Somewhere in the multiverse, Disney Parks are debuting not just Cosmic Rewind and TRON, but a handful of brand new E-Tickets, pavilions, and attractions this year and next. Unfortunately, that universe is not ours.
In the wake of COVID-19 and the lengthy closures of Disney Parks, executives and Imagineers took a long, hard look at the projects they had pending in the parks. It’s probably fair that in the trenches of 2020, many of the big-name projects planned for Disneyland and Walt Disney World were put on pause. But now, with packed parks and record profits, it’s worth looking at the projects cancelled during the pandemic…
So today, we’ve collected four off-the-table-for-now projects that we think would’ve been major additions to the parks we love. Our question for you is, if you could revive one of these paused-or-cancelled projects, greenlight it, and get it open, which do you think would be the one worth saving… and which do you think are better left on the cutting room floor?
1. Spaceship Earth reimagining
At the semi-annual D23 Expo in 2019, EPCOT was center stage. As part of a long-rumored, much-needed, open-ended, multi-year reimagining of the park, dozens of high profile projects, redesigns, and aesthetic swaps were announced, re-confirmed, or detailed. But there was probably no more divisive an announcement than a massive reimagining of the ride inside the park’s iconic Spaceship Earth.
Spaceship Earth has actually undergone several relatively major redesigns in its first forty years, each bringing new scenes and new narrations by new voices. But what has not changed much is the centering philosophy of the ride. In the broader context of EPCOT Center and its Future World pavilions, Spaceship Earth was focused on the topic of “communication,” exploring how humanity has evolved from cave paintings to language to the printing press to the Internet age, where communication is instantaneous and global. Aside from Living with the Land, Spaceship Earth is arguably the last truly great dark ride in the park; a last remnant of EPCOT Center’s lengthy, informative era, with all the rest reduced to being Lost Legends.
That wouldn’t still be case today if the ride’s next reimagining went as planned. Meant to begin construction in May 2020, the new Spaceship Earth would abandon the focus on communication and instead lean into a much more IP-friendly topic: “storytelling.” The ride would still follow the same physical layout and guests would still journey through time. In fact, the first quarter of the ride probably wouldn’t have changed much, doubtlessly using existing scenes to tell the origin of stories from our prehistoric ancestors, the development of writing, and the great heroes of ancient myth…
But of course, the ride would eventually depart from its existing scenes to include new ones… each a convenient place to at least hint at a beloved Disney or Pixar property.
For example, concept art of a proposed new scene depicts ancient Pacific Island voyagers navigating the moonlit ocean… while telling the story of Disney’s 2016 film, Moana. The new ride would also have introduced the “StoryLight,” a glowing representation of creative inspiration and oral tradition flowing through the ride’s scenes, representing how stories are shared across continents and seas.
Though we don’t know, it’s possible that the “new” Spaceship Earth” would’ve been just as educational and inspiring as the current version, detailing famous storytellers like Homer, William Shakespeare, the Grimm Brothers, Charles Perault, Hans Christian Andersen, J. R. R. Tolkein, Agatha Christie, W. E. B. Du Bois, Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, and more. But more than likely, Imagineers would’ve been tasked with backwards-engineering scenes that could allude to Disney films using projection rather than Animatronics, and it’s unfortunately easy to imagine the ride’s climax becoming a cringey, self-aggrandizing ode to Walt as the “ultimate storyteller.”
The rumored two-year closure felt like an eternity back then, but since the transformation to the “new” Spaceship Earth was meant to begin in May 2020, somewhere in the multiverse, the reimagined ride would be up and running today. It’s hard to know if the “new” Spaceship Earth would be an improvement over the classic we know and love, so the question is: knowing only what we know about it, if you were in charge, would you place it back into production? As to whether this reimagining will eventually get the green light again, we’d say “probably.” Spaceship Earth’s ride system is in need of a major mechanical refurbishment or replacement, and when Disney undertakes that expense, the call for characters may be too great to ignore.
2. Celebration pavilion
If it feels like the center of EPCOT’s (former) Future World has been a walled-off, muddy pit for about three years, that’s because it has. A major component of EPCOT’s transformation was dealing with the center of the newly-designated “World Celebration,” where the abandoned, parentheses-shaped buildings of Innoventions (and before that, Communicore) and hilariously-’90s shops and restaurants (like MouseGear and Electric Umbrella) added to EPCOT’s dated feel.
