“We had a very big investment in Europe, and it’s difficult to deal with. I don’t know whether a private company can ever spend this kind of money.”
These words, spoken by Disney’s then-CEO Michael Eisner in January 1994, signaled the beginning of the end. EuroDisneyland (now Disneyland Paris) had opened to a resounding financial thud in 1992; overbuilt and undervalued by locals, hemmoraging money and embroiled in cultural controversy. After a period of growth, innovation, and sincere progress at Disney Parks across the globe, the outright financial failure of the Parisian park shook Eisner to his core. From that moment on, he systematically downsized or outright dropped any large-scale expansions happening at Disney Parks.
Across the world, budgets were slashed, maintenance was cut, and Eisner surrounded himself with penny-pinching executives who shaped Disney Parks, presiding over what many argue is the worst period in the parks’ history.
Of course, any Disney Parks fan will tell you that Disneyland Paris is an icon; a Mecca for themed entertainment enthusiasts. Somehow balancing the intimacy and detail of Disneyland with the scale and grandeur of Magic Kingdom, the Parisian park is – by far – the most beautiful Disneyland-style park on Earth.
Image: Disney
But we can’t help but feel that Paris’ much-touted 25th Anniversary celebration in summer 2017 was bittersweet… Because as we celebrated 25 years of Disneyland Paris, fans were also mourning the many projects, plans, and parks that were cancelled about 25 years ago because of it. Let’s take a look at the Cancellations, Closures, and Cop-Outs that emerged out of the French financial failure…
CANCELLATIONS
Michael Eisner’s first years with Disney had been marked by triumph after triumph as the new, young, vibrant CEO successfully turned around the company’s sagging live action films and rejuvenated its long-abandoned animation studios. Most bravely, though, Eisner set out to update and upgrade Disney’s theme parks that had stagnated in the 15 years since Walt’s death. He had ambitious and extravagant plans for exciting, cinematic expansions, new lands, and ambitious new parks. And when Paris plummeted, so did any hopes of these cancelled projects that never saw the light of day.
1. Tomorrowland 2055
Location: Disneyland
By the early 1990s, the Tomorrowland Walt and his team had developed in 1967 was looking distinctly dated. Films like Blade Runner, Alien, and even Star Wars had recast the future in Americans’ pop culture consciousness into a dark, industrial world of glowing computer terminals, hissing steam, interstellar battles, and gritty urban landscapes. Walt’s optimistic, pastel “World on the Move” was moving out.
In its place would’ve risen Tomorrowland 2055, an ambitious intergalactic sci-fi space port of alien languages, neon signs, landed space crafts, and more, all wrapped into a single continuity connected to an alien race known as the Lightkeepers. We walked the road to this impossible tomorrow in a standalone, in-depth feature – Possibilityland: Tomorrowland 2055.
Image: Disney
A precursor to the comic book pulp serial New Tomorrowland that opened at Magic Kingdom in 1994, Disneyland’s new, custom-built Tomorrowland 2055 would’ve also marked the debut of Disney’s edgiest attraction ever, a Lost Legend: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (which will show up later on our list).
With Paris’ bank account tumbling, Eisner placed a stop order on Tomorrowland 2055 and instead decreed that Disneyland’s much-needed Tomorrowland renovation would need to be cheap. We’re talking dirt-cheap. We chronicled the unfortunate fall of the park’s Tomorrowland in its own in-depth entry, Disaster Files: The Rocket Rods and New Tomorrowland ’98, but in short, Disney Imagineers were forced to make due with a frazzled prototype thrill ride, a new 3D film, a copy of Epcot’s Innoventions, and lots and lots of brown paint to create a poor man’s version of Paris’ bronze-and-gold Discoveryland, “double-dipping” by re-using Paris’ design and development funds.
2. Beastly Kingdom
Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom
When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, it represented a rare victory in an era of cost cutting. The park was a triumph of themed entertainment, immersing guests into habitable, real worlds with unique animal experiences. One thing it did not have? Rides. The park opened with only four – two transportation rides, the terrifying Countdown to Extinction, and the headlining Kilimanjaro Safaris.
