“Avengers Campus” Marvel Land Announced
The 2019 D23 Expo isn’t even underway yet, and already Disney has unveiled a ton of news and concept art about the future of the parks around the world. The first tidbit for today concerns the upcoming Super (don’t call it Marvel!) Hero Land expansion that is coming to Disneyland Resort and Paris.
You might recall (or you might’ve seen the construction walls!) that in Disney California Adventure, this expansion is taking over the former ‘a bug’s land’ area. We’ve already reported on the specifics of this ‘Southern California Super Hero Campus’, and you can read about the full details in our Marvel Land California Campus w/ 3D Ride & Microbrewery post from last year.
As detailed there, we’re expecting this super hero expansion project will contain a microbrewery/counter service restaurant, merchandise shop, a small quad space with various avenues, and an interactive 3D dark ride that sounds like a next generation Toy Story Mania featuring Spider-Man…
Now, Disney has announced that these super hero lands will be called Avengers Campus at both Walt Disney Studios Park and Disney California Adventure. Per Disney, guests who visit Avengers Campus will “become part of an interconnected, global story that spans from California to Paris to Hong Kong with the Avengers recruiting new extraordinary people to join them.”
That, plus the concept art shared at the top of this post is really all that Disney has revealed about Avengers Campus. Other details have been strongly rumored for a while, and we suspect we’ll get confirmation of the specifics at the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products keynote presentation delivered by Bob Chapek on Sunday.
(On the other hand, maybe this is it for Avengers Campus at the 2019 D23 Expo. Given the news this week that Sony and Marvel have been unable to reach terms on the future of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it might be awkward, or at least poor timing, to devote extensive time to the the Spider-Man attraction coming to phase one at Disney California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios Park.)
You might recall that Marvel Lands have already been announced for Disney California Adventure at Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland. The latter is expected to be entirely original, debuting in phases between now and 2023, with the first two attractions, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle! and Iron Man Experience, already open.
In France, this area will be called the Avengers Campus just as it is in California, and these two lands are expected to be somewhat similar to one another. We cover the specifics of the Walt Disney Studios Park version in our $2.5 Billion Disneyland Paris Expansion: Star Wars, Frozen & Marvel post.
The main thing we know about the Walt Disney Studios Park version of Avengers Campus is that it will include a reimagined roller coaster. At a previous D23 Expo in Japan, Disney announced that Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster will be totally reimagined as a high-speed Marvel coaster: a hyper-kinetic adventure where guests will team up with Iron Man and their favorite Avengers.
Over at Disneyland Resort, the ‘reimagined’ attraction has already debuted with the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror being converted to Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. Beyond these two attractions, it’s expected that there will be a lot of overlap in the two Avengers Campus Marvel Lands. (It’s also possible that Mission Breakout could eventually make its way to Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, but the concept art above for the park’s overhaul doesn’t reflect that.)
One thing I find interesting here is that the land will have Avengers in the name of Avengers Campus. It’s been a while since I’ve read the “Marvel Contract” with Universal, but I thought Disney was prohibited from using Marvel, as well as character names (or groups of characters) already in use by Universal in marketing either east or west of the Mississippi.
To reiterate, I don’t have the contract in front of me and I’m writing this exhausted at 3 a.m. I really hate the rampant, uninformed speculation and dissemination of inaccurate info about this contract and the parties respective rights under it. Nevertheless, I’m mentioning this all because I’m really curious as to whether this is a permissible use under the existing contract, or if Disney and Universal reached a deal to allow this. If it’s the former, why on earth has Disney been referring to everything at DCA as “Super Hero” this or that when they could’ve used the Avengers all this time?!?
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Avengers Campus name? Better than Southern California Super Hero Campus? What about Disney’s marvelous Super Hero Fun Zone? Do you have actual, firsthand knowledge (i.e. not speculation based upon what marvelfan482 told you he heard from drstrangedude420 on Twitter) of whether this is permissible under the existing Marvel contract? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Hasn’t there been a persistent rumor about a Vekoma roller coaster for DCA? Maybe it’s just that–a rumor.
Wouldn’t mind a roller coaster if it’s well themed. Hope they don’t go overboard with screen based movers like they have at Universal.
This looks like a nice mix use residential/entertainment district! This will surely keep the kids from leaving our dying rust belt city!
I wish the Marvel contract covered the entire world and not just east of Mississippi. So hideous. Marvel in the Disney Parks sinks Disney down to Universal Studios and Six Flags level.
If what I’ve learned as a film buff serves me well, I predict the Spider-Man attraction in DCA will cheaply cloned as as a Night Monkey ride in Paris.
i believe the key word is “east” of the mississippi in that contract, from what i’ve read. disney is free and clear to do whatever they want out west, and i feel they will push right on through with anything and everything they can, perhaps as a thumbing of the nose to both universal and sony at this point. disney has no reason not to, even if the fate of spiderman in the films is in limbo. parks and cruise ships are a different story and i believe untied to the film contracts in any way.
There are limitations both east and west of the Mississippi–just more to the east.
Using Spider-Man for the attraction is no issue. It’s a matter of whether Disney wants to draw attention to it in the same week that big news broke of the fallout between Sony and Disney. If they announce the Spider-Man ride this weekend, pretty much any article that mentions it will also mention that film news.
if i’m disney, probably all the more reason to use it. a “look what we can do in spite of you” to sony.