Reimagining the Hollywood Backlot

Update: 2018-08-09

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For those of us who were there, it is becoming increasingly difficult to remember what Disney California Adventure looked like when it first opened in 2001. With each passing year since Disney launched its massive, multi-billion dollar effort to redeem itself from the failed launch of the much anticipated 'second gate' at the Disneyland Resort, entire swaths of the park have been completely gutted and redone. Much to Disney's pleasure, the changes have been very successful, from the perfectly recreated Buena Vista Street of Walt's early years in the City of Angeles to the wildly successful Cars Land. As we discussed in the previous Armchair Imagineering post, the early 2000's bandaid of A Bug's Land is soon to fade away with the coming Marvel-themed Super Hero Land. And we're a mere weeks away from the re-opening of the newly minted Pixar Pier. With these and other changes and additions, it feels like we're on the home stretch of finally creating a worthy neighbor to the iconic theme park masterpiece next door.

the hollywood graveyard

But there is one last part of the park that continues to beg for attention, pleading to be saved from the formerly mentioned stalled start for DCA, and that would be Hollywood Land. Here is how it is presently described on the Disneyland Resort's website:

Welcome to Hollywood Land, where the Golden Age of Hollywood and the magic of Disney movies are celebrated with attractions, shows and entertainment that conjure the romance, glamour and sentimentality of the silver screen. Walk down Hollywood Boulevard, visit a backlot of Hollywood Studios and take a dark turn down Sunset Boulevard.

Well, the reality is that Hollywood Boulevard is basically a long, glorified walkway to The Hyperion Theater and The Guardian's of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, and that the section dubbed the 'backlot' features the bustling activity of a graveyard, aside from the modestly popular Mike and Sulley to the Rescue! attraction. This dark ride itself is an example of the early patchwork approach to fixing DCA, as it mercifully put to death the short-lived dud, Superstar Limo. Muppet Vision 3D hung on for a good thirteen years, but grew stale fairly quickly as evidenced by the mostly empty theater. Since its close in 2014, the space has been used mostly for preview screenings of the newest Disney movies. They have attempted to breathe some life into the northeast corner of DCA with various live entertainment, from ElecTRONica and the Mad T Party to the more recent Avengers Training Initiative. But once the musicians and meet-and-greet look-a-likes have packed up and left, so go the park-goers, leaving behind a mostly vacant significant chunk of Disney real-estate. And with it now appearing that the once rumored expansion of the Marvel franchise into this area is dead along with the Eastern Gateway infrastructure project, that means that all ideas are back on the table for what to do with this sad corner of the park.

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My proposed solution

Now as far as Hollywood Boulevard, I've already suggested in the previously mentioned Marvel expansion piece that the buildings that line the south side of the street should be mostly facade so that the space inside could be used for a major Black Panther or Doctor Strange dark ride. But what would happen to the Animation Academy? This is, in my opinion, one of the most enjoyable but often over-looked attractions in DCA and I would hate to see it completely go away. The solution is found in a completely re-imagined 'backlot' that would directly tie in to Walt's journey by replicating the historic parts of the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank.

Many hardcore Disney fans enjoyed the back story to the making of Mary Poppins as it was portrayed in the film, Saving Mr. Banks. One of the highlights was the on-site filming at several iconic Walt Disney Studio locations. I think that a highly interactive and expertly crafted experience on the 'making of the magic' would draw a decent crowd and make for a charming addition to DCA. USA Today did a nice piece on the studio's campus that I would encourage you to check out, and I'm going to embed a few pictures featured from this article here to help stir the imagination. (Here are also a couple of links to blog articles written by people who took tours of the Studio that I found pretty interesting as well: Magical Moments Vacations and Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Fantasy.)

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The old Muppet Vision 3D Theater would be remodeled to look like Burbank's screening 'theatre', which would continue to feature extended previews of soon to be released Disney films, something that I am sure the marketing department will appreciate. But a redesigned lobby would include images from historic premiers and would symbolically represent the payoff from all of the hard work that we learn about in the rest of this new land.

New interactive presentations and walk-throughs would be created that focus on the following elements of film-making: crafting the story (script, story-boarding, etc.), animation, set design, music, and sound editing.