Marvel Coming to Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris’ parent company revealed the skeleton of a 10-year plan that calls for over $2 billion of capex investment, with the main expenditures being Marvel attractions and entertainment in the Walt Disney Studios Park, as well as overhauls to two of its hotels.
This follows the closure of CineMagique yesterday (my favorite attraction at Walt Disney Studios Park), which is strongly rumored to be replaced by a Marvel stunt stage show akin to Captain Jack’s Stunt Spectacular at Shanghai Disneyland.
ED92 has reported this, and also that a “Season of Heroes” is possible following the debut of the Marvel stunt show. Between this and the level of investment, there are a few things we can surmise…
First of all, that this is not a big-budget expansion or reinvention of the Walt Disney Studios Park. A 10-year capex investment of $2 billion is around $200 million per year, which is not that significant, particularly when the previously-announced hotel overhauls will likely consume $200-300 million of that ~$2 billion.
For the sake of comparison, Disney California Adventure’s overhaul–which was originally pitched as a $1.2 billion expansion–cost an estimated $2 billion once all aspects of that were completed and accounted for. The Walt Disney Studios Park is in worse shape than Disney California Adventure ever was.
At minimum, the Walt Disney Studios Park needs a Buena Vista Street reimagining of the park entrance, a land on par with Cars Land, a crowd-drawing nighttime spectacular, and a tremendous amount of placemaking throughout the park. To compound matters, it needs all of this about 5 years ago. (The Ratatouille-themed land was a start, but still not nearly enough.)
The “land on par with Cars Land” for Walt Disney Studios Park could be a Marvel land. Hong Kong’s government is weighing such a proposal for its park (see above concept art), and the entire cost for Hong Kong’s project (which also includes a Frozen-themed land) is “only” $1.4 billion. However, Hong Kong Disneyland does not need the structural overhaul and rethinking needed at Walt Disney Studios Park. It also doesn’t have a second gate which will also require capex over the course of a decade nor is it overhauling two hotels.
What this $2 billion, 10-year investment suggests to me is that whatever Marvel offerings are added to the Walt Disney Studios Park will be a quick fix, intended to give the park a temporary boost in attendance, but not offer any longterm solutions to the park’s many woes.
I would be shocked if this ends up being anything more than the stunt show, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, and one marketable (and likely, quite impressive) E-ticket thrill ride. If you’re a U.S. Disney fan, that might not sound too shabby.
If you’ve seen the Walt Disney Studios Park, you know it’s woefully inadequate. This park does not need only a new E-ticket, it needs to be rethought and reimagined from the ground up. Anything short of a Disney California Adventure-level overhaul is insufficient. That park alone needs $2 billion over the next 5 years.
Disneyland Paris has done an exceptional job refurbishing its key attractions and lands, and the resort’s leadership team has been brutally honest in acknowledging the neglect and poor decisions made in the past. In many ways, the resort (or at least its flagship park) seems poised to turn around its fortunes and offer guests a reason to visit–and revisit. It’s too bad the same honest assessment is not occurring with regard to the Walt Disney Studios Park.
This information concerning a Marvel investment was revealed as a single line in documents filed by Euro Disney S.C.A. as part of a “Simplified Cash Tender Offer” that details the proposal of the Walt Disney Company’s cash offer to purchase the remaining shares, which would secure complete control over the France resort for Disney. This is a process that was set in motion a couple of years ago by Disney, the history and underpinnings of which are well beyond the scope of this post.
In addition to the 10-year investment statement (calling it a “plan” would be a bit much given that it’s only a paragraph long), there are a few other interesting tidbits in the document. One item that stood out to me is that Disney does not anticipate Disneyland Paris fully recovering from the 2015 Paris terrorist attack until fiscal year 2021. That seems like a lengthy timeline, but it’s been no secret that France’s tourism continues to struggle following the attacks. It would seem to follow that if Disney has basis for projecting a delayed recovering, the same could likely be said for Paris as a whole.
Also interesting is that Disney projects annual business growth of 3% over the next decade, as compared to a more robust 8% over the last 3 years. This modest growth and the lasting impact of the Paris terrorist attack could, at least in part, explain why Disney does not want to be more aggressive with a large-scale overhaul. However, the duct tape approach is not going to work with the Walt Disney Studios Park, and delaying what it really needs–a complete redo–beyond the horizon to over 10 years from now only further delays the resort from achieving the kind of healthy visitation numbers it needs to achieve actual success.
Your Thoughts
What do you think about Marvel being added to the Walt Disney Studios Park? Do you view this as a positive step for Disneyland Paris, or too little investment too late? Any other thoughts on Disney’s plan to acquire full control of Disneyland Paris? Share your thoughts, questions, etc., in the comments below!
Having visited Paris Disney Resorts 3 times (both parks), I have to say that I like the parks, but no so much the people working there. They just lack the Disney friendly approach which you can find in the US or even the Asia parks.
I think Disney understands, that the problem is not “only” the attractiveness of the park itself. Paris Disney (Euro Disney) is essentially targeting a population of 750 million Europeans as its potential visitors. Paris Disney with 2 gates (one messed up, but still 2) had the hardware to make money but it didn’t. I think they have hard data by now that further massive investment in this park would just result into nothing.
With the purchase of the park by WDC, I think their real plans where to contain the problem and not to let the deteriorating park damage its precious brands and stories in other regions. To keep the park in a decent shape.
Disney is clearly not focusing on the poor European market now. The money comes from US and Asia the coming 10 years for sure.
