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Credit: Inside the MagicDuring Tuesday’s presentation at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media and Telecom Conference, The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger revealed plans for multiple new theme parks.
The Walt Disney Company first opened Disneyland Park in Southern California in 1955, which Disney California Adventure Park later joined to become the Disneyland Resort of today. In 1971 came Walt Disney World Resort in Central Florida; it now encompasses Magic Kingdom Park, EPCOT, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and two water parks.
Mickey Mouse went global with Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, then Disneyland Paris in 1992. Walt Disney Imagineering later expanded these theme parks with Tokyo DisneySea and Walt Disney Studios Park. Then, in the 2000s, Hong Kong Disneyland (2005) and Shanghai Disneyland (2016).
The six Disney Resorts are some of the most beloved vacation destinations worldwide. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently promised to invest more than $60 billion in Disney Parks over the next few years, building new lands like Arendelle: World of Frozen and attractions like TRON Lightcyle / Run. Though most of the money is predicted to stay in pre-existing Disney theme parks, the recently returned executive suggested that the House of Mouse is setting its sights on further expansion.
When asked about the Disney theme parks on Tuesday, Iger explained that Imagineering has more to work with than the public thinks. The thousands of acres of unused land worldwide could fit seven more parks–there’s even room for significant expansion at Disneyland Resort, which most Disney Parks fans believe is landlocked.
“We have thousands of acres of land still to develop,” Iger said. “We could actually build seven new full lands if we wanted to around the world, including the ability to increase the size of Disneyland in California, which everybody thinks is kind of landlocked by 50%.”
Future expansions will most likely focus on existing intellectual property (IP) rather than original characters and concepts: “We have so much IP to mind that there’s opportunity there to create experiences that we know people would love to have in our parks,” Bob Iger said.
Amid the success of Pandora – The World of Avatar in Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort and the ongoing construction of an Avatar (2009) experience at Disneyland Resort, Iger suggested the widely popular film series could go global. The same goes for beloved franchises like Frozen (2013) and Zootopia (2016).
“We have one Avatar-based land, Pandora, in Florida,” Iger said. “We’re going to put a second one in California. It doesn’t mean we can’t put one in — somewhere in Asia and somewhere in Europe as if, for instance. We opened up a Frozen Land in Hong Kong in November. Tremendous response to that. Good investment, big investment, but build it right, build it with excellence, and they will come.”
“We opened up the Zootopia Land, which maybe people might have found strange in Shanghai, but Zootopia is one of the most successful animated films we’ve ever released in China, and it’s phenomenal there,” he continued. “And success in terms of visitation is tremendous.”
Another example of IP success? Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
“So, when you look across like the two Star Wars Lands that we opened up in the United States, in Florida, and in California, also tremendous,” Iger explained. “So, you look at our IP, you look at the land that we have, you look at the demand that exists in the marketplace, and you look at the return on invested capital; it’s a no-brainer to invest that way.”
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