Disneyland's "epic" Third Gate.

I think the problem you have is an over reliance on franchises. Franchises are great for that short term excitement, but unless it becomes a timeless classic, you're signing yourself up for a necessary re theme when the next flavour of the month comes along.

Eg Frontierlands are completely timeless, and franchises can be included, rotated in and out as the winds change (or not). If Frontierland had instead been "lone ranger land", it would have less value today as kids would ask "What's a lone Ranger?" - admittedly the LR had a long lifespan and probably would have earned the necessary cash in the meantime, but I'm sure you can think of other hot franchises that sunk under the waves a lot faster.

Are the franchises you talk about going to matter in 20 years? 30 years? For every "Star Wars" there are dozens of Sci Fi series that lie forgotten, and Media companies are terrible at picking hits from misses (Star Wars was supposed to be a failure)

I would instead start with a more generic epic theme - a constant reoccurring one I see here is "Villans", you can use the classic Villans who have stood the test of time, and rotate in and out fresh franchises on a ride by ride basis as tastes change.

Disney is a franchise. You can't ask Disney to be something it isn't. Certainly, Disney should consider lands not necessarily based on a movie, but what's the difference if the end result is attractions based on movie franchises. You'll still get a Disney franchise park.

Villans is a Disney franchise mashup. It isn't generic.

Okay, What epic theme should fit in a Disneyland's "epic" Third Gate?

They are building a third gate??? (Honest question)

Maybe some day but no they are not building one Enrique, this is pure speculation.

The biggest challenge facing a third gate is not creative -- it's logistical. Disneyland simply lacks the contiguous acreage to build a park the size of either of its existing parks without having to go off-site.

So Disney must decided between building off-site (Toy Story lot? Anaheim Stadium site?) or building a more urban-style, vertically-aligned theme park on a smaller-than-usual plot. If Disney decides to go vertical, that ought to influence the creative decision on theme for the park, as some themed lend themselves better to that alignment than others.

Personally, I think a vertical park would be perfect for Marvel and not so great for Star Wars, which relies on broader landscapes. The Simba parking lot appears to be the only viable option for an "on-site" third gate, and that's a very limited space compared with the Disneyland and California Adventure parks. There's more space on the Toy Story lot, but that takes you across Harbor and Katella boulevards, which creates its own logistical problems for the area.

I'm surprised Disney hasn't considered adding more hotel resorts to their collection and expand Downtown Disney. They haven't expanded the Mickey and Friends multi-level parking structure into the flat parking lot on the south and they haven't added more elevators beyond the existing TWO elevators.

The third theme park on Toy Story lot would make sense. Certainly, they must think about adding more parking with at least two more parking structures.

There's nothing holding back Disney from purchasing the entire GardenWalk shopping area and mix of hotels, restaurants, and stores that are north of Katella for expansion. Disney will easily earn that back with its own development.

Sink Harbor Blvd, similar to what happened to West St. Expand the park up to the border of i5 and axe Disney Way, Clementine St., and Alro Way completely. Swing the park behind the Garden Walk into Hotel Circle and then you have a park with a comparable size to the other parks and the Garden Walk area would make for a great DTD expansion with plenty of space for hotel expansion too. Have all your parking in garages on the Disneylamd hotel side. A reroute of the monorails would be necessary and perhaps the loss of the Tomorrowland stop. This would be the most logical place to expand a third gate. The costs would be pretty astronomical to kill out all the hotels in that 2 blocks, but it would most likey make the resort a lot less dependent in annual pass holders.

Either way they will have to buy out some hotels that don't want to be bought out and moved. I don't see how there is room on the other side of West st.

I think Disney's done with major projects at Disneyland for the time being. Looking at how much has been done at DCA over the last decade, compared to how little has changed in Florida, Avatar Land is the start of many new projects at DisneyWorld. While Harry Potter coming to Universal Studios Hollywood may have some effect on Disney's attendance, LA is big enough for Universal to gain market share with minimal effect to Disneyland. My guess is that Disneyland will get a waterpark in the next few years, as well as new Marvel attractions. Since Disney cannot do anything with Marvel in Florida it would be smart to create a Marvel Land in California, and Star Wars Land in Florida. It doesn't make sense to choose Star Wars over Marvel in California, since they can can only use Marvel at Disneyland. An all new park would be great, but that probably won't happen for awhile at either resort.

You should have posted this earlier! You, my friend, should have played Theme Park Apprentice.

Not to toot my own horn or anything like that but my proposed park for TPA 6.1 is very similar to what you express desire in seeing realized, Oscar. In fact I even considered calling the park Epic Kingdom before opting for Realms of Imagination (I dislike how the word "epic" is used to describe anything with a bunch of action these days. Being a lover of classic literature, I feel the use of the word should be reserved to accurately describe appropriate works of literature/media which fit the traditional scholastic definition of Epic). Sorry for the rant! At any rate, it would be interesting to see how an "Epic Kingdom" would play out.