Disney Should Think About A Video Game Based Land of Their Own
Walt Disney World: Wreck-It-Ralph is laying down the groundwork for a multi video game franchise/license land, could this be the East Coast version, and answer to Carsland?
From Phil B.
Posted September 21, 2012 at 6:25 AM
With Wreck-It-Ralph looking like it will be a huge hit for Disney, if any company was poised to create a whole video game based land, Disney would have the perfect opportunity to do this now. Especially with being able to acquire licensing from multiple companies for this upcoming movie, there's ground work already laid down for Disney to pursue theme park rights for properties they have already established business relationships with due to this film. I say forget about Carsland East Coast, and get some ideas together for a video game land. There's an infinite amount of material to create attractions from. You have Ralph as the lands main character, but if you can lock up 3-4 more franchises, you're solid for a great land. Sonic, Mario, Street Fighter, Halo and classics like Pac-Man and Q-Bert could make for really fun and exciting attractions. Hell, you could probably license a bunch of classics for a song. Meet and greets alone would reduce 30-40 year old gamers to giddy little school girls. The opportunity to do an event on the level of Star Wars weekends would be huge too! With exclusive game announcements, talk show panels, special merchandise and gaming tournaments taking place every weekend for a month. I think it's a huge opportunity with a lot of potential for Disney to cash in and to do something unique and different with video game licenses on a scale that hasn't been done at a world class theme park level. Lest we not forget all this talk of Next-Gen tech we keep hearing about, this would be a land perfectly suited for it. Interactive queues to your hearts content.
Up until recently I would be against this only because Disney wouldn't do the idea justice, but with the opening of Carsland and new Fantasyland just around the corner, it shows that Disney can create some pretty amazing and immersive lands tailored to a specific theme as opposed to just a single attraction. So I'd love to see the imagineers turned loose on a whole land concept such as this. This could be the next big franchise for the mouse, much in the way Toy Story was.
I can only see this land going into DHS, though thematically it's a stretch even for that park, or a 5th gate if there ever is one. It's certainly ripe for the picking for a 3rd gate in Anaheim. Give me a park with a Video Game, Marvel and Villains land and you have the early beginnings of a hugely popular, coveted teenager demographic, theme park. What do you think. Unlike converting Marvel Superhero Island's existing rides, you now have a blank slate to do whatever you can dream up. No shoe horning concepts, and no sticking to just one company like Sega, Nintendo or Capcom, you can have them all in one land now...blue sky's the limit! I think there's great potential.
I would have to agree with you to a point. Breathing life into the old video game franchises is a huge win for both Disney and the owners of the different licenses.
But. And this is a big but....
Licensing all of these different properties is going to be very expensive. Certain properties like the Nintendo characters could be an entire theme park to themselves, and I think that Disney would be doing a disservice to them by making them only backup players to a ride or land themed to Wreck-It Ralph.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see rides and lands themed to the various participants of Wreck-It Ralph, I just don't think Disney is going to want the continuing expense of secondary characters when they probably don't need them at all.
So far as the rumor mill goes.....I haven't heard anything that says we are getting anything other than the two walk-around characters.
From steve lee
Posted September 21, 2012 at 10:19 PM
I'm certainly not nay-saying the box office, but what say we see how the flick does before we start planning the park area. It certainly looks like it will be a hit, but so did "The Muppets."
So did (cough!) John Carter (cough!)
From Tim Odom
Posted September 24, 2012 at 5:35 AM
Just to note,
The Muppets was actually considered a hit. Not a blockbuster, but it made money and reintroduced the Muppets to an entire new generation.
John Carter, on the other hand, was a complete flop.
Now, as for a Wreck-It Ralph land, let's wait to see what it does. And even then, it would have to become a huge hit for them to consider doing anything significant. I mean, the Pixar films have grossed HOW much and yet to have a land?
From Dominick D
Posted September 24, 2012 at 5:41 AM
I just found something interesting here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.,_Ltd.
This increases Disney's chance of getting a Nntendo land.
From Phil B.
Posted September 30, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Actually there are 2 Toy Story Lands as of now, with one being at the Studios Park in Paris and the other being at Hong Kong Disneyland. The 1st one opened in 2009...15 years after Toy Story made its big screen debut. Carsland just opened this year, and the film debuted in 2006. If Disney thinks they can fill a certain Demographic by utilizing a franchise, then they've shown that they can greenlight a project fairly quickly as Carsland was announced in 2007, only one year after the film hit theaters.
As far as aquiring rights, Disney needs to be able to lock down only a few major players to be able to create a full land. Sega, Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Namco, SNK, Electronic Arts and Midway all have name worthy francises to draw from. Really, what video game company wouldn't want a merchandise store filled to the rafters with all of there merch after a ride or attraction featuring one of, if not several of their more popular characters. It's a year round commercial that will be seen by millions of people every year.
If Marvel is off the table for the forseeable future, then this type of area could fill in nicely. People love video games, and the interactive nature and unpretdictability of them. Look how wildly popular Toy Story Midway Mania is at DHS. If you can't get Marvel into the park to go after the young boy to teen market, this could be the next best bet for Disney. Having Resident Evil Zombies roam the area during the parks Halloween event if they ever have one, would be pretty cool as well ;)
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