The eastern half of Innoventions has recently emerged as the pleasantly-modern-if-simplistic Creations Shop, Connections Cafe, and Club Cool, each sporting glass-and-wood interiors that feel warm, smart, and 21st century. The western half of Innoventions was demolished, striking right at the heart of “EPCOT purists” who couldn’t believe Disney would so egregiously attack the park’s design principles and symmetry.
That demolished “parethesis” was meant to be replaced by two new “pavilions” – the outdoor Journey of Water, and a unique new Festival pavilion meant to provide a new home for EPCOT’s ever-growing annual celebrations of Arts, Flowers & Gardens, Food & Wines, and Holidays. The “table”-shaped pavilion arguably embraced EPCOT’s new design philosophy by embracing the monumental architecture of the ’70s and ’80s, but softening it with 21st century touches.
Operationally, it also made sense, since the pavilion was three distinct floors – a ground floor providing cover from Florida’s sun and rain; a glass-enclosed floor perfect for classes, demonstrations, dining, and more; and a “tabletop” level planted with trees and park-like pathways, no doubt serving as festival space by day, and premium, up-charge, corporate-rentable Harmonious viewing by night.
As soon as cost-cutting started coming down the line, Disney Parks Blog posts referring to the “festival pavilion” were sneakily edited to instead refer to a “festival area,” conjuring images of a grassy field replacing the southwest quadrant of Innoventions.
In May 2022, we finally got the updated plan. In a hilarious twist, Disney’s new plan for replacing the demolished quarter of Innoventions is… to essentially rebuild the quarter of Innoventions they just finished demolishing. The new festival space (which is being called Communicore in a nonsensical nod to the past) basically amounts to an expo-style hall for rotating programming (like Wonders of Life used to be), a plaza for larger demonstrations, performances, and shows (facing Imagination), and a smaller stage for DJs, demonstrations, and formers (facing inward toward Spaceship Earth).
Though it would’ve been a major “mea culpa” for Imagineering, we almost wish the space actually was a direct rebuild and mirror of Innoventions since – as it is – it’s clear that there’s supposed to be symmetry there, but the two buildings won’t match. Though, yes, there is a structure being built where the former Festival pavilion was supposed to go, several insiders have noted that this new Hall is intentionally quite easy to remove… Should Disney choose to move forward with another plan (or return to the “table” concept), this empty “flex space” hall and performance plaza could be demolished at relatively little expense. Hmmm…
In some ways, it’s a shame that EPCOT’s much-needed reimagining happened to fall during COVID. If there’s one park that needed a massive, complete, fully-realized, fully-funded reimagining to go from sketch to reality unaltered, it was EPCOT. Instead, we’ve kind of ended up with more of the same kinds of cost-cut “solutions” and quick-fix pivots that have made EPCOT into the mess it is to begin with. Will the results be an incomplete, incoherent, designed-in-crisis mess instead of the all-at-once, master-planned vision we were promised? Who knows…
But it’s not the only park affected by cancellations…
3. Avengers E-Ticket
When Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019, reviews for Disney’s twin, billion-dollar lands were shockingly mixed. Sure, that’s partly because the lands are (controversially) cemented in Disney’s come-and-gone sequel trilogy timeline and thus bars the series’ classic heroes and villains from appearing, and partly because the land is almost hiliariously “paywalled,” with its most in-demand experiences – including its Lightning Lanes – costing big bucks. (We detailed Galaxy’s Edge’s big, showy souvenirs here, and its more affordable little secret take-homes here.)
But the biggest complaint leveled against the land was that it was missing its star attraction! The equivalent of opening Cars Land with just Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, or Diagon Alley with only the Hogwarts Express, or Pandora having only Na’vi River Journey, the land just felt totally incomplete with only the mediocre Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run as its only ride. Obviously the opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance added great esteem to the land and made it feel more “complete.” But clearly, Disney didn’t learn a long-term lesson.
Disney California Adventure’s Avengers Campus has followed the “new” model of launching lands at Disney Parks – basically, just opening things as they’re finished across multi-year phases. It began with the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! in 2017, which – like its predecessor, the Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – was grouped into the park’s 1940s-stylized Hollywood Land. Imagineers promised that eventually, a Marvel super hero themed land would take shape around the tower, but details of that weren’t even made clear until the 2019 D23 Expo.
Avengers Campus isn’t quite like Galaxy’s Edge or Cars Land or Pandora. It’s built on a much smaller scale, a smaller piece of real estate, and a smaller budget. We’ve already celebrated the land’s timeline fluidity – much, much different than Galaxy’s Edge’s strict adherance to canon – while also tempering expectations with what to expect (and what not to) when you plan a visit to Avengers Campus.