The solution to that problem was an incredible planned land that would’ve been an icon of Disney World on the scale and scope of Cars Land or the Star Wars lands. Beastly Kingdom would’ve brought mythological creatures to life in a park determined to showcase animals “real, ancient, and imagined.” A realm of dragons, unicorns, sea serpents, and dancing hippos, the unbelievable land would’ve been the envy of the industry.
Image: Disney
However, tightened budgets post-Paris meant that Beastly Kingdom would have to wait until a “Phase II” expansion of the park… And the closer it got to the park’s opening, the clearer it was that this Kingdom would never come. That’s when Imagineers – tired of Eisner’s cost cutting – left Disney behind and took their plans for Beastly Kingdom up the road… Would you believe that Disney Imagineers designed the best themed land Universal Orlando ever had? We chronicled the uncanny connection between Beastly Kingdom and Universal Orlando in its own in-depth, full feature, Lost Legends: The Lost Continent.
3 and 4. DisneySea California and WestCOT
Image: Disney
Location: California
In the early 1990s, Disney announced a brand new theme park coming to Southern California: DisneySea. That’s right – it was official. Disney would purchase property in Long Beach (including the docked Queen Mary) and construct a nautical theme park at a new resort called Port Disney.
Image: Disney
Meanwhile, back in Anaheim, the space once home to Disneyland’s parking lot would become yet another theme park. WestCOT would take the grand concepts of EPCOT Center and give them a Southern Californian twist, leaving behind the harsh concrete and divided country of the ‘80s in favor of a lush, glowing, natural 21st century Future World and a World Showcase made up of the “four corners of the globe,” united.
But as budgets ballooned and Paris fell, Eisner stalled. He insisted that only one of the two parks would come to fruition, pitting Long Beach and Anaheim against one another to see who could deliver the best tax package and infrastructure plan. Anaheim won, but even then, WestCOT’s budget got bigger and bigger as locals fought against the mega-resort to be built in their backyards. “I don’t even know if there’s going to be WestCOT. We’re at a real crossroads,” Eisner said at the time.
Image: Disney
Ultimately, Disney cancelled WestCOT, too. An emergency meeting of the penny-pinching executives Eisner had surrounded himself with post-Paris led to a simple idea: since Disneyland was often just a single stop on the average family trip to California, the only way to keep people on-property longer was to give them the experience of all that California had to offer without leaving Disneyland. We told the rest of the story WestCOT’s cancellation and the resulting park’s embarrassing debut and billion-dollar transformation in Disaster Files: Disney’s California Adventure – a must-read for theme park fans.
5. Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland
In the early 1990s, Eisner’s radical plan was in action. He was determined to turn Disney Parks into exciting, engaging, current places where guests of all ages – even teenagers! – could find something to do. His landmark partnership with George Lucas had already opened Lost Legends: Captain EO and the original STAR TOURS, but the opportunity to bring Indiana Jones into Disney Parks was even more ambitious.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
In fact, the plan was that half of Disneyland’s Adventureland would be annexed to Dr. Jones, becoming a “sub-land” called Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition. An enormous portion of the land would take place inside of a massive volcanic river temple showbuilding, where no less than four attractions would interact and intersect: an indoor mine-cart roller coaster (as in the finale of Temple of Doom), a thrilling dark-ride using groundbreaking Enhanced Motion Vehicles (EMVs), plus a re-routed Disneyland Railroad and Jungle Cruise, both absorbed into Indy’s time period and setting as they passed through the temple.
Click and expand for more detailed view. Image: Disney
With Paris down the drains, the budget was slashed and the Lost Expedition was doomed to remain buried. Though the larger-than-life Indiana Jones land was forgotten, a single element – the EMV dark rde – did go forward. Lucky for us, even the “downsized” element of such an ambitious project remains one of the most grand, elaborate, oversized, and downright adventurous rides Disney’s ever designed. Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye is such an Imagineering marvel, it’s hard to imagine what an objectively better Indiana Jones ride could even look like.
But That’s Not All
While it may be shocking to see the ambitious, almost-built projects Disney was this close to green-lighting, at least we never knew, loved, and grew-attached to these cancelled plans. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the rides that closed because of the financial strain Paris’ failure put on the company and the changing strategies and mindsets that strain inspired… Read on, as we see the heartbreaking closures of Lost Legends instigated by Disneyland Paris.
