning Saucers on the plans, another ride quite so similar looks likely though it maybe Aliens that gets cut in the end.
What we can see is a better idea of what Arendelle will look like. There is clearly a large show building in the Hong Kong plans which will be Frozen Ever After from Epcot. This part of the concept art is most similar to Paris. With the ride already being open we can see ride on videos from Epcot though I would expect some changes. Epcot’s version was a retheming of Maelstrom which would have caused some limitations.
Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland
Marvel Expansion
Hong Kong has two open or announced Marvel rides and a third with external concept art. The Iron Man experience is already open with the same ride system as Star Tours. The Stitch Live/Playhouse Disney building is the most obvious for this but with Iron Man already replacing Rockin’ Rollercoaster don’t expect it at WDS.
What has been spotted by some is the similarity of the Ant-Man ride currently in construction in Hong Kong and the new exterior to Armageddon. Building wise, the size seems to be large enough to take the ride and with the same ride system as, the very popular, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters this would most likely work well. It could also be reviewed that two rides so similar wouldn’t be a good use of space; it didn’t stop them with Dumbo/Orbitron/Carpets in Paris or Cars/Tea Cups also in Paris.
There is a large Marvel expansion area in Paris replacing Moteurs Action Stunt Show. It is not clear what is going in here. Hong Kong has a large Avengers ride being built to open in 2023, that could line up with a Paris opening but I would guess that maybe too far away.
The other major new Marvel ride in development is Guardians of the Galaxy in Epcot which should open around 2021 and 2022. This is a huge structure but if the ship in the Paris art is related to the large build this looks to be an Avengers ship rather than the Milano from Guardians. It could be linked to the new building between the current stunt show and Armageddon but building this here would also mean a second rollercoaster next door to the Iron Man one already confirmed.
Star Wars
Lastly is Star Wars. This looks to be a scaled down version of Galaxy’s Edge but will a large expansion area available around it. What is shown is where the Millennium Falcon sits in Galaxy’s Edge.
One big difference is the appearance of an X-wing, this doesn’t appear in Galaxy’s Edge but is above the Vader meet and greet in Discoveryland. Both are in their closed positions. The Millennium Falcon ride is safe to assume would be the most popular new ride at Galaxy’s Edge and would make the jump to Paris. The concept art doesn’t suggest much else.
I’ll look at how the concept art may be viewed as a guide rather than a plan and how that could shape the resort expansion in very different ways in another article.
My Speil 
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