I think the problem with the Studios is that it’s SUCH a mish mash, and was not ever a real studios (making the backlot tour totally random).
I feel like Disney Studios in Paris is just a bot of a mess, with stuff plonked down where they had space for it with no cohesion.
I guess part of the way to solve this could be to theme areas by film group/IP (a bit like Toy Story Land and Star Wars Lands in the US), so you could have Marvel Galaxy, Toy Story Land as part of Pixar Plaza – which could hopefully link to Remy’s Ratatouille France, then maybe Star Wars Space, Old Hollywood, Disney Junior Junction etc .
No idea where Rock N’ Rollercoaster would come in though! Maybe retheme that that you’re in a car driven by Tony Stark?! Haha.
I really want the Studios to be a great park, but it needs some serious imaginneering by someone much better than me!
I enjoy going to the Studios but it really does need a lot of work. The different areas are completely disjointed – the mock Paris Ratatouille area is beautiful but it doesn’t match up with anywhere else. The Tower of Terror is fantastically themed (though I was so miffed when I went to Florida and realised Paris is missing part of the ride!) but I don’t understand how it fits in with anything else any more than the Paris area does. The Toy Story area is cute in the surface, but so so lazy. I can’t help but feel the addition of Marvel content would be just as lazy and disjointed. The whole idea of the park needs to be clarified and everything restructured around that. I have no idea how much money theme parks take to build, but this doesn’t seem like enough.
I’m going back to Paris this September (no way was I missing the anniversary). I’d not planned on spending much time in the Studios but now I might spend a day riding the Tower over and over again in case they decide to change it to Mission Breakout. It is just never going to appeal to me, and I like Guardians of the Galaxy. Disneyland is all about beautiful immersive experiences. If I wanted something like Mission Breakout I’d go to Universal.
Raiders should move here
I can’t be so quick to write off a $2 billion investment. I will withhold my judgment until it is announced what exactly they are going to do. Wasn’t Shanghai built for about $5.5 billion?
I’d like to see a larger investment though.
A little off topic, I still think they would have been so much more successful in Europe if they had built all of this in Spain….
I don’t think that they will go for a quick fix in the WDS park. They have tried these fixes again and again in the past and I think they acknowledge that that is not the way to go forward. Yes I give them a lot of credit at this point and time and they deserve this credit because the work they have done and the commitment they have shown the last couple of years is a radical change from what happened in the past. A 3% business growth over the next decade in my opinion is that this new management is keeping it “real” and not sugar coating it to the max. I am not a Marvel fan but I have hope that not all the money that they will use for rides and shows will be allocated to the studios, it just doesn’t make sense to me to not open new experiences in the Disneyland park in future. We must not underestimate the power of these 2 billion Euro’s even if it is spread out over 10 years.
I think we mustn’t overestimate the ‘power’ of 2 billion euros, either. Over the course of 10 years, that is simply not enough to renovate 2 hotels, fix WDSP, and add attractions to Parc Disneyland.
Studios is the only Disney park that I have visited that I actively dislike. When in DLP I will pop by for 3 reasons – Crush, Mickey & the Magician and Tower of Terror. The Toy Story area is terrible, the backlot section ghastly & I couldn’t agree more that the whole Studio 1 area needs tearing down and starting again. The Remy area is pretty, but I never feel the urge to linger.
Like other commenters I was encouraged by Tony Baxter and Catherine Powell’s words this week and hope that this is the start of that much needed transformation. If not, I’ll keep my trips short-ish (we’re only a hop over from London) and focused next door where I could happily linger almost anywhere in the park.
Tony Baxter has always been frank, and I don’t think his thoughts about attractions and areas he doesn’t like are any secret. Unfortunately, he’s not in a position to make any decisions about what happens with the direction of WDSP.
Powell is in such a position, and she has been an impressive leader thus far. I hope she has the sway to get plans to overhaul WDSP (they already exist!) funded.
Mission Breakout would probably be even worse in Paris since Tower is right in the middle of the park. This expansion sounds like a start, but the only thing that can (will?) save this park is a complete overhaul. The longer they put it off, the longer they are hurting the long-term vitality of the resort, IMO.
Completely agree. I really hope Mission Breakout is not part of WDSP’s Marvel plans, but I’d be shocked if it is not.
It’s too bad Paris’ Magic Kingdom won’t get a new E Ticket attraction in that budget!
Mark
InsightsandSounds.blogspot.com
“We did it well with California Adventure, it’s time for the other park”-Tony Baxter, today during a meet and greet with fans. I’m hoping for a complete park overhaul. :crossingfingers:
I’m very pleased they’ve announced a fairly large chunk of investment, it is so desperately needed. Much of the talk coming out of the press launch of the 25th anniversary last weekend has been positive from the likes of Tony Baxter and Catherine Powell, that they very much acknowledge the work that needs to be done.
Yes, I can well see the general downturn in tourism in France having an impact on the speed of any redevelopment.
Marvel etc. isn’t really the way I’d like to see it go, but I can understand it’s attraction. So sad to see Cinemagique go, it was the true bastion of what the park should represent. Further evidence I think that any hint of ‘the movies/Hollywood’ is likely to disappear.
Much of the recent (!) changes at DLP seem to have moved away from the park’s original intent of intimate/romantic/detail. I’d love to see some ‘fantasy’ additions, such as Seven Dwarves Mine Train or even Frozen Ever After, to enhance the fairytale side of DLP.