CLOSURES
With a new, budget-conscious mindset, Eisner surrounded himself with a team of cost-cutting executives who sought short-term financial reward – even at the expense of long-term growth. The outright financial freefall of Disneyland Paris kick-started an aggressive new way of thinking at the Walt Disney Company, and no ride – no matter how beloved – was safe… These are just some of the rides whose closures are directly tied to the fall of Disneyland Paris and the shifting strategies of Eisner’s Disney in the years after.
1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Submarine Voyage
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom
In the midst of Paris’ demise, Eisner and his cost-cutting brigade took a long, hard look at some of the attractions operating at Disney Parks across the globe. Their sights immediately narrowed onto the Submarine Voyage rides at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, which took up enormous real estate, guzzled diesel fuel, and had relatively low hourly capacities for the #1 and #2 most visited theme parks in the country.
It’s bad enough that Eisner and company shut what may have been one of the most amazing classic dark rides Walt Disney World would ever host… What’s even worse is the way they did it. On September 5, 1994, Magic Kingdom’s 20,000 Leagues closed for a “temporary refurbishment.”
It never opened again.
No last rides; no last goodbyes.
Luckily, we created an in-depth entry to relive the magic of the ride from its creation to its closure – Lost Legends: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Eventually, a new park president working for a new CEO heralded the re-opening of Disneyland’s classic sub ride (albeit, with a Finding Nemo overlay), but Florida’s was shuttered, shelved, and – eventually – filled in. Today, almost all of the park’s ambitious New Fantasyland resides on what was the Submarine Lagoon.
2. The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom
As we mentioned, Alien Encounter was designed to be the headlining attraction at Disneyland’s groundbreaking Tomorrowland 2055. When that new Tomorrowland was cancelled entirely, the project team working on Disney’s scariest attraction ever were told that their interstellar horror experience would get to Disneyland eventually, but that plans had changed and they’d have to plan on installing it in Florida first, since Magic Kingdom’s New Tomorrowland had snuck through construction for a 1994 opening before Eisner’s cuts.
Image: Disney
Eisner was famous for his laser-like focus on self-assigned “pet projects,” and Alien Encounter was one of the first. From his early days with Disney, Eisner had been enamored with the concept to cheaply transform a dated Disneyland ride with a modern, cutting-edge sensory thriller that would draw in teens and young adults. Ultimately, Alien Encounter terrified a generation of Disney Parks fans… but no one was more frightened of it than Eisner. He micro-managed to make the ride scarier, then less scary, nit-picking details and requiring expensive and time-consuming edits with early-90s software as he began to worry that his pet-project would be a bust.
Ultimately, he soured on the project and left it to wither. So even if it’s remembered for what it dared to do, Eisner lost interest. When Paris’s finances fell, one of Eisner’s strategies was to up per-capita spending on merchandise by loading the parks with Disney characters and gift shops, especially since the new wave of animation he himself had kicked off had restored Disney to its former glory. (This is the era when EPCOT Center became Epcot, stuffing characters into pavilions haphazardly.) Alien Encounter was among the first to fall in 2003. The cuddly Stitch from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch was at the height of his popularity, and it seemed like a no brainer…
Image: Disney
The unimaginable story of the Lost Legend: Alien Encounter and the ensuing case of the “worst attraction Disney’s ever created” (Disaster File: Stitch’s Great Escape) happen to be two of the most popular features we’ve ever offered at Theme Park Tourist, and are well worth a read.
3. EPCOT Center Originals
Image: Disney
Location: Epcot
EPCOT Center was a brave conceptual strategy – a “permanent World’s Fair” with pavilions designed by Disney to connected to larger-than-life areas of science and industry: Innovation, Communication, Ocean, Land, Imagination, Transportation, Health, Energy… The idea was brilliant, as just like a real “World’s Fair,” each pavilion would be financially supported by a mega-corporation with a stake in the industry, so Exxon would pay for the Universe of Energy pavilion, and keep it constantly stocked with up-to-date information and technologies… Right?