One of the things not to expect is… well… an anchoring ride. Sure, the land absorbed the existing Mission: BREAKOUT!, and debuted with the all-ages, no-height-requirement Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure… but if you come to Avengers Campus looking for an all-out, action-packed, Avengers ride, don’t hold your breath.
When details of the land were announced in 2019, Imagineers went so far as to show two versions of the same piece of concept art: a “before” and “after,” the latter of which (above) adds a massive, gleaming, white showbuilding with the Avengers “A.” The idea at the time was that the glass-and-steel Avengers Headquarters with a parked Quinjet built into the land was meant to be more than a photo op and stage; that eventually, it would serve as the entrance to something huge.
Said to be a multi-stage, “U-Ticket” style experience like Rise of the Resistance, the lengendary Avengers ride would’ve loaded guests into a Quinjet to race to Wakanda. There, the ride would reportedly have transformed…
… ejecting guests from the plane in solo “Jet-Pack” seats affixed to KUKA Robo Arms (like Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey), piloting through a battle featuring heroes from throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Even from the land’s announcement, the Avengers attraction was essentially booted to a promised – but not-begun – “Phase II” expansion of the land. With the parks’ extended closure due to COVID-19, Disney announced that they’d reduced their capital expansion projects by $900 million – essentially, cancelling and re-examining any project that wasn’t actively under vertical construction. Sure, Disney is now reporting record profits as crowds return en masse to parks whose bottom lines are bolstered by slashed perks and new upcharges… but it doesn’t matter. Reportedly, under new CEO Bob Chapek, the Avengers attraction is 100% cancelled. A smaller, less ambitious attraction is reportedly in the works to fill the expansion pad.
4. Mary Poppins attraction
The legendary Dick Van Dyke was on hand at the 2019 D23 Expo to perform “Step in Time,” crescendo’ing with the announcement of a Mary Poppins attraction en route to the U.K. pavilion at EPCOT. Concept art shows a lovely recreation of the film’s idyllic Cherry Tree Lane and the flats there… but as to what took place inside number 17? Well…
As with most modern Disney projects, the impetus here doesn’t seem to have been to celebrate the classic, Academy Award-winning 1964 film Mary Poppins, but to cross-promote the 2018 sequel Mary Poppins Returns in anticipation of expanding the Mary Poppins #franchise. Of course, the intention wouldn’t have mattered much to fans so long as Mary Poppins got a really, really good attraction.
Turns out, though, that that might not have been the plan anyway. Though legendary Disney Imagineers have crafted concepts for Poppins dark rides that would see guests prance through animated worlds on carousel horses, the attraction planned for EPCOT was reportedly not quite so grand. At least according to insiders, then-Chairman of Parks & Resorts Bob Chapek was intentionally vague about what exactly was coming to EPCOT because it hadn’t quite been decided yet.
Though the beautiful “Cherry Tree Lane” expansion of the park’s U.K. pavilion would doubtlessly have been a lovely little streetscape, what actually resided behind the facade was rumored to be no more than a Mary Poppins meet-and-greet, or perhaps a stylized carousel. Anyway, none of it matters much since allusions to Mary Poppins were cut out of the EPCOT Experience preview center in 2021, pretty much confirming that whatever Disney had planned, it’s as good as gone.
While it’s possible that something bigger could’ve morphed out of the project, it seems unlikely that it would’ve been granted a substantial budget to begin with since the film’s debut had come and gone already. Instead, it was probably just a quick-fix solution to add more characters and family capacity to World Showcase.
But if it had been a full Mary Poppins dark ride, is this the project you’d resurrect?
What’s next?
In our time-capsuled look at what’s set to debut in 2022 and beyond at Disney Parks, we came to an uncomfortable conclusion: when it comes to post-2022 projects, there seems to be next to nothing on the docket. Sure, COVID-19 took its toll on the tourism industry, and Disney was probably right to pause so many projects without a clear view of what was to come. In other words “triage mode” was probably the right choice in summer 2020, and cancelling everything that hadn’t started construction made sense.
But now, packed parks and record profits surely show that Disney Parks were able to bounce back from lengthy closures and lost revenue! So why are so many projects still stalled? We’re sure Disney’s current leadership has something to do with it. And sure, this year’s D23 will doubtlessly come with new announcements – some grand, some miniscule; some beloved, some cringey – but when it comes to moving foward, maybe at least some of these projects from the past are still worth pursuing?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
