Disney empire strikes with Star Wars hotel
Walt Disney plans to build an immersive Star Wars hotel at its resort in Orlando, Florida, as part of a flurry of investments the company’s theme-park division announced on Saturday.
Disney revealed the two Star Wars-themed parks it is building will be called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, with the one at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, set to open in 2019 and the Orlando one opening later in the same year.
Disney parks and resorts division chairman Bob Chapek made the announcement at the company’s D23 Expo, a biennial event for fans held at the Anaheim Convention Centre, near the company’s Disneyland and California Adventure parks.
Theme parks are Disney’s second-largest division after television. The company has been investing heavily in the business on the premise that park attractions cannot easily be copied by competitors or made obsolete by new technology.
“There’s no virtual-reality experience in the world that’s going to replicate what you get physically by walking down that Main Street,” Chapek said earlier in 2017 in reference to one of Disneyland’s signature features.
The theme-park business is betting heavily on its own characters, much as Disney’s movie division began to rely more on company-owned intellectual property following the acquisitions of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 and Lucasfilm in 2012.
A ride based on the film Tron that has been a hit at Disney’s new Shanghai resort will be replicated at Orlando’s Magic Kingdom park.
The Paradise Pier at Disney’s California Adventure park in Anaheim will be revamped with a Pixar theme. The same park will get Spider-Man and Avengers attractions in a new Super Hero land.
NEW ATTRACTIONS
Epcot, the Florida park that opened in 1982 as a kind of a permanent world fair, is getting new attractions to turn it into more of a traditional amusement park. An attraction based on the film Ratatouille will be built near the base of the Eiffel Tower and a new thrill ride tied to the Marvel franchise Guardians of the Galaxy will be added.
The company announced a new cruise ship, the Disney Riviera hotel in Orlando, and a gondola-based transportation system that will connect its Epcot and Hollywood Studios parks with some Disney hotels.
Disney is experimenting with ways to shorten wait times for popular rides. Starting on July 19, the company will allow Anaheim park guests to reserve a time to jump on its shorter FastPass lines for an extra $10 a day. Parkgoers in Orlando have already had that ability, although without an additional charge.
Elsewhere at the D23 Expo, Disney gave fans a sneak peak into a new augmented-reality game that features a lightsaber and a headset that will allow players to conduct virtual sword fights in their homes. The latest instalment of the series, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, hits theatres on December 15.
A RIDE BASED ON THE FILM TRON THAT HAS BEEN A HIT AT DISNEY’S NEW SHANGHAI RESORT WILL BE REPLICATED