Problem is that, by the early ‘90s, sponsorship contracts were beginning to expire. And rather than doubling down on their investment and refreshing their pavilions the way Disney had hoped, sponsors instead were leaving. Just when they needed the sponsors most, executives at Disney found themselves responsible for paying for essential Epcot upgrades, and that was a problem.
The ‘90s, predictably, were marked by Epcot’s pavilions either getting low, low budget redesigns, having Disney characters thoughtlessly injected, or being bulldozed altogether in favor of new (and admittedly brainless) thrill rides that could follow Eisner’s teenage edict. Disneyland Paris, unfortunately, played a role in the closure of Lost Legends: World of Motion, Journey into Imagination, Body Wars, Horizons, and most any other “classic” educational ride leftover from EPCOT Center’s opening.
4 and 5. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Country Bear Jamboree
Image: Disney
Location: Magic Kingdom and Disneyland
So Michael Eisner figured that injecting Disney characters into the parks to sell merchandise was a viable path forward for turning around Disney’s sunken finances post-Paris. And to Eisner’s thinking, no character had greater merchandising potential in the 1990s than Winnie the Pooh.
Eisner asked that a Pooh ride (and associated gift shop) find its way to both coasts.
Image: Disney
In Florida, Pooh would evict J. Thaddeus Toad from Toad Hall, bulldozing another Lost Legend: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. There, the expanded double-tracks of Florida’s oversized Wild Ride meant that Pooh could have a dark ride and a gift shop in Fantasyland.
In California, the Country Bears were ousted for Pooh instead, building the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in a Hundred-Acre-Wood themed corner of the park’s Pacific Northwest style Critter Country.
Image: Disney
The good news is that Imagineers had cleverly ensured that both Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Country Bears both continued to coexist, even if they’re at opposite ends of the country. Whether or not Pooh’s profitability has stayed as high as it was during the 1990s, we can’t be sure.
The Big Finale
Heartbreaking as it may be to see Disney close legendary fan favorites to save money or make money, things went really, really wrong when Eisner and his pencil-pushing team – still in the trenches of Paris’ collapse and still wary of ANY large scale investments – decided to open new theme parks. On the last page, we’ll dissect the three low-budget, creatively starved Cop-Out parks Eisner and his team cobbled together, hoping to pull the proverbial wool over fans’ eyes and get away with theme park murder. Read on…
COP-OUTS
Overcome with fear and determined to never make a mistake like Disneyland Paris again, Michael Eisner pressed forward with the “Disney Decade” with promised parks at resorts around the globe with one caveat… Retail and dining executives would plan the parks, with Imagineers given precious little chance for input. After ambitious beginnings, the final three parks whose openings he oversaw were so abysmally shortsighted, underbuilt, and creatively starved with such low budgets, each has necessitated billions of dollars in reconstruction in the decades since.
1. Disney’s California Adventure
We mentioned the dismal cancellation of both DisneySea and WestCOT, and the “brilliant” plan those dining and retail executives had to give Disneyland a second gate. Their idea was that, by bringing the rest of California to Disneyland, visitors could skip the rest of the state and stay on-property longer. Maybe it’s hard to comprehend how they could’ve honestly thought that would’ve worked, but they gave it their best shot.
When Disney’s California Adventure opened in 2001, its four themed “districts” were meant to represent modern California. The time is now. The place is here. Corrugated steel walls, circus freak posters, a modern Hollywood backlot whose flimsy flat sets recreated the real Hollywood…
Image: Disney
Packed with puns, modern music, and a severe lack of things to actually do, California Adventure was immediately rejected by Disneyland’s loyal, local guests with less than 1 of every 4 visitors to Disneyland bothering to see the brand-new park next door.
Thankfully, Disney saw that piecemeal additions would never truly fix the park’s deep-rooted, foundational problem: it was too modern; too “edgy.” The “hip, MTV attitude” executives had touted as the park’s selling point was instead its weakness. Who wants to see a Hollywood set of Hollywood with the real Hollywood just 45 minutes north?
Image: Disney
$1.2 billion and five years later, the park was rebuilt one land at a time to construct more timeless, romantic, idealized lands (like the lands at Disneyland next door) adding Cars Land and Buena Vista Street to round out the park and make it a worthy companion to Disneyland. As before, you can read the full story in the Disaster Files: Disney’s California Adventure feature.
2. Walt Disney Studios Paris
Image: Disney
The financial failings of Disneyland Paris ensured that its already-announced second gate – The Disney-MGM Studios Europe – trim the fat from its budget… and its offerings. Before Eisner could see just how badly California Adventure would perform, work was already finishing on Paris’ second park, Walt Disney Studios. Far and away the most embarrassing theme park Disney has ever designed, Walt Disney Studios opened with three rides. Three.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
A Studio Tram Tour.
And a Dumbo-style Magic Carpets ride.
Suffering from all the same problems as California Adventure but with a quarter of the rides, a quarter the size, and a quarter of the budget, Walt Disney Studios only worsened Paris’ financial tailspin and ensured that any financial investment in the resort immediately go to keeping the sad movie park afloat. And it has, with piecemeal additions from The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Toy Story Play Land to Crush’s Coaster and Ratatouille: The Adventure… But those Band-Aids on a broken bone can’t fix the park’s foundational flaw. Which is why fans were breathless when Disney did announce a California-Adventure-sized redo to the park, poised to bring lands dedicated to Star Wars, Marvel, and Frozen on board.
As you can imagine, we took a virtual walkthrough of the embarrassing park upon its opening in its own in-depth feature, Disaster Files: Walt Disney Studios Park, which also dives into the unbelievable rebirth this park is about to undergo.
3. Hong Kong Disneyland
Image: Disney
The last of Eisner’s paper-thin parks, Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005 (just as he was being shown the door by the “Save Disney” campaign that had rallied to remove him before his contract was up). Easily the smallest Magic-Kingdom-style park on Earth, Hong Kong Disneyland may look in pictures like a carbon-copy of the original in California, but up-close, it’s got the same flat, cheap, façade-style as the other two Cop-Out parks.
In fact, Eisner had allegedly wanted Hong Kong’s Main Street and its diminutive copy of Sleeping Beauty Castle to have exposed scaffolds and structural steel behind flat facades with the castle cutaway to show its inner supports (a clear cop-out he’d learned from his time building on-the-cheap “studio” themed parks). Imagineers rallied against the plans, building a Main Street that’s at least trying to look real.
Image: Disney
Still, Hong Kong Disneyland opened with no Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, Star Tours, or even “it’s a small world.” The park’s Fantasyland contained one dark ride (you guessed it – Pooh) versus Disneyland’s six or Magic Kingdom’s four. An aggressive expansion announced in 2009 did add three new mini-lands (including the stellar Grizzly Gulch and the enviable Mystic Point) but Hong Kong’s government (57% owner in the resort, mind you) balked that even that wasn’t enough given the opening of nearby (and much grander) Shanghai Disneyland in 2016.
Image: Disney
That’s why Hong Kong Disneyland is now set to recieve a second five-year reconstruction. In this round, it’ll recieve an entire Frozen mini-land within Fantasyland, annex part of Tomorrowland to create an entire new Marvel super hero land, and (most unexpectedly) extend its itty bitty clone of Disneyland’s small castle skyward to turn it into the tallest Disney Parks castle on Earth…!
25 Years Ago…
As Disneyland Paris dutifully celebrates its 25th Anniversary, the fortunes of the French resort have never looked better. Even if Walt Disney Studios is still in desperate need of a new lease on life and the original Parc Disneyland hasn’t gotten a new E-Ticket since a Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre a la Lune, we’re thrilled to see Disney’s most beautiful castle park shining once again.
Image: Disney
That said, if Disneyland Paris had never existed at all, Disney’s parks in the United States would look very, very different today… So even as we celebrate, we mourn that 25 years ago, astounding, would-be possibilities vanished.
What do you think? Which of the attractions cancelled or closed because of the financial failings of Disneyland Paris would you most like to see again? How is it that, even 25 years later, Disneyland Paris still can’t seem to balance its budget? Is the loss of some of these would-be concepts worth the innovation and storytelling present in the Parisian park?
